Echopraxia
Review
Echopraxia is the second book in Peter Watts’s Firefall series, although it takes place roughly at the same time as Blindsight. It follows parasitologist Daniel Brüks as he gets dragged into a conflict between multiple transhuman factions, travels to the Icarus station orbiting the sun, and back to Earth.
The world Watts built in Blindsight was enthralling, and the scientific and philosophical arguments about consciousness were fascinating. I loved it. Echopraxia expands on the exceptional worldbuilding of its predecessor while focusing on the ideas of god, godhood, free will, and the place of humans in a transhuman world. It is a fantastic sequel, possibly even better than the first.
The Major characters are:
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Daniel Brüks, a parasitologist and baseline human who has decided against getting any enhancements.
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Jim Keaton, Siri Keaton’s (from Blindsight) father and a human soldier.
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Rakshi Sengupta, an augmented human who servers as a backup pilot for the ship.
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The Bicamerals, a hivemind composed of people who have edited their brains and who discover scientific advancements through apparently religious means. Their interpreter is a slightly modified human, Lianna Lutterodt.
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Valerie, a vampire escaped from an academic lab on a mission to free her people. Along for the ride are her four zombie soldiers.
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Portia, an alien computer–slime-mold sent by Rorschach to Icarus.
The novel is full of Christian imagery, augmenting its theme of transcendentalism and digital theology:
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Valerie is a Moses figure: she is trying to free her people from slavery, and she first appears in the desert under a pillar of flame (the Bicamerals’s tornado seen through night-vision goggles).
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Vampires have a “crucifix glitch” used to keep them controlled.
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The ship used by the Bicamerals is the Crown of Thorns. Rorschach from Blindsight is in the shape of a crown of thorns.
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Siri suffers a stigmata-like wound in his palm, inflicted by the vampire Jukka Sarasti.
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Heaven “exists” as a virtual reality world people retreat to.
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Resurrection—or at least the continuation of life after death—with the snake Brüks samples in the desert, the Zombies, and Brüks himself after he is infected by Portia.
Parasites and biology are also central themes. Brüks studies parasites, but in some ways, he is one as the weakest member of the group and one forced to hide for his safety. Humans, too, are like parasites, trying to survive among much more powerful transhumans. And Portia, the alien smart matter sent by Rorschach to Icarus, traps and studies the other characters in the book just like Brüks does to the animals he studies in Oregon.
Loss is yet another theme. Brüks lost his wife to the virtual reality world of “heaven”; Keaton lost his wife in the same way, and his son Siri on the mission from Blindsight; and Sengupta lost her wife to the virus that Brüks’s simulations failed to catch before it infected thousands. Each character is shaped and eventually brought down by what their profound sense of loss drives them to do.
Echopraxia received mixed reviews from others compared to the universally rave reviews for Blindsight, primarily because people thought it was even more confusing. While it’s true that the narrator, Brüks, is the person with the least idea of what is going on, I found the plot not too hard to follow. All the mysteries are eventually revealed and explained if you pay attention. So far, Echopraxia is my favorite read of the year.