Echopraxia by Peter Watts

I think I needed to read Blindsight first and it's getting a three star because of that. I feel like I came into the middle of the party but everyone had already been there for hours and some weird shit had gone down. A ton of attractive crazy ideas and it starts very well.

We are in a lab designed to hold vampires. There is blood everywhere and one survivor. An escape has occurred despite the defence of a ‘crucifix glitch’, that means any time a combination of angles, two lines or anything really, creates the symbol of a cross and is seen by a vampire, they die. Our lone survivor has been trapped by a vamp named Valerie and as she protests her innocence and pleads at her only partial involvement in the hideous testing and torturing that occurred there, she is forced the conjure the imagine for a cross in her mind and, revealing that has been turned, it destroys her. Desperate to discover the vampire’s motivations and probably floundering to understand why Valerie herself has not fallen victim to the glitch, she manages to ask what Valerie wants. To learn Judo she says.

I found it to be an odd and quirky beginning, very unique in tone and style, and one that I wanted more from. I had a real sense of horror and also fun which is a magical combination if you can get it right.

From there we go to out main character, a protagonist in waiting, he is doing what he can to survive in the desert. He catches animals and tests them, looking for different indicators of a man made zombie virus that has spread the world. At that point a shit storm begins. Tornadoes streak down, zombies and vampires attack, he is rescued and taken into space....all without any real explanation.

There is an element of intelligent design theory in this whole thing which was not for me. Our man bumps and blunders from one situation to the next and does his best to keep up and it seems his only purpose is to give us a "baseline" from which to process the world. The only thing was I did not care for the journey so much.

As I said I rate this book a two but I think if I had read Blindsight I would have had a better understanding of the world I was entering and thus a more seamless transition. As it was I never really cared or got involved in the characters and found it hard to follow the story. I will go and read Blindsight one day and if I enjoy consider giving this another go.