Avery

I enjoyed this exploration of “vintage” computer systems. It differed from some other hacking tales I've read in that it was from the perspective of a person watching the hacker rather than that of the hacker. This gives it a fun detective story vibe.
The hacking itself was pretty low stakes and a lot of time was spent talking about how the hack wasn't bad enough to warrant any law enforcement getting involved. Somewhat frustrating, though probably not as much as it was for the writer at the time.

I found it surprisingly tough to finish this book. It wasn't the second-person perspective (which I didn't notice until reading other reviews), and it wasn't that the story lacked any interesting ideas, but somehow everything felt jumbled together in a way I couldn't get fully engaged with.

Surprisingly, the most interesting parts of the story had nothing to do with the overt “theme” of virtual/game worlds advertised by the cover text, celebrity testimonials etc. Hidden behind the seemingly pointless talk of LARPing and orcs is a story about a threat that is much closer (as in, it could happen tomorrow) than any augmented reality overlay or VR world. The exception to this was the SPOOKS game, which ironically wouldn't require any technology more advanced than a cell phone.

In general, I feel like this story would have been more compelling and easier to follow if it was present-day fiction rather than some vague near-future sci fi.

I'm rating this a 5 with a caveat -- I wasn't a fan of the YA-ness of all the characters being teens at school. The thing is, the stuff they were learning was too cool.

The way that the exercises and concepts are described is so perfect -- just enough detail to feel real and part of a huge coherent system.

Also all this talk of cured meats and pickles and heavy breads kept making me hungry.

While it didn't quite hold up to the level of awe I felt for weeks after reading Blindsight, Echopraxia does have its share of cool ideas about the universe. I think it was worth the read, even though it also falls into the Wattsian pattern of having not much happen until a good 60-80% of the way through.

Took a while to get into it but I enjoyed the main game-related stuff. Does a good job of making it feel complex without getting bogged down in exposition trying to explain how it works.

The tone and characters felt a bit inconsistent to me, between intrigue around the game and the rest of what happens on the planet.