"Blindsight" & "Echopraxia" by Peter Watts - a qualified positive review, discussion and questions

 ► Review (light contextual & thematic spoilers):

"Firefall" omnibus edition of both novels

These two hard sci-fi novels are ostensibly space operas, set near the end of this century. They depart from a world where base humanity is struggling for relevance, half choosing to live in virtual reality heaven. While technology has resurrected once extinct vampires.

But the author also uses the context and diverse assortment of transhuman characters, in each book respectively, to explore themes of, first: neuroscience, abnormal psychology and consciousness. Then: genetic engineering, augmented intelligence, belief, identity, culpability and free will (or lack of).

Both books have an explicit discussion of concepts at the end, with over 100 references to science papers and other books, in each. This comprises a full 10% of Echopraxia's total length! In case readers had any doubts about just how thoroughly researched and insightful these works are.

There are certainly spaceships, action and a novel first contact situation. But the plot arks were somewhat arduous through long mid-sections, with lots of dialogue that dragged a little. Brooding suspense and flashbacks, in one. Voyage with sometimes grating protagonist interactions, in two.

Echopraxia doesn't really continue on from Blindsight directly. For me, it had somewhat of a feel like, for example, Prometheus (2012) continuing the Alien (1979) franchise. Although there is technically one recurring character. Book two reframes the first a little and is mostly a chance to explore additional futurism and dig more into his conception of a hyper-intelligent vampire.

Despite a promising first book opening, that name checked the (technological) singularity and Ray Kurzweil explicit, I never quite meshed with the feel of Peter Watts' philosophising. Throughout either book. I think, in part, he deliberately writes to make things uncomfortable. There's certainly no heart warming romance or nice happy endings.

But, more fundamentally, in the afterword of Echopraxia, he explicitly states that he doesn't support/believe in the concept of digital physics. I.e. the leitmotif of most of Greg Egan's works, and (implicitly) many works by other authors, which have sat more squarely with my own core beliefs and understanding of the universe.

The character arcs conclude properly, in my opinion. Although there seems to be deliberate ambiguity left for interpretation as to exactly what and why various things happened, big and small.