A review by rotorguy64
Neuropath by R. Scott Bakker
2.0
I have to admit, I was one of the people lured in by how depressing Neuropath is supposed to be and how ruthlessly it makes its case. My expectation was that I wouldn't want to like this book, but end up doing so anyway. Take a look at my rating; I obviously didn't do the latter.
The first problem with this book is that both setting and characters are dull. The setting is pretty much the world during the time the book was written, except that climate change ruined the world, the US law enforcement and intelligence community has become fully authoritarian instead of somewhat-authoritarian and there are t-shirts with animated pictures on them. Also, neuroscience and its practical applications are far advanced. Sadly, the ramifications of this technology end at more authoritarianism and more opportunities for philosophical rants. As far as worldbuilding goes, Neuropath is one of the weakest sci-fi books I ever picked up. This is made worse by it trying to be prophetic, when all it did was capture contemporary fears (of terorrism, the Bush-administration and climate change) and exaggerate them.
The characters are slightly better than the setting, but not by much. The main villain of the story, Neil, is the lovechild of your stereotypical edgy atheist and the jerk that stole your girlfriend. He's charming, ruthless, cruel, and highly intelligent. The protagonist, Thomas Bible, is Neil's best friend, and an apathetic loser who spends most of the book contemplating how awesome Neil is. It gets bland sometime after page 30, but goes on and on and on for the rest of the book. Neither of these characters is very compelling, and taken together, they don't make for a good story. Neil is simply overpowered and basically drives the entire plot, with Thomas as his mouthpiece. And these are the two best-written characters in the story. At least they appear like real people, which is more than can be said of anyone else in this story. Save for Thomas' children, especially his daughter, but they can hardly carry this piece nor are they supposed to.
The philosophy is mostly carried through dialogues, I'll deal with the latter first. A typical exchange goes like this: Neil does something horrible, to prove a philosophical point; someone expresses his outrage over this point; Thomas tells them that Neil is right; they lose their shit and storm out of the run, intellectually vanquished by Neil. That third person can be any character in the book besides Neil and Thomas, but the reaction always stays the same (which is part of the reason why the characters suck so hard). It's not even like there was a fundamentally different philosophical view that was being discussed each time. No, it all ties back into Neil's radical materialism and nihilism, something I'll come back to later. In general, all the dialogue - even the one that differs from this format - only serves to make a philosophical argument, or just any argument. At one point, a man is knocked out with a roundhouse kick, and Thomas' contemplates that this could cause long-term brain damage or even turn out lethal. Yeah, no shit, a roundhouse kick directly to the face is dangerous?! I already knew that, and I don't want to be reminded by it for the sheer sake of ruining everything that's fun!
Now, to finally let the cat out of the bag: The philosophy of Neuropath. Was it as good as everyone says it is? Well... no. Not at all. Basically, you're nothing but your brain (or rather the processes going on inside it), you have no soul and not even a real essence. Everything you love and care about is an illusion, including religion and morality. That's interesting to hear about, but it cannot carry an entire book by itself, not when it's presented in such a redundant manner and with all the good counter-arguments left out. Neil makes his case that individuals have no soul or essence and no free will by rewiring their brains, hence you could easily create a counter-argument based on a difference between internal processes of the brain and external interference. That would at the very least spice the book up, so that I could appreciate it as a philosophical tract.
As it is, Neuropath simply isn't fun. It's overly long, the story and all its elements are bland, the action is forced and uninspired, and the philosophy just isn't that great. Part of the reason why it gets two stars (with a tendency towards three stars, even) is because of the end scene, where Neil presents "the argument", as it's called in the story, most effectively, and in the most gruesome and harrowing manner imaginable. This scene was genuinely very good and would've made for an exciting short story and a decent philosophical work, as I don't expect a short story to deal with every argument and counter-argument under the sun. In short, these last twenty to fourty pages are everything that's good in Neuropath condensed and refined. Too bad it was just a torture to get there.
If you want to get a taste of Bakker's radical determinism and materialism, read [a: Peter Watts|27167|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]. His books are both more sophisticated (even though I eventually ended up disagreeing with a lot of his philosophical ideas) and far more fun to read than Neuropath. He even got an addendum where he explains the science behind his works, with footnotes no one ever reads and shit like that. That's my personal recommendation, but as Neuropath is a very polarizing work, take it with a grain of salt. Maybe you'll enjoy it, even though I didn't.
The first problem with this book is that both setting and characters are dull. The setting is pretty much the world during the time the book was written, except that climate change ruined the world, the US law enforcement and intelligence community has become fully authoritarian instead of somewhat-authoritarian and there are t-shirts with animated pictures on them. Also, neuroscience and its practical applications are far advanced. Sadly, the ramifications of this technology end at more authoritarianism and more opportunities for philosophical rants. As far as worldbuilding goes, Neuropath is one of the weakest sci-fi books I ever picked up. This is made worse by it trying to be prophetic, when all it did was capture contemporary fears (of terorrism, the Bush-administration and climate change) and exaggerate them.
The characters are slightly better than the setting, but not by much. The main villain of the story, Neil, is the lovechild of your stereotypical edgy atheist and the jerk that stole your girlfriend. He's charming, ruthless, cruel, and highly intelligent. The protagonist, Thomas Bible, is Neil's best friend, and an apathetic loser who spends most of the book contemplating how awesome Neil is. It gets bland sometime after page 30, but goes on and on and on for the rest of the book. Neither of these characters is very compelling, and taken together, they don't make for a good story. Neil is simply overpowered and basically drives the entire plot, with Thomas as his mouthpiece. And these are the two best-written characters in the story. At least they appear like real people, which is more than can be said of anyone else in this story. Save for Thomas' children, especially his daughter, but they can hardly carry this piece nor are they supposed to.
The philosophy is mostly carried through dialogues, I'll deal with the latter first. A typical exchange goes like this: Neil does something horrible, to prove a philosophical point; someone expresses his outrage over this point; Thomas tells them that Neil is right; they lose their shit and storm out of the run, intellectually vanquished by Neil. That third person can be any character in the book besides Neil and Thomas, but the reaction always stays the same (which is part of the reason why the characters suck so hard). It's not even like there was a fundamentally different philosophical view that was being discussed each time. No, it all ties back into Neil's radical materialism and nihilism, something I'll come back to later. In general, all the dialogue - even the one that differs from this format - only serves to make a philosophical argument, or just any argument. At one point, a man is knocked out with a roundhouse kick, and Thomas' contemplates that this could cause long-term brain damage or even turn out lethal. Yeah, no shit, a roundhouse kick directly to the face is dangerous?! I already knew that, and I don't want to be reminded by it for the sheer sake of ruining everything that's fun!
Now, to finally let the cat out of the bag: The philosophy of Neuropath. Was it as good as everyone says it is? Well... no. Not at all. Basically, you're nothing but your brain (or rather the processes going on inside it), you have no soul and not even a real essence. Everything you love and care about is an illusion, including religion and morality. That's interesting to hear about, but it cannot carry an entire book by itself, not when it's presented in such a redundant manner and with all the good counter-arguments left out. Neil makes his case that individuals have no soul or essence and no free will by rewiring their brains, hence you could easily create a counter-argument based on a difference between internal processes of the brain and external interference. That would at the very least spice the book up, so that I could appreciate it as a philosophical tract.
As it is, Neuropath simply isn't fun. It's overly long, the story and all its elements are bland, the action is forced and uninspired, and the philosophy just isn't that great. Part of the reason why it gets two stars (with a tendency towards three stars, even) is because of the end scene, where Neil presents "the argument", as it's called in the story, most effectively, and in the most gruesome and harrowing manner imaginable. This scene was genuinely very good and would've made for an exciting short story and a decent philosophical work, as I don't expect a short story to deal with every argument and counter-argument under the sun. In short, these last twenty to fourty pages are everything that's good in Neuropath condensed and refined. Too bad it was just a torture to get there.
If you want to get a taste of Bakker's radical determinism and materialism, read [a: Peter Watts|27167|Peter Watts|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]. His books are both more sophisticated (even though I eventually ended up disagreeing with a lot of his philosophical ideas) and far more fun to read than Neuropath. He even got an addendum where he explains the science behind his works, with footnotes no one ever reads and shit like that. That's my personal recommendation, but as Neuropath is a very polarizing work, take it with a grain of salt. Maybe you'll enjoy it, even though I didn't.