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A review by tomstbr
Echopraxia by Peter Watts
3.0
OK, so I see Watts has some faults. Namely, I never got a clear picture of the spaceship, Crown of Thorns. There is a rarely a clear sense of place and it can get confusing.
That said this was still a great read. I felt the characters were more relatable in this than Blindsight (but the bad guys, including Valerie and Bicams, just as unknowable). The thought provocation was fantastic, this time with Watts tackling free will as opposed to consciousness. It didn't work quite so well as in Blindsight, but to see everyone played off against each other as puppets was great. I'm sure I missed some deep philosophy and science so I will have to re-read. The addition of zombies was cool, the split between military zombies with a 'switch' and plain old viral zombies (leading the to the title, echopraxia, look it up). I was a bit disappointed in the ending though, because I just didn't understnad it. Probably my fault for reading to quickly. After some thought and forum discussion it makes more sense, though there a few interpretations you could have. Which of course makes it a richer experience.
So overall a great read but 3 stars because it didn't feel as polished and because it felt a lot more dense (in a meandering sense) than Blindsight.
That said this was still a great read. I felt the characters were more relatable in this than Blindsight (but the bad guys, including Valerie and Bicams, just as unknowable). The thought provocation was fantastic, this time with Watts tackling free will as opposed to consciousness. It didn't work quite so well as in Blindsight, but to see everyone played off against each other as puppets was great. I'm sure I missed some deep philosophy and science so I will have to re-read. The addition of zombies was cool, the split between military zombies with a 'switch' and plain old viral zombies (leading the to the title, echopraxia, look it up). I was a bit disappointed in the ending though, because I just didn't understnad it. Probably my fault for reading to quickly. After some thought and forum discussion it makes more sense, though there a few interpretations you could have. Which of course makes it a richer experience.
So overall a great read but 3 stars because it didn't feel as polished and because it felt a lot more dense (in a meandering sense) than Blindsight.