A review by jwpeddle
Echopraxia by Peter Watts

2.0

Much like the first book, Blindsight, a huge amount of the appeal to me is via the thought experiments baked into the narrative. Peter Watts clearly has deep interest and curiousity about the fluidity of consciousness and identity, and I'll continue reading him so I can join the conversation. That said, the narrative is a bit of a mess. I found myself eager to finish the book so I could read some plot summaries, and learn character motivations. Peter Watts seems somewhat aware of this problem, but he's also quick to dismiss confusion around things he "clearly stated in the book". Nothing is "clearly stated". The contrast between meandering prose and important plot is non-existent, so it's difficult to remain lucid enough to latch onto important bits.

I'm looking forward to reading Blindsight and Echopraxia again, but I wouldn't recommend to anybody that isn't deeply fascinated by the science of consciousness.