A review by thebog
Echopraxia by Peter Watts

challenging medium-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? It's complicated

2.5

Very difficult to read this book; the plot was all over the place. I had to read spoilers to understand what I should be gleaning from this book for the most part. What’s brilliant about Blindsight is the clear conversation about consciousness. This book was about religion and god but it didn’t add anything new except, of course the scifi element itself (

what if god was a parasite)

. But you don’t even know that scifi element until the end, so you aren’t getting any bang around the religious conversation: nothing more than you’d get from reading a bunch of atheist redditors on any given thread. The ending was great, so literally all 2.5 points I’m giving this book are for the ending and because Book 1 was just so good that I don’t want to tank this book completely; people should read it since there will be a Book 3. But otherwise, yes, this book fails completely. 

I think I read somewhere that the author will take his time with Book 3 and won’t have deadlines since he’s kept it from his publishers for the most part. I’m guessing that is why Book 2 was written without much care for tying together the plot, theory, or thought-provocation the way Book 1 did (which I gave a rare 5 star rating). 

Looking forward to Book 3. Wish he would tear this Book 2 apart and re-write it, tbh.