880 pages
English language
Published Nov. 21, 2015
Seveneves is a hard science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson published in 2015. The story tells of the desperate efforts to preserve Homo sapiens in the wake of apocalyptic events on Earth after the unexplained disintegration of the Moon and the remaking of human society as a space-based civilization after a severe genetic bottleneck.
I ended up taking a break about 2/3rds to the way through. There is a big stretch of people dying horribly in space in the middle (you know, not to mention the near extinction of the human race) that was fairly anxiety provoking. The last third leveled back out, though. Glad I went back and finished it.
The part where he skips 5000 years or whatever is kind of annoying.
Seveneves is a thoroughly enjoyable book not only about the future, but also the past. I was amazed at how Stephenson jumped from hard sci-fi to a quick sociological, or historical, anecdote and even managed a little political commentary. I had to stop occasionally to talk to my fiancée about it and I even woke her up a few times when I would exclaim, a little too loudly, 'I knew it!'
This was the first Stephenson book that I read. I hope to get around to [book:Snow Crash|830] very shortly!
Exceso de detalles técnicos que hacen que a veces parezca que estés leyendo un manual de instrucciones técnicas excesivamente detalladas. Se pierde en detalles de construcción y técnicos que no aportan nada a la historia, como si fuese necesario dar un sustento técnico real, demostrable y construible a los inventos y evoluciones.
Algún personaje excesivamente plano. Julia llega a parecer una caricatura del personaje malo de una película infantil.
En resumen, más adornos que historia.
Really great right up until almost the end. Stephenson really seems to struggle with conclusions. Still well worth the read, but an unsatisfying, overly-quick resolution.
Enjoyment like a rollercoaster (ups and downs).
This was my second ever 'hard' science fiction novel--after The Martian--and from the first page I was completely engaged with the detail, realism and narrative strung by Stephenson. It's a book that will grab you and not let you go.
The third act opens very weakly, taking my rating from five stars down to three: something just felt 'off' as the descriptions became extremely speculative and unfocused. However, once the direction of the third act became clear, and the focus moved more toward the cultural interactions and the upcoming adventure, I was again completely hooked.
A book I loved, with a bump in the middle of the road that may leave some readers debating whether to continue. I'll be telling others: read this; do continue. After the first 50 pages of the third act, Stephenson picks up where he left of and …
Enjoyment like a rollercoaster (ups and downs).
This was my second ever 'hard' science fiction novel--after The Martian--and from the first page I was completely engaged with the detail, realism and narrative strung by Stephenson. It's a book that will grab you and not let you go.
The third act opens very weakly, taking my rating from five stars down to three: something just felt 'off' as the descriptions became extremely speculative and unfocused. However, once the direction of the third act became clear, and the focus moved more toward the cultural interactions and the upcoming adventure, I was again completely hooked.
A book I loved, with a bump in the middle of the road that may leave some readers debating whether to continue. I'll be telling others: read this; do continue. After the first 50 pages of the third act, Stephenson picks up where he left of and it ends as strong as it began.
People who claim they are motivated by the Purpose end up behaving differently - and generally better - than people who serve other masters.
I am conflicted on this book. The first two thirds were incredible. The story had me hooked immediately and I loved all aspects of the book. Then the final third happened and the momentum stopped and finishing became a chore.
The technobabble and constant focus on “show, don’t tell” didn’t bother me. I enjoyed tangents about orbital physics, complications in managing propellant, and discussions about how similar technology to what exists today could be used to prepare for the end of humanity. There was no deus ex machina, the technology and solutions all felt probable and not entirely unrealistic.
I was invested with the Izzy and Earth characters during the Hard Rain. The final moments of humanity reminded me of the band playing as the Titanic …
People who claim they are motivated by the Purpose end up behaving differently - and generally better - than people who serve other masters.
I am conflicted on this book. The first two thirds were incredible. The story had me hooked immediately and I loved all aspects of the book. Then the final third happened and the momentum stopped and finishing became a chore.
The technobabble and constant focus on “show, don’t tell” didn’t bother me. I enjoyed tangents about orbital physics, complications in managing propellant, and discussions about how similar technology to what exists today could be used to prepare for the end of humanity. There was no deus ex machina, the technology and solutions all felt probable and not entirely unrealistic.
I was invested with the Izzy and Earth characters during the Hard Rain. The final moments of humanity reminded me of the band playing as the Titanic sank. It was elegance and bravery in the face of utter destruction, and it was incredible.
The mind couldn't think about the End of the World all the time. It needed the occasional break, a romp through the trivial. Because it was through trivia that the mind was anchored.
As the years advanced I liked how the focus of the story did too. Technology was still an important character, but it was now addressing interpersonal conflicts and showed that the survivors on Izzy still had baggage with them and tried to apply their own personal agenda on the remaining human race.
The characters were secondary to the story and the struggle for survival, and this was okay, until the final “book” showed up.
I will put the remainder of the review in spoiler tags because I discuss the final third of the book and spoilers exist.
The meeting would later be known as the Council of the Seven Eves.
The unique characteristics of each Eve, their genetic modifications to their descendants and racial struggles that evolved over time were now very critical to the story. I had spent the previous two thirds of the book focusing on the struggle for survival and less on how each character interacted that I felt like I was handed a pop quiz at the start of the third “book” and realized I had been focusing on all the wrong material.
Another reviewer commented that the final stages of the book "sent an engineer to do an anthropologist's job", and I fully understand that. There was an unnecessary amount of time discussing social situations, racial tensions, how Red and Blue interacted when all I want to learn about is how humanity survived for another five thousand years! And when I got my wish as future technology was described that became a chore too.
I enjoyed the creativity and extrapolation of what the future civilization looked like but the book became bogged down in the details. There was no tension and no reason for me to care. The human race survived and was returning to Earth. The last five millennia of a struggle was coming to an end and the story lacked a finish. What conflict remained felt silly (which I’ll cover in a moment) and a bit of a bore.
Some suggested that this story could have been broken up into a proper trilogy, and that would have been great. It could have also wrapped up with a few pages on the life of Kath Two looking down at an Earth that has been rebuilt and wondering about the possibilities it may contain. This would be just a hint to know that humans, in one form or another, continue.
Unfortunately the direction of the final third of the book lacked direction and a reason to be involved as a reader, which is disappointing because the first two thirds of the book did that perfectly.
It was enough to keep the ship lodged in one place until they decided to move it. Which they never would.
To address the Diggers/Spacers/Red v Blue conflict near the end let me pull up a tweet that Neil deGrass Tyson made in November 2014 regarding Interstellar:
In #Interstellar: On another planet, around another star, in another part of the galaxy, two guys get into a fist fight.
I have really mixed feelings about this book. The premise is great but the narration is really uneven. Long stretches of very engaging content are followed by equally long passages which - in my humble opinion - could easily be reduced to one tenth of the size. Characters go from complex, layered beings to cartoonishly one-dimensional ones. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book but I do think it could be just as good - even better at 400 pages, as opposed to 880. But even with this caveat I can still recommend it.
Like other Stephenson books, its two books bound together and the first book is usually better. Seveneves is an epic tale and worth the read.
What a great hard sci if book, I was split between 4 and 5 stars, but I really enjoyed it.
What a great hard sci if book, I was split between 4 and 5 stars, but I really enjoyed it.
Stephenson continues his habit of producing books of unusual size, but he has a lot of story to cover. Even in 800 pages, it can feel a little rushed while he details 5000 years of future history.
I think this is the last book by Neal Stephenson I will read. I really enjoyed Snow Crash ten years ago. Since then, I have tried to read several of his novels, and I think I've abandoned all of them until Seveneves.
Seveneves has an interesting premise, though can feel depressing. That's not why I'm done reading this author. It is just plodding in a way that makes reading a chore. I've read a lot of hard SF. Rendezvous with Rama never made be feel like this. Seveneves spends too much time describing the look of this and that module, or where it is in relation to this other thing...blah blah blah. I was told what pykrete was at least four times. (If it isn't used frequently enough and named well for me to remember....don't name the junk.)
There's a good novel in here, it's just diluted with an extra …
I think this is the last book by Neal Stephenson I will read. I really enjoyed Snow Crash ten years ago. Since then, I have tried to read several of his novels, and I think I've abandoned all of them until Seveneves.
Seveneves has an interesting premise, though can feel depressing. That's not why I'm done reading this author. It is just plodding in a way that makes reading a chore. I've read a lot of hard SF. Rendezvous with Rama never made be feel like this. Seveneves spends too much time describing the look of this and that module, or where it is in relation to this other thing...blah blah blah. I was told what pykrete was at least four times. (If it isn't used frequently enough and named well for me to remember....don't name the junk.)
There's a good novel in here, it's just diluted with an extra not good novel. Cut by a third, this could have been excellent.
tl;dr: This book wasn't so great.
The ideas in the book were good, and I was reasonably engaged for the first 2 acts, but the last act felt dragged out and obvious. I was pretty sure about the major curves of the story early on, and it took a long-ass time to get there.. And then when it got where it was going it wasn't terribly satisfying...
This might be the last Stephenson book I read until he gets an editor. His stories are engaging, but he spends too much time zooming in on details. I guess some people dig that, but when I look back, even the books of his I've enjoyed since he wrote The Diamond Age have been long struggles for me to read. Cryptonomicon, which I liked in retrospect, took me years and several aborted/restarted attempts to complete. At the time I blamed that on College, …
tl;dr: This book wasn't so great.
The ideas in the book were good, and I was reasonably engaged for the first 2 acts, but the last act felt dragged out and obvious. I was pretty sure about the major curves of the story early on, and it took a long-ass time to get there.. And then when it got where it was going it wasn't terribly satisfying...
This might be the last Stephenson book I read until he gets an editor. His stories are engaging, but he spends too much time zooming in on details. I guess some people dig that, but when I look back, even the books of his I've enjoyed since he wrote The Diamond Age have been long struggles for me to read. Cryptonomicon, which I liked in retrospect, took me years and several aborted/restarted attempts to complete. At the time I blamed that on College, but now I'm not so sure. The Baroque Cycle took me a decade, and I ultimately only finished it out of stubbornness. Anathem and it's invented-language gimmick infuriated me, but the story was compelling enough to drag me along.
Now his last two books have been largely (big) gimmick-free, but have both felt really stretched out. I think i like the macro of his stories much more than the micro, but he seems interested in focusing on the micro.
To be honest, if I could have given this book 2.5 stars I would have. I was really struggling to choose between 2 and 3 stars.
This is the first bok I've ever read by Neal Stephenson and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is long, but I burned through it because I found the story fascinating.
True, it is really two books, some would say even three.
"Book 1" starts out as the story of the end of Earth, triggered by the misterous destruction of the moon. Humans desperately scramble to make a plan to survive the looming destruction.
"Book 2" is the chronicle of those who made it out of Earth. The last existing humans. It is the story of their struggle for survival.
"Book 3" is set 5000 years in the future, when humanity returns to Earth and tries to claim it back as home. But society is so different then.
What I loved about the book is how ambitious and grandiose it is. I loved the huge ideas it tackles, and the technical …
This is the first bok I've ever read by Neal Stephenson and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is long, but I burned through it because I found the story fascinating.
True, it is really two books, some would say even three.
"Book 1" starts out as the story of the end of Earth, triggered by the misterous destruction of the moon. Humans desperately scramble to make a plan to survive the looming destruction.
"Book 2" is the chronicle of those who made it out of Earth. The last existing humans. It is the story of their struggle for survival.
"Book 3" is set 5000 years in the future, when humanity returns to Earth and tries to claim it back as home. But society is so different then.
What I loved about the book is how ambitious and grandiose it is. I loved the huge ideas it tackles, and the technical detail of all these imagined technologies. I loved it's descriptions of space and its understanding of orbital physics, to the point of actually teaching me concepts such as Nadir, Zenith, Apogee and Perigee. (Go Science!)
I don't give it 5/5 because I felt that while it excelled in the science and technical details, it lacked a bit in character development and depth. Characters are a bit uni-dimensional and predictable, although it does have a bunch of kick-ass female heroes. :)
I really hope Seveneves is just the beginning of a larger trilogy, as the universe it creates is so elaborate, meticulous and complex it really deserves further exploration.
Also because it ends on a real cliffhanger. But I won't spoil it!
If you like space set, high stakes, apocalyptic and imaginative stories... I would say this book is for you.
