Good to see you posting Auriga! Peter Watts has indeed become one of my favorite authors, almost entirely due to Blindsight (though I've since read the sequel, Echopraxia). I really do think people that enjoy Bakker will love PW, especially Blindsight. The story is and themes are very, well...Bakkery.
Echopraxia, I thought, wasn't quite as good as Blindsight. There's even more science in it, and the story moves at a fast pace without holding the reader's hand whatsoever. I actually think Echopraxia is meant to be a sort of "bridge" between Blindsight and a third, hypothetical installment. The overarching story does not seem complete just yet, I think.
It also has my favorite depiction of an alien species EVER. He really makes aliens seem damn scary, as they probably are in real life. I'm going to be checking out his "Rifters" trilogy eventually.
It was also a bit disheartening to realize someone had done "realistic vampires" way better than I ever even imagined in my own novella. Then again I've become accustomed to realizing just how unoriginal most of my ideas are as a young writer lol.