Watts retards Echopraxia by shifting his conceptual focus from speculations based on hard science toward imaginings of a mystical hive-mind intelligence for which he openly admits there is not a single shred of existing scientific evidence. The origins of their motivations, goals and conflicts are unclear at the outset and arguably even less clear at the novel’s conclusion. an unaugmented human amongst transhuman companions)––a loner and natural skeptic whose defining feature is bemusement as he is swept into an extraterrestrial conflict he neither understands nor cares much about. Brüks is accompanied by a host of characters who are about as dull as he is (with the possible exception of military strategist Jim Moore, who we eventually discover is related to Siri Keeton, Blindsight’s protagonist). Brüks is an intellectual “baseline” (i.e. Blindsight achieved this balance with exceptional poise, but Echopraxia swings egregiously toward a heavy reliance on technical tropes while leaving plot and character far behind.īiologist Daniel Brüks, Echopraxia’s protagonist, defies Watts’ every attempt to render him an interesting and believable character. This is not a problem as long as he includes a followable story and engaging characters to balance out his recondite descriptions of antimatter generators, morose musings about the inadequacies of human consciousness, and detailed structural portraits of ships designed for deep space travel. As a writer of hard science fiction, Watts has an understandable tendency to dwell on abstruse technological topics. Many of Echopraxia ‘s failings are apparent from its first pages and persist throughout the novel. It signifies an unwelcome turn for an otherwise promising series.

Blindsight was innovative, expeditious, and chillingly fulfilling Echopraxia is desultory, slow, and largely unrewarding. This second installment in the Firefall series is impossible to assess without comparing it to its stunning and disturbing predecessor. In Echopraxia’s “Notes and References,” Peter Watts admits that this book might be a literary “faceplant.” I’m inclined to agree. Still hoping Watts will get around to continuing this series at some point… Original Review from 2015: I think I understood it better, both because I’m more familiar with some of the ideas Watts was working with, and also because I’m less allergic to the notion that “religious-esque” phenomena may arise from tinkering with human consciousness. It’s smarter, more coherent, and more interesting than I remember. I enjoyed this book much more the second time around compared to my first reading.

Peter watts firefall series