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Seveneves

Neal Stephenson (Goodreads Author)

3.98 · Rating details · 95,707 ratings · 10,337 reviews

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen cha ...more

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Kindle Edition, 880 pages

Published May 19th 2015 by William Morrow

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· 95,707 ratings · 10,337 reviews

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Feb 22, 2015 Jenne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Okay, so the first two thirds of this was shaping up to be pretty much my favorite book ever, like if someone had called me up and said, "okay, we will get any author you name, and they will write exactly the book you would like to read, just give us a list of what you want."
And then I gave them a list something like this and was like, NEAL STEPHENSON PLEASE:
-Someone succeeding through clever means
-APOCALYPSE!
-Something grand being destroyed in an epic fashion
-People trapped together
-People work ...more

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May 24, 2015 Joel rated it liked it

The *science* and world-building is awesome. The storytelling and character development not so much so.

There is a guideline for writing, they say "show, don't tell". And, yes, I know NS never really follows this rule, but here's it's extreme. Most of the book is like

Moira walked into the room. [5 pages of backstory about Moira] She looked at Dinah. [10 pages of backstory about different people who have looked at Dinah].

This is to a degree forgivable when the backstory is *fun*, but this is a sur ...more

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Jul 30, 2015 Felicia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi

Amazing stand alone sci-fi, highly recommended. I guess Neal Stephenson is a legend for a reason!

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Feb 18, 2015 Will Byrnes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: brain-candy, science-fiction, fiction, books-of-the-year-2015

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.

I guess in order to indulge in a bit of world-building one must destroy the world first.

Neal Stephenson is a genius. A polymath with a wide range of interests, he specializes in the big idea, and the more concrete the better. In this way he carries forward the tradition of hard science fiction, in which the best example is probably Arthur C. Clarke. Stephenson eschews FTL transportation, time travel, invading aliens, or any of the ...more

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Feb 10, 2016 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, science-fiction

“We're not hunter-gatherers anymore. We're all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn't bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It's our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”

Nerd Alert! Be nice to the nerds in your life. They might save your ass someday.

Nerds realized a long time ago in the United States that they needed to ...more

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Aug 23, 2015 Rick Urban rated it it was ok

From: Neal Stephenson
To: William Morrow, Publisher

Dear Friends,

I've got a great idea for a new novel. I've decided to call it "Seveneves", which is a palindrome. In case you didn't know, a "palindrome" is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of characters which reads the same backward or forward. Allowances may be made for adjustments to capital letters, punctuation, and word dividers. By the way, punctuation prior to the development of printing, was light and haphazard. William Caxton (147 ...more

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Jun 04, 2015 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: transhumanism, sci-fi, space-opera, biopunk, worldbuilding-sf

I don't know what all those complainers are going on about. As far as I can see, I just got two novels for the price of one. The first 2/3rds is all hard science fiction, where science matters and the whole thing is tied together with plausibility. The last third is pure unadulterated speculative fiction with damn fine worldbuilding and extrapolation from the first 2/3rds.

Let me back up. I can honestly say that I loved the gigantic erector set that was the first novel, but I will admit that I wa ...more

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Apr 12, 2015 Stuart rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: near-future, distant-worlds, galaxy-spanning, hard-sf

Seveneves: 600 pages of infodumping leaves little room for plot development
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
I must be developing an immunity to the Kool-Aid that Neal Stephenson serves his fans. Snow Crash and Crytonomicon are two of my favorite books, but I was lukewarm towards The Diamond Age and then hit a wall with Anathem. So when I heard he was coming out with Seveneves, and that the plot was much more like traditional “hard” SF than his earlier cyberpunk, steampunk, nanotech, crypto Seveneves: 600 pages of infodumping leaves little room for plot development
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
I must be developing an immunity to the Kool-Aid that Neal Stephenson serves his fans. Snow Crash and Crytonomicon are two of my favorite books, but I was lukewarm towards The Diamond Age and then hit a wall with Anathem. So when I heard he was coming out with Seveneves, and that the plot was much more like traditional “hard” SF than his earlier cyberpunk, steampunk, nanotech, cryptography, technothriller works, I wasn’t sure I’d like it. But really there’s only one way to know if you like a book or not – you have to read it for yourself.

Basically, when you have over 900 pages to work with, you can dedicate hundreds of pages to detailed world-building and still have plenty of time for complex characterizations and a very extensive plot. You’d think that was enough for any author, but we’re talking about Neal Stephenson here. His infodumps can bring even the most dedicated geeks to their knees, and that is what his die-hard fans are looking for. I didn’t mind his infodumps in Cryptonomicon, since they were interesting in their own right, but I was completely defeated by the esoteric mathematic and philosophical discussions of Anathem, which I found extremely tedious.

In Seveneves, the infodumps essentially constitute the first 500-600 pages. Once we know that the moon has been destroyed and then surface of the Earth will be inundated with meteorites (in the first paragraph), Stephenson then decides that the best way to further the story is to describe in painstaking detail every single technological and engineering difficulty that humanity will face. The amount of research he has done is stupendous, and he clearly admires Neil de Grasse Tyson, who appears in barely fictional form. He throws a bunch of scientists and astronauts into the unwanted role of being humanity’s only hope of survival. Despite the book length, he doesn’t devote any time to the fate of the seven billion members of humanity who have been handed a death sentence. Instead, we are treated to chapter after chapter dedicated to problems of geosynchronous orbits, propellant limitations, tiny meteor strikes, artificial habitats, etc, etc.

For me the first two thirds of the book were really heavy going. Even thought Stephenson introduces a long list of characters, it’s hard to get into their innermost thoughts despite the dire situation facing them. As crisis follows crisis, the odds get more and more insurmountable. There are plenty of fascinating details, but the pace of progress is really slow. Finally humanity finds itself down to just seven women, or “seveneves”. With extinction looming, these women must make a momentous decision on how to survive. Their council sets the stage for the creation of seven races of humans that evolve from them.

Fast forwarding 5,000 years, the story finally brings us to the part that I was actually more interested in, the resettling and terraforming of the Earth after the meteorite storm. And when he does start to describe the new races of humanity, each descended from the original Seveneves, the scenario is well-described and such a contrast to the dire straights of the first two-thirds of the book. Here Stephenson is again in his element, giving us a well-constructed future society with complex interactions. There is a huge amount of potential here for a multi-volume far-future epic about terraforming the Earth along the lines of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. The big problem is that we have already had to slog through 600 pages just to reach this point, and now have only 300 pages left to establish the new far-future scenario and actually incorporate a viable plot that can be wrapped up in that short span.

Unfortunately, just like in The Diamond Age, Stephenson again runs out of pages to deliver a satisfactory storyline after all the world-building. He hasn’t learned how to forward the story amid all the technical descriptions. I know he can achieve this as he did in Snow Crash and Crytonomicon, but this book felt a lot more like the existential torture of Anathem, which I couldn’t finish. In fact, the abrupt nature of the ending of Seveneves suggests ample room for a sequel, which is really irritating, since the least he could do is give us a stand-alone novel if it’s almost 1,000 pages long. I know there are plenty of readers out there who don’t mind multi-volume door-stopper epics, but I have 400 books on my TBR list, so I won’t be lining up to read the sequel if it does appear.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal (who does the first two thirds set right after the moon is destroyed) and Will Damron (who does the far-future portion). I’d have to say that Kowal is facing an uphill battle with a very exposition-heavy narrative that I already found boring, and she makes it much worse by doing a terrible job trying to make the male voices sound male by doing this silly low voice that sounds ridiculous, especially for the de Grasse character. Perhaps it’s easier for male narrators to do female voices, but this just sounded awkward. When we go forward 5,000 years into the future we also get a new narrator, Will Damron, which is a huge relief both due to the change in storyline and because he does a much better job. ...more

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Aug 16, 2015 Susan May rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2015

Official announcement:

So after 650 pages of 850, Seveneves & I are going our separate ways. I've decided he's a bore. He just dwells too much on technical minutiae & I like to focus on people & characters & enjoy the adventure in books. I'm sure there are thousands who will love him for who he is.
He did try & change for me, bless him. He put on a silly hat, got me some flowers, but it wasn't enough to entice me to continue with him until the end. I'm sorry, Seveneves, I told you going in, either Official announcement:

So after 650 pages of 850, Seveneves & I are going our separate ways. I've decided he's a bore. He just dwells too much on technical minutiae & I like to focus on people & characters & enjoy the adventure in books. I'm sure there are thousands who will love him for who he is.
He did try & change for me, bless him. He put on a silly hat, got me some flowers, but it wasn't enough to entice me to continue with him until the end. I'm sorry, Seveneves, I told you going in, either show me a good time or I will move on. I'm now out with Michael Robotham's Close Your Eyes & already I'm having more fun. No hard feelings Seveneves, you just gotta lighten up. It wasn't you, it was me!

Here is my parting photo for those who have enjoyed the journey on this thread, which included photos of Seveneves as he shared my life for a short time.

description

The Review
It was long, over-technical, and I couldn't finish it. At 650 pages with still 200 odd to go, I'd been skimming for about 200 previous pages, I gave up. There are too many great books waiting for me. I just felt the whole thing got away from the author. Shame, because it could have been great. The publisher should have broken it into 3 separate novels and really focused on getting each one tight with some pace and heart. The characters are flat.

But lots of people seem to have loved it, so obviously it comes down to personal taste. I would just rather be inside the heads of characters instead of being told about things. And I love technical stuff. I'm a science fiction nerd, but make the technical stuff interesting while you tell the story. Don't sprout it like a brain dump.

The thread for this review has been more fun than reading the book. I'm an author, so I don't like being critical of other authors. This book wasn't for me, but it might be for those who like loads of technical science stuff and aren't so much into characters and action. I just figure when you're in space and you're destroying planet Earth, why not go for it. So don't be put off by my thoughts. However, if you agree with a lot of my reviews then this won't be the book for you I don't think.

...more

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Apr 12, 2015 matthew rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I knew I was going to hate this novel around page 270 when Mr Stephenson, technocrat extraordinaire, decided to spend a page complaining about modern gender theory and "academic leftists" who were wasting time and energy. I had already been put off by the jingoistic libertarian nonsense promulgated through a lot of science fiction and given centre stage in this novel, but this anti-humanities screed was the last straw. It's not just that it's intellectually lazy (it is, though, full of strawmen) ...more

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May 12, 2015 Nicole R rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: ner, 2015, did-not-finish

DNF

I just can't do it anymore. I am 46% through this 880 page monstrosity, and I just cannot read another page. I thought I would give it one more shot tonight, but after reading for 45 minutes and literally having no idea what I just read I think it is time to throw in the towel.

I feel like I should like this book. I love space and dystopian (which, I guess this kind of is?) but I should have known better given that I I am hit or miss on sci-fi. And the plot was actually intriguing. I liked man ...more

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May 19, 2015 Andrew Smith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: apocalyptic, science-fiction

I continued my recent SF binge with a look at this mammoth offering from the award-winning writer of ‘speculative fiction’. The first sentence sets the scene pretty well:

The moon blew up with no warning and for no apparent reason.

Soon, the best known television commentator on such issues is proclaiming that the hard rain’s a-gonna fall. And keep falling. In fact it’ll rain rocks for thousands of years. Not the best news then.

And we’re off into the realm of the end of the world, as we know i I continued my recent SF binge with a look at this mammoth offering from the award-winning writer of ‘speculative fiction’. The first sentence sets the scene pretty well:

The moon blew up with no warning and for no apparent reason.

Soon, the best known television commentator on such issues is proclaiming that the hard rain’s a-gonna fall. And keep falling. In fact it’ll rain rocks for thousands of years. Not the best news then.

And we’re off into the realm of the end of the world, as we know it – with a date for its destruction pretty much nailed down to two years hence. All of this is covered very early on and the first two thirds of the book is devoted to how the human race (but mainly the Americans) respond to this news.

This is where I wanted to be wowed by accounts of people’s reaction to the impending catastrophe, scenes of civic unrest and, perhaps, a deep quasi-sociological study of how mankind would cope with the likely total destruction of humanity. Well, I guess I haven’t read a Neal Stephenson novel before or I might have known this is not where he’d take it.

In fact, the human reaction appears to be a very co-ordinated, highly organised and a largely matter-of-fact acceptance of their collective fate. This side of it dealt with, Stephenson retreats into what he really wants to talk about: the space travel, the gizmos and the tech-speak of the truly hardened SF geek. Ok, that might be a bit harsh, and it does more reflect my personal preference for coverage of the human-interest side of events rather than the science documentary that ensues, but I do feel it’s the one true flaw of this book. Exploring the idea of a Space Ark as a way of sustaining the human race is interesting, and an amount of science is needed to give the tale credibility, but I also wanted to know what was happening back on earth.

In the last third of the book we jump forward to the end of the hard rain and are shown an interesting ‘what next’ hypothesis. To me this felt like a different book - the next book. It’s quite an interesting tale in its own right, but the real story had already been told.

I feel that I’ve been quite critical in my summary, but it’s really born of the frustration I feel that such a brilliant idea – something that should have been a truly memorable and brilliantly epic story – fell somewhat short of my expectations. In some ways the feel of this book has similarities to The Martian, though it lacks the same energy and buttock clenching tension. However, I did still enjoy it and I think true SF aficionados will find less to grouse about than me. ...more

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Jul 11, 2018 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it

Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves is impressive! Mankind has two years to prepare for the end of the world. Go! There have been other books with a similar premise, but the devil (about how humanity comes together to work out the enormous technological and existential problems of the challenge) is in the details. And the details are important to Stephenson. Critically important! In Seveneves (the first 2/3 of the novel), Stephenson combines nice storytelling with a hard science bend in a way which is u ...more

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Apr 23, 2015 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, paperback, sci-fi, own

UPDATE: In Audible US sale 12/26/18

Loved it!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

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Oct 06, 2015 Michael rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Michael by: Will Byrnes

Shelves: space-travel, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, survival, fiction, science-fiction

This epic tale of survival of the human species in space after the earth gets wrecked by a “Hard Rain” of meteorites was a real treat for me. It represents a landmark in revival of old themes of science fiction from the Golden Age of the 40s and 50s, which had hallmarks of inspiring a sense of wonder and of extolling human technological capacities and can-do spirit sufficient to break out of our fragile planetary prison. For those who have been disappointed in previous attempts to read recent St ...more

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Jan 22, 2015 Kemper rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, apocalypse-now, space, blinded-me-with-science, sci-fi

Review posted at the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sc... ...more

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Mar 14, 2015 Yzabel Ginsberg rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: space, tell-doesnt-show, computers-technology, science-fiction, post-apocalyptic, wtf, good-ideas-but

I finally managed to finish it. Yesss. I did.

Now where to start.

Good ideas, definitely. Using the ISS as a base for survival. Trying to cram as much knowledge and items as possible there to preserve the human race. Having to watch from above, knowing that all your beloved ones are doomed to death in about two years, and the clock keeps ticking by. Knowing that it's all unavoidable because it's happening on such a scale no group of heroes will be able to fix it, or whatever. Having to say goodbye I finally managed to finish it. Yesss. I did.

Now where to start.

Good ideas, definitely. Using the ISS as a base for survival. Trying to cram as much knowledge and items as possible there to preserve the human race. Having to watch from above, knowing that all your beloved ones are doomed to death in about two years, and the clock keeps ticking by. Knowing that it's all unavoidable because it's happening on such a scale no group of heroes will be able to fix it, or whatever. Having to say goodbye while keeping strong. The orchestras on Earth, silenced one after the other. Crazy harebrained expeditions like the Ymir's—oh, goodness, that part was epic, and clearly one of my favourite ones. Such moments of beauty those could've been.

But.

But it read so dry most of the time, and not because of the science. Actually, I like the science. I like having a few explanations about how this works and why and what's the science behind. I like seeing how characters go through specific situations using robots, vehicles, and so on. However, this book was really bizarre in that regard. It regularly felt like being in a classroom with a teacher explaining some very easy stuff you've already understood, then brushing away your questions at the harder theories you do not understand. As an "old" reader of sci-fi, and one that isn't new to hard sci-fi either, I am kind of used to inferring a lot of things. I do not need to read sentences such as "they climbed into the Lunar Vehicle—in other words, the LV". Just write the full name, then give me the acronym three lines later, and I can do the math, thank you. I've always been crap at maths and physics, really, so when I start thinking "but that's the very basics, why are you expanding on it", then there's a problem.

All the telling-not-showing also greatly reduced the characters' roles as people instead of plot devices. Granted, it was obvious a lot of them would die, and this is precisely why I would've loved seeing more from their point of view, more of their actions "off screen".For instance, the guys in the Ymir, again, went through a lot, yet we just learn about it matter-of-factly later. Or the Arkies and the "Casting of Lots", all the young people who were trained and sent in space to keep as much diversity as possible.

In a way, this book was too ambitious for, well, one book. Or too full of explanations, taking too much room, to be able realise its full potential as a plot with so many implications. It could've spanned two or three novesl: the going into space, surviving for 5000 years with all the problems that were bound to arise, then the return to Earth, for instance. So many themes to tackle. The politics. The troubles going on Earth before the Hard Rain: not as pronounced as one could've expected (hoarding, rioting...). The schemes going on on board the ISS after it had become the only shelter left (they should've shot a certain woman as soon as they saw her, is all I'm going to say). And then, later, the whole seven races and their characteristics that somehow never got diluted in spite of living in such crammed space, clinging to differences that didn't make that much sense all things considered (I didn't buy the "they all retained traits from their founders" idea). The return to Earth had some nicely adventurous moments, bordering on indeed showing more than telling, but those didn't last.

This was a far, far cry from Snow Crash (which I read and loved some 12 or 13 years ago, by the way). It could've been so intense, so epic, so full of both hope and despair mixed together. Instead, it just completely fell flat for me. ...more

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Feb 20, 2015 Enso rated it it was ok

As the joke has been going, if you enjoy orbital mechanics as a main character, you'll enjoy this novel. I was commenting to someone that the book could be 100 pages shorter if we dumped the super detailed description of orbital mechanics that occurs as an info-dump over and over again. Then I met someone who had gotten annoyed enough to begin counting pages when it happened and got to around 259 pages of it. *sigh*

Stephenson is the Stephen King of Science Fiction: only writes massive novels tha ...more

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Jul 02, 2015 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: apocalyptic, science-fiction

$1.99 Kindle sale, March 18, 2019. 4.33 stars. I managed to read this 870 page SciFi chunkster while my family was on vacation in southern Utah, visiting Zion, Goblin Valley, Dead Horse Point and Arches national and state parks. (There was a lot of downtime while we were driving between different points of interest, and luckily my husband likes to drive, which leaves me with a lot of reading time.)

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Arches National Park

The seared look of the landscape in some of those parks fit in well with the ...more

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Aug 01, 2016 Philip rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hugo-2016, dying-earth, sci-fi, hard-scifi, 2015-releases

3.5ish stars. Really 3 stars but I'll add .5 for pure chutzpah.

Wow. That was definitely an experience. I have to hand it to Neal Stephenson; the amount of research time that went into this must have been insane. I mean, I have no idea how accurate any of the science actually is but, I mean, it sounded good. After the first few info-dumps, however, I just kept thinking to myself, "Yes, I get it! You're smart! I'm convinced!" I'm sure there are people who are into the nitty-gritty details about as 3.5ish stars. Really 3 stars but I'll add .5 for pure chutzpah.

Wow. That was definitely an experience. I have to hand it to Neal Stephenson; the amount of research time that went into this must have been insane. I mean, I have no idea how accurate any of the science actually is but, I mean, it sounded good. After the first few info-dumps, however, I just kept thinking to myself, "Yes, I get it! You're smart! I'm convinced!" I'm sure there are people who are into the nitty-gritty details about astrophysics, robotics, orbital mechanics, genetics, etc. etc. etc., but I'm just not one of those people. Thus, I was occasionally (sometimes more than occasionally) bored out of my mind. Some of it was legitimately interesting, most of it was not.

The story at the heart of the first part of the novel was fascinating and worth telling. The story at the heart of the second part was sporadically entertaining and maybe worth telling.

The scope and ambition is just incredible. The premise is gripping. The vision and innovation is breathtaking. And that's what got me so invested. Whenever the characters were involved, doing whatever they were doing, I was sucked in. It seemed that those moments were so few and far between. Whenever I saw quotation marks while reading or heard the (honestly kind of awful) narrator change voice to portray a character, I would immediately stop zoning out and pay attention again. I get that this isn't necessarily a character driven story but I liked it best when they were involved because, to me, they were the literal embodiments of civilization's reaction to the disastrous implications the story is based on. Also, I have a huge crush on Ivy.

Having said that, I found it hard after starting over upon the commencement of part 2 to really care about the new characters and feel connected to them. It was interesting in the sense that they were descendants of the characters (blue good! red bad!) I knew and loved, but not gripping in an emotional sense to have much investment into what happened to them as long as red was utterly destroyed and humiliated into obliteration and I hope they all die horrible deaths and I hate Julia. I guess that goes for the second story in general. It was wonderful and necessary to experience the outcomes of what culminated at the end of part one. And I can't really say what would have been a better way to give us that experience. But I don't know if the story we were given was the best way.

Hidden beneath all of the science, Stephenson had a lot to say about humankind as a whole. Put under extreme pressure how would we react? Would we be able to come together as a united body for the sake of preserving everything we are? Humankind having been reduced to eight women (arguably the greatest, or luckiest, humans in existence) how would humanity transform based on their decisions and natures? 5000 years in the future, what would be different and what would be the same? It allows us to ponder on how civilization today is different from 5000 years ago.

Back to the audiobook narrator for the first part. Woof. Doob sounds like Kermit. And he's probably the best-voiced male. It was rough.

Overall: ambitious premise, commendable effort, moderately proficient execution.

Also, was it hard for anyone else to buy that (view spoiler) ...more

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Jun 09, 2015 Althea Ann rated it really liked it

Interesting, and extremely entertaining book. (Or, should I say, 'two books'? Because it really is two totally separate novels.)

The first book is a very much on-trend apocalyptic-event novel. An enigmatic something causes the moon to blow apart into 7 huge chunks. Since Neal Stephenson covered it at the talk I saw him give recently, I'm going to say he doesn't think it'd be too much of a spoiler to reveal that those seven chunks are soon predicted to keep banging up against each other in orbit u Interesting, and extremely entertaining book. (Or, should I say, 'two books'? Because it really is two totally separate novels.)

The first book is a very much on-trend apocalyptic-event novel. An enigmatic something causes the moon to blow apart into 7 huge chunks. Since Neal Stephenson covered it at the talk I saw him give recently, I'm going to say he doesn't think it'd be too much of a spoiler to reveal that those seven chunks are soon predicted to keep banging up against each other in orbit until they eventually become a devastating hail of meteorites that are going to transform the Earth into a very, very unpleasant place to be for the foreseeable future.

A great many people decide that the answer to this disaster is SPACE - and a concerted effort is made to get self-sustaining habitats up beyond the Earth's atmosphere ASAP.

I felt that this part of the book might've been very over-optimistic, as far as humanity's ability to pull together in a common cause. It's difficult to call a book that portrays a disaster of the scope that we eventually see here as 'optimistic' in any way - but I still had that feeling.

Amusingly (but weirdly), the main character for two-thirds of the book is Neil DeGrasse Tyson. There's also a character who strongly resembles Elon Musk (others have said Jeff Bezos), and later on, we get to meet bizarro-world Malala Yousafzai. And... is that possibly Hilary Clinton? I don't think so, but...

In the detailed technical description of the continuing innovations that people have to come up with to attempt to survive, the book reminded me of a much, much, much, much better-written version of Andy Weir's 'The Martian.' (Seriously, if you were thinking of reading 'The Martian' read this instead.) Overall, it reminded me much more strongly of Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars.' I liked this book better than Robinson's as well, but it has a very similar theme, and structure, and similar way of drawing characters, etc. If you like one, you'll probably like the other.

As I said, though, the last third is a completely different book. Suddenly, we jump to 5,000 years in the future, where we get to see what has become of humanity. There are some interesting extrapolations - but I also think, some oversimplifications. Mixed in with the predictive theorizing there's an action-oriented plot... which sort-of seems to be here just for the sake of having a plot (another thing that reminded me of Robinson's Mars-terraforming trilogy, actually.) It's still entertaining! ...more

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Apr 29, 2015 Otis Chandler rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi

I love Stephenson - and this was another hit - absolutely loved it. The great thing about a good Stephenson book is it makes you think about the future in new ways, and this book was no exception.

It was really two books, and I certainly didn't see the second one coming. It starts out in modern times and then someone blows up the moon. We don't have time to find out who, as within a few years the fragments of the moon cause the worst asteriod shower earth has ever seen and wipe out all life in e ...more

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Jul 03, 2015 Manuel Antão rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Big-Ass Delta VEE: “Seveneves” by Neal Stephenson

When I read the first 50 pages, my first objection was to could the moon have been broken up into so few large pieces. The verisimilitude hangs on the likelihood of meteor bombardment coming down to what the Agent was, and I'm not aware of anything we currently know of that could break apart the moon like that. I had huge problems with this premise right at the beginning of the book.To ...more

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Nov 03, 2015 Barbara rated it liked it

3.5 stars

As the story opens the moon explodes into a number of big chunks for reasons that are unclear, though most likely it was hit by some space object.

The shock and awe among Earth's human population is soon exacerbated when scientists announce that the moon chunks will inevitably collide with each other, break up into smaller and smaller pieces, and - in two years time - begin to rain down on the Earth. This 'hard rain' will last five thousand years and destroy the entire surface of the ...more

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Apr 25, 2015 Niall Alexander rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

600 pages of concentrated awesomesauce, let down a little by Stephenson's decision to devote so much of the last part to backfilling the 5000 years of future history he skipped absent the underpinnings of character or narrative. Still. His best in a decade, I dare say.

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Jun 04, 2015 Kevin Xu rated it it was ok

Shelves: did-not-finish

I tried so hard to enjoy the story, but I did care for any of the characters as they seemed like 2D rather than 3D, even though I thought the premise/idea was pretty cool.

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Feb 23, 2015 Mona rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Geeky Heroines and Heroes

A Wealth of Technical Details

Let me get this clear up front. I’m a Neal Stephenson fan. Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books. I also loved the Baroque Cycle series. Snow Crash, not so much. That said, I was ambivalent (right up until the end) about whether to give this 3 stars or 4. But the last section did it---four stars it is. My ambivalence is because of the very thing that makes Stephenson’s writing what it is---the plethora of technical details. Cert ...more

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Feb 18, 2015 Jenny (Reading Envy) marked it as on-hold · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewcopy

Reminder to self: no review posting until less than 30 days before release date.

Silly brag: woohoo I totally scored a review copy of this book!

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Feb 05, 2015 Dragana rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, complex-worlbuilding, robots, geeks-rule, kick-ass-heroine

Its been a while since book left me with so many mixed feelings like Seveneves did.

LIKES

* Builds on existing technology. Science fiction novels that use current state of our world as a starting point (or existing science concepts) and then build on it are my favorite kind. For example think of anything by Arthur C. Clarke. In Seveneves, everything scientists and engineers do, sounds realizable.

* Made me care. As a speculative fiction fan, I read a lot of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic books. ...more

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Dec 11, 2014 Liviu rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-sf, 2015_release_read, read_2015

The most expected sf novel of the year for me turned out to be quite frustrating as it clearly could have been awesome and among the best sf of all time if it just started on page 516 or so with what was advertised in the blurb (the seven races terraforming the earth etc); but for 500+ pages the book is a competent mixture of techno-thriller apocalyptic/post apocalyptic sf with some very unrealistic assumptions (something like the hard rain of the novel coming up would induce massive breakdown o ...more

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Glaring plot hole? (Possible minor spoilers)	64	1579	Oct 15, 2020 10:53AM
Dragons & Jetpacks: Seveneves / Overall discussion / Spoilers**	39	95	Oct 08, 2020 08:35PM
Hugo & Nebula Awa...: July 2019 "Seveneves" <Caution! Spoilers May Be Present!>	51	38	Mar 12, 2020 04:22AM
Neal Stephenson G...: SevenEves	6	50	Sep 06, 2019 12:49PM
Fox Book Club: Seveneves \|\| August Readalong	18	394	Sep 01, 2019 02:31AM

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About Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson

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Neal Stephenson is the author of Reamde, Anathem, and the three-volume historical epic the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World), as well as Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

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Dystopias, alien invasions, regenerated dinosaurs, space operas, multiverses, and more, the realm of science fiction takes readers out of this...

Trivia About Seveneves

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Quotes from Seveneves

“THE MOON BLEW UP WITHOUT WARNING AND FOR NO APPARENT reason.” — 33 likes

“But I have to warn you that this is the word—‘politics’—that nerds use whenever they feel impatient about the human realities of an organization.” — 22 likes

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