The Echo

By James Smythe

The stunning sequel to James Smythe’s critically acclaimed literary sci-fi novel The Explorer.

TWENTY YEARS following the spacecraft Ishiguro’s disappearance, humanity is setting its sights on the heavens once more.

Under the direction of two of the most brilliant minds science has ever seen – twin brothers Tomas and Mirakel Hyvönen – this space programme has been tasked with one of the most difficult missions in its history: to study what is being called ‘the anomaly’ – a vast blackness of space thought to be responsible for the loss of the Ishiguro.

But as the anomaly tests Mira and the rest of the hand-picked crew’s sanity, Tomas will have to use all his ingenuity if he is to save his brother and their mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Jan 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9780007456802

James Smythe

James Smythe has written scripts for a number of video games, and teaches creative writing in London. His previous novel was The Explorer.

Reviews for The Echo

[mcgarry_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Year 11 & 12: Echo is caught at the crossroads of a physical world full of hope and despair and the realm of the supernatural, where young men have wings and skeletons speak. On the way, she is graced by angels and fairies and haunted by ghosts, psychopomps, and vampires. But as Echo falls under the spell of demons who threaten to destroy her, she must ultimately look within to find the strength to survive.Through shifting points of view, Francesca Lia Block weaves pure magic into this deftly constructed tale -- a novel told in the form of linked stories. One girl's life emerges from a tapestry of voices, lives, and loves -- lost and found -- that deliver her finally to herself, triumphant, ever-changing.

[darrol_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well written, but with too much adolescent female angst. I am too old and the wrong gender.

[purplehena · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Reread after 5 1/2 years (I found the receipt in the book so I didn't have to guess) .... I liked this one a little less than the other FLB books I've read. It's about a very damaged girl, and I think the message is that girls should be strong and happy with who they are. Although I think a person of any age can read and enjoy FLB, I think this one might resonate most with younger (teen/college age) girls.

[weeta-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

chaos and grasping and the usual flb, but the nostalgia always pulls me in.

[bplteen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A young woman who has always lived in the shadow of her angelic mother must find her own place while searching for a boy she met in her youth. Lia block's writing is very lyrical and lush. The story is told through shifting points of view, and touches on many lives. This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Review by: rawr I do not understand this book. It goes far to far into details and makes you lose yourself. It is very confusing and hard to understand. I'm sure it could be a beautiful story if you didnt get lost and have the urge to just give up and pick up something with more structure. I like this book because it talks about friends, school, and family. I think this book can relate to every teenagers out there who are strunggling through life.

[nwhyte-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An intense character study of siblings, and other crew members, investigating a space disaster which took place in a previous volume. A good book in itself, but I was left uncomfortable that the anomaly which the astronauts fatally investigate doesn't seem terribly scientific, at least compared with, say, Rama; and the plot is part of a wider structure, Not quite sf enough for me, and not quite compete enough in itself either.

[ignorantleafy_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book angered me as few have. It takes the most emotionally screwed up girls, the ones who cover themselves with make-up and cut themselves and stop eating and run away from home and screw everyone in their path, and turns them into objects of incredible romance. Reading this, I LONGED to be those girls. Its magical realism does not use its quirks to highlight truer-truths, but to obscure basic facts of living. As an impressionable and frequently overly-sensitive person, it threw me into a three day funk. Why don't men with angel wings taped to their backs carry ME from the night ocean? Why don't *I* fuck rock stars and call great clouds of blackbirds to flock my house? Why am I so BORING? WHY IS LIFE SO BORING? I recognize the desire for escapist literature, and I recognize I might have been a little beyond crazy when I read this book. I even recognize that, for what it is, it's lovely writing. But it's also lies, lies in the truest sense, lies that take away from the healthy, beautiful, cotton-and-denim reality. This book would have hurt me even more if I'd read it ten years ago, when I "should" have. Of course, if anyone that age is reading this, this'll probably make them want to rush right out and read it. That's cool. But it's still a crock of shit.

[northern_light-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I got this book as part of Goodreads first read programmes. I was initially drawn to by the cover which is reminiscent of the film Gravity which I had just enjoyed.

I didn't at that stage realise it was part two but it is easily read as a standalone story and in some ways is better for that.

It tells the story of twin brothers Tomas and Mira who build a space-ship to attempt to discover what happened twenty years ago to the space-ship Ishiguro which disappeared while exploring an unknown area of space known as the anomaly.

As they travel closer it becomes clear that things may not be what they seem.

Spotting the missing ship in the anomaly is where the story really develops and as the crew die Mira begins to lose his perspective.

If I'd read the first book it would have been more obvious what was happening but reading this one blind meant the terrible happenings were fresh and new to me.

If you are a fan of Star Trek then this is for you.

[gregandlarry · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I accidentally bought this instead of The Explorer. I thought I had better read it. After being disappointed with The Explorer I was not expecting much. I had to put the book down in the middle because it was interminable.

[imyril · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have a soft spot for introspective/psychological disaster novels in space. I picked this up purely as a sequel to [The Explorer], so wasn't entirely sure whether it would tread the same path - the title is suggestive, after all - and ended up enjoying it slightly more than the first novel.The ill-fated Ishiguro mission set space exploration back decades. Years later, the Hyvonen twins achieve the funding and the mandate to retrace the failed mission's footsteps in order to discover the nature of the Anomaly, which appears to be moving closer to Earth. If The Explorer was framed as a disaster novel from the start, The Echo is initially framed as research. Mira Hyvonen, our narrator, is highly critical of the previous mission and proud of the scientific rigour and efficiency he and his brother have brought to the new project. They will Do Science and change our understanding of the universe. Hubris is a fine thing. The Echo becomes a study of Mirakel Hyvonen and his fractured relationship with his shadow self Tomas, who runs ground control as Mira and the crew head deep into space. Tomas can spy on everything on board and override any system (Smythe waves an undefined Magic Engineering wand).Perched on the edge of the Anomaly, the Ishiguro drifting in front of them, are the crew right to trust Tomas and his motives when he is sat safe at home? Is Mira an echo of Tomas or a clearly-defined strong man in his own right?There can be no closure here - there will be two more Anomaly books - just a further look into the Anomaly and a flirtation with what it may mean if it reached Earth (which is properly daunting, as are the ethical dilemmas faced by the Hyvonens in confronting it). However, I can't help but feel the third novel will need to break some (significant) new ground to keep this series going.

[ennuiprayer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Easiest read ever. I don't recommend it if you get annoyed with strange writing styles--the book's written for what seems to be a teenage, but has content that I wouldn't allow my niece to touch.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Twenty years after the disastrous mission to interstellar space described in The Explorer, a pair of Swedish twins organise a second mission. This flight’s purpose is to investigate the “anomaly”, a “blackness of space” thought to be the cause of the loss of the previous mission. This new spacecraft, Lära, however, is not as “Hollywood” as the previous one, it’s smaller and much more compactly designed (although it still has room between the outer hull and the walls of the inner chambers for a member of the crew to hide). One of the twins, Mira, is leader of the expedition aboard the spacecraft, the other twin, Tomas, remains on Earth at mission control. The Echo is told entirely from Mira’s point of view, and this is stuff Smythe does really well. I’m still not convinced by his spacecraft (it’s unlikely, for example the twins would have had to invent a thruster system as all present-day spacecraft have used reaction control systems for close manoeuvring for decades) – or indeed some of the science in the book – but there’s an increasing level of creepiness as the novel progresses and that’s where the novel shines. It’s not just the anomaly itself – the title of the book pretty much signals what the crew of the Lära find when they arrive at it – but Mira himself and his thoughts and relationship with his twin brother, and the way he deals with the deaths of Lära’s crew. I think I could have done with a little more verisimilitude, something that nailed down the tech and science, but that’s a personal preference (and, to be fair, no one is selling The Echo on its scientific credentials, unlike the not-as-scientifically-correct-as-advertised The Martian (and that’s a completely unfair comparison anyway, because Smythe is a very good writer and Weir is a shit writer)). The Explorer and The Echo form the first half of the Anomaly Quartet, and I’m very much intrigued to see what the next two books will do.