Seveneves: A Novel
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From the #1 New York Occasions bestselling creator of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an thrilling and thought-provoking science fiction epic – a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning 5 thousand years.
What would occur if the world had been ending?
A catastrophic occasion renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race towards the inevitable, nations across the globe band collectively to plot an bold plan to make sure the survival of humanity far past our ambiance, in outer area.
However the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unexpected challenges and risks threaten the intrepid pioneers, till solely a handful of survivors stay….
5 thousand years later, their progeny – seven distinct races now three billion sturdy – embark on yet one more audacious journey into the unknown…to an alien world totally reworked by cataclysm and time: Earth.
A author of dazzling genius and imaginative imaginative and prescient, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, expertise, psychology, and literature in a powerful work of speculative fiction that gives a portrait of a future that’s each extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores a few of our greatest concepts and perplexing challenges in a wide ranging saga that’s daring, engrossing, and altogether good.
Prospects say
Prospects discover the story participating and reasonable. They describe the guide as pleasant and price studying. Many readers admire the fantastical parts and thought-provoking premise. Nonetheless, opinions differ on the element stage, pacing, and writing fashion. Some discover the main points detailed and reasonable, whereas others really feel the technical descriptions are too lengthy and troublesome to observe.
AI-generated from the textual content of buyer critiques
Bruce Irving –
A wild ride with plausible ideas, myriad close calls — and orbital mechanics!
Some minor spoilers ahead…When I got super interested in space flight technology and orbital mechanics back in 2005, I played with the Orbiter space flight simulator for a few months and wrote a 181 page tutorial book for it called Go Play In Space. When Neal Stephenson got interested in space technology and orbital mechanics, he researched it for 9 years and wrote 880 pages to create a novel called SevenEves. The only common thread I can claim is that Neal and I both did our homework on the physics of space flight. But Neal did his homework on much more than this, and tied it all together into a fantastic story. Two major stories, actually — one an extremely detailed, near-future “disaster movie” (the first two thirds of the book), the other an imaginative and ultimately exciting speculation on the lives of the survivors’ descendants, 5000 years in the future. How many survivors were there? The book’s title gives a clue that’s at least partially correct (it’s also a palindrome).I really enjoy most of Neal Stephenson’s writing, and when I learned that his next book would be based in space, I pre-ordered it immediately. When it was released last Monday, it jumped the queue of all the books I was reading or planning to read. I saw a couple of early reviews, including a fairly negative one focused on Stephenson’s relative lack of character development and other novelish niceties, in favor of nerdish discussions of all technical sorts. To me, this is a feature, not a bug. I loved the wide-ranging and carefully researched details, and I thought the characters were mostly well drawn. The storytelling and pace are good, although I did feel that it bogged down in the first third of part 3 (the 5000 years from now part). In fairness, there’s a lot of explaining to do when you introduce a complex future civilization and many new characters, and after all that setup, the last 300 pages are quite thrilling. Good save, Neal!The book starts with the moon exploding for no apparent reason. It initially breaks into seven major pieces, but a popular public outreach astrophysicist nicknamed “Doob” (clearly modeled on Neil Degrasse Tyson) and his grad students figure out that it will soon break further into trillions of pieces, many of which will reenter Earth’s atmosphere, destroying the atmosphere and everything in it. In 25 months (plus or minus 2 months). Scientists in many other countries independently reach the same conclusion.Two years is not much time to get ready for the end of the world, so most of the 7 billion people and virtually all other living things will die. And unfortunately, the incoming swarm of debris dubbed “hard rain” is estimated to continue for some 5000 years. So immediate repopulation of Earth’s surface will not be possible. People will have to learn to live deep underground or in space, indefinitely — somehow. The first 600 pages are mainly focused on a gigantic space lifeboat effort, although it’s clear that only a relative handful of people (a few thousand at most) can make it to space in that short time, even with all of Earth’s resources, industry, and minds focused on this.Of course this immediately answers the question, what is the International Space Station good for? Why, to serve as the centerpiece of a swarm of hastily constructed and launched habitat spacecraft that will be used to save this small number of humans in hopes of some sort of future. It’s fortunate that in this near future world, the ISS has been expanded to include an experimental rotating habitat and a captured asteroid for experimentation with mining using a fleet of small robots. That at least gives the planetless survivors a fighting chance. But to say there are challenges is a vast understatement. There are many close calls and heroic efforts that turn out to be essential — like a hastily organized mission led by an Elon Musk-like space entrepreneur to retrieve a chunk of a comet. This huge mass of water is needed for radiation shielding and to make rocket fuel. You can do that (extract hydrogen and oxygen) if you have enough electric power, like a nuclear power plant repurposed from a submarine. Since part 3 takes place 5000 years in the future, you know that somehow humanity makes it, but it is by the very thinnest of margins.Is this book realistic? You have to just accept the premise that the Moon just blows up for some reason. The “agent” responsible for this is never really explained, but it doesn’t really matter. Everything else within parts one and two (“now”) is constrained by realistic physics and plausible current or near-future technology. Orbital mechanics is a major constraint and is handled very well. The problems of radiation, microgravity, growing food in space, living in crowded spaces, and many other issues are handled realistically. Space debris is a constant problem, especially once the “hard rain” starts throwing parts of the former moon in all directions. Space construction requires the help of thousands of small robots, but these are not especially smart robots — plausible extrapolations of things I have read about in MIT Technology Review. All in all, I consider parts 1 and 2 to be some of the best “hard SF” that I’ve ever read.Part 3 is more problematic for me, though ultimately enjoyable. The future space construction technology is massive, though still believable by extrapolation of robotic capabilities. But the tight connection between the personalities of the few survivors and the characteristics of the resulting race-driven civilization in 5000 years often did not ring true to me. There are a lot of interesting and plausible ideas, but also a lot that I thought was very silly, seemingly just made up, “because I said so.” These are extrapolations of genetic and social engineering over 5000 years. I don’t think you can say anything definitive about this based on anything we know, even if you accept genetic manipulation of the human genome as a required and well-understood tool.Of course it is all just made up by the author. But it is in part 3 that I have to say to myself, “that’s why they call it science fiction.” It’s still more than fantasy or magic, though I wouldn’t call it hard SF. But overall, it’s a really good book, and most of those 880 pages flew by over the last six days (actually 14,403 Kindle “locations,” read mostly on my iPad).It’s a long book, full of interesting ideas and good writing. I learned a lot, as I always do from Stephenson’s books. It is ultimately a hopeful book — humans are resourceful and manage to barely survive, and eventually go on to build a new and very different civilization and to start to repopulate the Earth (with genetically engineered plants and animals, synthesized from a comprehensive DNA database that was saved from “Old Earth,” since no actual animals and very few plants were brought to space — the Old Earth mission planners did manage to preserve much of Earth’s knowledge, genetic and otherwise). But as different as their new civilizations are, aggression and racial stereotypes remain — even though the races are completely new. Even if we were capable of building a future “paradise,” even a small handful of people will fail to agree that it is paradise — some will want something else. Humans are difficult creatures. It will always be so.Note: the picture is my own impression of “Izzy” in the Orbiter space flight simulator
Lorieyuhasz –
Near Classic Marred by Flawed Second Act
I’m a big fan of Neal Stephenson. Right now, on a place of honor above my desk are hardback editions of “Cryptonomicon”, The Baroque Cycle, “Anathem” and “Reamde”. I have paperbacks of “The Diamond Age” and ” In the beginning… was the Command Line”. I’m only missing “Snow Crash” because it was stolen a few years ago and I’ve never got around to replacing it.So I was excited to read his latest, “Seveneves”, even though it was getting split reviews. It took me a long time to power through it, and I almost bounced off it several times, but finished it recently and am glad I did. “Seveneves” is not an easy read (Stephenson never is), and it isn’t his best work, but it is a fun and thoughtful exploration of a concept. The biggest issue I had with it was the problematic second act.The Story So Far…”Seveneves”, pronounced as “Seven Eves”, is split into three roughly equal acts. As you are probably aware of by now, they first two sections tell the story of “The Epic”: The moon is destroyed by some natural, cataclysmic event, setting off a chain reaction that will result in the bombardment and destruction of the Earth.In the first Section, Mankind Realizes that the Earth is doomed, and sets about building an Ark to preserve whatever it can of the Human Race. The action is centered on the ISS, here called Isis, and the crew that finds itself in the position of shepherding the construction of a cloud of habitats in a race against time as the moon slowly disintegrates, eventually causing The Hard Rain on Earth.This section is the best of the novel, introducing Several interesting characters, including Ivy, a mining engineer on Isis and the focal character of the first part of the book as she programs the swarms of robots that will eventually help save humanity. She is in contact with her mining family on Earth through a jury-rigged Morse Code Ham Radio setup.Doc “Doobie” DuBois, a Neil Degrasse Tyson analogue, ends up traveling the doomed world, collecting “Arkies” and artifacts selected from different cultures to be transferred to the orbiting Arks before he himself ends up on Isis to report progress back to Earth. With its focus on the hard science of orbital mechanics and technological derring-do, this part hearkens back to the classic science fiction competence porn of the past, and is an engineers wet dream.But even this section has flaws. Doc DuBois’ mission is part rescue, part PR, and part pacification, but we never really see how the impending disaster plays out on Earth. There are scenes of heroism, mass panic and more on Earth, but they are only relayed to the Ark through heavily managed and censored media channels. Yet, there are hints of political tensions and conflict that are not explored in this section, but come into play in the disappointing second.It’s the End of The World as We Know It…(Spoilers)So the Hard Rain comes, the Earth is destroyed in Fire, and the weakest third of the book starts. The plan for survival is twofold: Isis is protected from impact by a massive asteroid tied to its front end. It is to be the main ark: Protecting critical technological systems and acting as a hub. Trailing behind it are the Arks: small space habitats than can be linked and unlinked in myriad combos. This is where the majority of humanity is too live. Small communities can be almost self sufficient, if everything goes right, ensuring the future of the human race.Can you guess what happens?Political pressures from Dead Earth, stowaways, natural disaster, rebellion and war, even cannibalism ensue. Part Two of “Seveneves” is just a race to get to the Seven Eves… the last Seven fertile women who are the progenitors of the New Human Races. And I had a lot of problems with this part.First, the previously competent Engineers from Part One are now blithering idiots. They are completely blindsided by the political pressures in the Ark Community. Then with all the disasters happening around them, it’s a race to see who can die first, and most heroically. Should I ram myself into an Asteroid, Walk into a Nuclear Reactor, or go into space without a helmet? I Know, I’ll hold off the cannibalistic rebels! Oh, and the vast majority of survivors die “offscreen” as it were, in a war among themselves.But the worst part is the Council of the Seven Eves. We are not properly introduced to about half of them, and the ones that we knew from the first section seem too old to be the mothers of the new races. One was the President of the United States, and much was made of her meteoric rise to power and young age, and she is the one with the least children, but it defies suspension of disbelief. Also, it seems unnecessary for all men to die before the council… I’m not saying men are needed, since they can clone themselves, but it just seems unnecessary, even in the world Stephenson is creating.Welcome to the New Earth, Same as the Old EarthSo We’ve had an old fashioned hard science adventure, a deeply flawed disaster movie, and now we come to the third act, a far future magic-tech travelogue.Set 5,000 years after the earlier events ( now known as The Epic), we are introduced to a resurgent humanity. Mankind now lives in a ring of habitats made from the remnants of the moon and orbiting the Earth. They’ve been terraforming the blasted planet, re-introducing flora a fauna and beginning to resettle the Globe. This part is fascinating for its look at far future, re-claimed tech. There are many fantastical elements: Cyborg gliders, Tethered Cities that land on Earth and take off again, Post-Human Neanderthals, and a mystery that really isn’t mysterious at all.This last part of the book almost, but not quite redeems the rest. I know a lot of critics seem to be hung up on the jump, but it makes sense. And it informs the previous sections, too. While the characters of the Epic had their every movement and conversation recorded, the post-humans of the year+5,000 have interpreted it their own way. There are a few places (Tav) where what they think they saw isn’t what we would have thought we saw. In this context, the lack of the expected Earth based stories from part one makes sense. Of course all that data was lost, so it’s not part of the epic and not part of humanity’s shared collective memory.It makes sense in the world of “Seveneves” for there to be gaps in the second part of the story: That is the part where there is the most damage to the data, the most violence and the most loss. It’s another thing to have to try to fill in those gaps as you’re reading the story. While reading it, I kept wanting more, kept getting frustrated at the parts I was missing. By the time I realized what Stephenson was doing, he had almost lost me.
Cliente de Amazon –
Ciencia ficción; Presente/Futuro cercan; Un dÃa la luna se descompone y se convierte en polvo espacial. Los pedazos caerán a la tierra y lo acabarán todo. La humanidad se prepara para sobrevivir. EXCELENTE historia 😛
Giorgio –
Una costruzione complessa e articolata che esplora sotto vari aspetti le vicende umane dei protagonisti e proponi vari modelli di sviluppo sociale e tecnologico non tralasciando la sostenibilità psicologica degli scenari che propone.Ben fatto, unica pecca a volte si perde per svariate pagine in dettagli tecnici che non sempre sono particolarmente emblematici o così centrali nella narrazione.
ERobillard –
Other reviews have said it already, it’s really a matter of whether what they describe is right for you. I liked Seveneves, a lot. As much as the best of Iain M. Banks (a representative favourite there would be Player of Games) or anyone else in the genre who’s been able to spin a thoughtful, engaging tale across hundreds or thousands of years. Yes, it can be clinically descriptive. But like the people in the narrative, there is a balance among logic, emotion, and the story, and it all works in service of the story (and after a few hundred pages, efficiency can seem a good thing). I found the detail less efficient in Stephenson’s historical writing, but it worked for me here. That’s all I have to add, check the other reviews and decide whether Seveneves right for you. On the fence? Give it a spin. It really is an impressive, thought-provoking piece of work.
Jack –
This huge volume of a space opera gripped me from the very start and is absolutely filled with novel and intricate designs.Stephenson has crafted an epic book which has received quite a few polarised reviews on Amazon. For me, I thought it was an intelligent, creative and well-reasoned exploration into how humanity may survive in a Hawking-scale celestial disaster.The story begins with a mystery Agent crashing through the moon, severing it into several large pieces. After the initial scientific gawping, humanity realises that the Earth will soon be the target of an avalanche of lunar debris which will obliterate life on the planet. The race starts from there, with two years in order to amass enough provisions for a select few humans to survive the onslaught in space for an unimaginably long time.While Iâm not an astrophysicist by any standards, I do have an appreciation of space travel. What really stands out for me is that this book features no FTL travel, no cryo-freezing and no hyperdrives. All of the usual space opera tools and imaginings (despite being very much enjoyed in other stories) are deliberately absent. That fact made this book so distinctly enjoyable for me; it is not getting around the difficult obstacles for surviving in space with fictional technology. It is about how would we survive if it happened TODAY.The characters are distinctive (highlighted very acutely later on in the book), engaging and relatable. They are highly intelligent, creative and manipulative in their own ways and they all project very well from the pages.The writing style has put off some readers but for me, it was highly intimate and instructive. Itâs akin to having someone patiently explain the solutions and methodologies. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with exactly what something is doing or used for, but the overall story comes together in a vastly enjoyable fashion. The book often crosses a line between fiction and non-fiction because of this, which is unusual but not unpleasant.If you just enjoy space operas with distant galaxies or alien races, then perhaps this isnât the book for you. However, if you enjoy a story which tackles the practicalities, ethics and technology in a story finely woven with characters youâll love, hate and really, really despise, Iâd definitely recommend reading Seveneves.
Ian Greenfield –
The best sci-fi I have read in a long time. As much a look at the psychological/sociological impacts of a huge distaste affecting the human race as a sci-fi, the interactions between the different players within the book was masterly done and you could imagine this is exactly how humans would handle a crisis of this magnitude.