Reviews

Echopraxia by Peter Watts

lucardus's review against another edition

3.0

Eigentlich eine 7 von 10, aber das grobe Raster von goodreads lässt das ja nicht zu. Sehr positiv, wie eigentlich bei Watts immer der Fall, der Ideenreichtum. Beim Thema und der Science volle Punktzahl. Leider wird das Thema Religion und Schöpfer für mein Gefühl etwas zu sehr ausdiskutiert, so dass ich irgendwann leicht genervt war. Hinzu kommt das Problem, dass die Empathie zwischen dem Leser und den transhumanen Protagonisten naturgemäß eher fehlt. Das ist eigentlich auch typisch für Hard-SF, aber eben darum ein Kriterium, dass für mich eben den Unterschied zwischen gut, sehr gut und herausragend ausmacht.

Trotzdem sollen die etwas ungerechten drei Sterne nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass Watts zu den besten modernen Hard-SF-Autoren gehört und hier ein höchst eigenständiges Universum vor dem Leser ausbreitet.

timinbc's review against another edition

3.0

So who's this book FOR? That's a key question. Part of me thinks Watts wrote it for himself, as an exercise in tying together a lot of ideas about religion, consciousness, the mind, awareness, etc. within a framework of SF. To make it palatable and interesting? Maybe. If so, did it work? I'm not sure.

Especially after reading the afterword and references, I felt a bit of "hey, let's see if I can get it ALL into this book”. When I was in grade school, I was a superb speller, and when we were asked to use each word in a sentence, I always tried to use them all in one sentence; this felt a bit like that.

Brüks is one of those characters that exists so things can happen to him. Normally I don't like those, but he may have been necessary here. And yes, as soon as I saw the name I thought "Watts has a friend named Brooks" and yes, spoiler alert, he does credit a Dan Brooks for help. What next, characters subtly named Brock Obammer or Lionel Mezzi?

I liked Sangupta yes I did she was great and especially her speech patterns and no eye contact.

Valerie was delightfully nasty, like a Neal Asher character, but underwent a curiously sharp personality change at the end, maybe I missed something.

Don't worry too much about the plot; I suspect it would not stand up to close scrutiny, nor does it need to. It's just there to put a bit of sequence on events. But full credit to Watts for revealing very slowly indeed just who's who and who's trying to achieve what and who the enemy is.

And the extrapolation of the real-life Portia spider was good stuff.

Summary: a good read but in the end disappointing as we realize it was really no more than a framework for a philosophical discussion. Maybe if you go in knowing that it will help. I try not to read reviews before I tackle a book; in this case it might have helped. I think a few too many ideas made it in, but if you like a mix of hard science and philosophy more than I do you will like this book more than I did.

rocky_jenkins's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

blapkan_gargly_'s review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

vinnsent's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No

2.5

willand90's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

demanley's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I think some judicious editing would’ve helped my understanding. I also think a lot of this was over my head.

antigonecounterpart's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

slipperyjohn's review against another edition

A Whole Lot of Nothing

Halfway through the book and the main character has basically no agency. He only exists as a camera for the reader, a place to have the plot happen nearby. Every other character in the book is more interesting than he is, but none of them are particularly compelling either.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the previous book, but at least that book had the draw of an incredibly fascinating and truly alien species to learn about. This book has none. Oh it goes on and on about all the various post human variants, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen before. Even then he constantly subverts any special attributes that these variants might have, repeatedly showing them to be ineffectual in circumstance after circumstance. Really what I get from this book, and the last, is that the author has a really low opinion of consciousness and sapience in general, but shows little to back it up.

if you can tolerate some exceedingly poor characterization in exchange for something fascinating to explore, pick up the previous book. Pass on this one.

charlieglynn's review

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25