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A review by timinbc
Echopraxia by Peter Watts
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.
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.