Seveneves

Nice start, ok mid, but the ending was so bad I have a hard time putting it to words. For a book that had such a good idea for a beginning, I have no idea why it switched directions at the end to a different type of book. It went from a Good/OK Sifi book to a run of the mill teen dystopian book. The ending could have been made into a second book possibly saving both (there are some nice ideas for a young adult novel).

Epic, sweeping science fiction

this could have easily been two books, and the first one of them would have gotten a five star rating from me. The initial story is gripping and well-paced, with characters we grow to like, but the “epilogue” tells a completely different story, with new and weaker characters that goes on for two thirds of the book.

Though I liked the book overall, I felt that the second half was poorly developed. There were extensive descriptions of the new technology, but very little character and plot development. I mean, the plot for the second half can be summarized in one or two sentences—that's how little actually happened.

Awesome and enormous book. Good to know a bit of orbital mechanics before starting it, cause it plays a big role.

Seveneves was a book of two halves. The first dealt with a fantastical situation in a very personal way and with such detail that each and every plot turn felt realistic and believable. Up until the second part I was convinced this was going to be a five star book but unfortunately the second part went too far on the detail while creating a whole new world, sucking out all of the momentum the first half had created. Saying that, it was interesting to see the author answer the questions that most similar books would leave to your imagination. All in all this is a great, if somewhat flawed, book.

This book scared me at first when it first showed up in the mail. It was large and imposing. I read like 6 other books before I steeled the nerve to read this and I'm glad I did.

It was amazing.

I love how technical and hard science fiction, Neal Stephenson goes with this. I could go on and on about this book but I would rather leave you to discover it on your own.

My best attempt at not spoiling things but still giving you something to go on would be that the first 2/3s of this book are almost a ‘The Martian'-esque (Andy Weirs' novel) following a group of people and how they deal with this global issue. The last 1/3 of the book moves into a more scifi/fantasy area that really allows brings a sense of closure to the nail biting first half of the book.

If you have the time and patience to read this long but worth-it book; do it.

igen nagyvonalúan 77%-nál, mondat közepén hajítottam a sarokba a sevenevest. az utolsó tíz százalékon öt nap alatt rágtam át magam. az utolsó fejezetig még úgy ahogy elment a történet, de ez már egyszerűen kibírhatatlan. tényleg a tűréshatáromon túl feszegettem a húrjaimat.

először is a könyvet olvasni olyan, mint sajtreszelővel rejszolni mintha valami szórakoztató egyetemi előadáson ülne az ember. szórakoztató, de mégiscsak előadás. ez nem regény, ez tankönyv. és ezért hullajtottam végül porba a fejét, mert az utolsó etapban már nem kap akkora hangsúlyt a tudomány, a világépítés viszont nem erőssége a hapsinak. az elmúlt pár napban már rendesen altatóként funkcionált a könyv kézbevétele, és teljesen nyomorba is döntötte az olvasási kedvemet.
(szerintem egyébként a szerkesztő is az utolsó fejezetnél dobta be a törölközőt, mert egyre több infóismétlésbe botlottam.)

másodszor is arra a megállapításra jutottam, hogy ez a keményvonalas sci-fi nem az én műfajom. jobban érdekel a sztori, a karakterek és a párbeszédek, mint a tudomány. nem azt mondom, hogy nem volt érdekes, de egy idő után már határozott mansplaining érzés töltött el minden oldalakon át tartó okfejtésnél. nyilván én nem vagyok hozzászokva ehhez a stílushoz, de rohadtul zavart.
szóval itt nem a történet a lényeg, viszont ez a nyolcszáznyolcvan oldalba sűrített tömény infódömping kurva fárasztó. pláne úgy, hogy végre történne valami érdekes, de az író úr fölteszi a kezét, hogy álljunk meg egy szóra (vagy ötezerre) és lássuk, ez az anyacsavar mire is jó, ki tekerte be, és egyébként is mi az anyacsavarok általános eredettörténete, hogyan és mi végre pattant ki az ember mint faj agyából az anyacsavar ötlete és miért hasznos ez minekünk itt a végtelen űrben, ahol ugyebár a súlytalanság állapotában szinte minden másképp működik, ezért jól meg kell fontolni, hogy az ember mint faj agyából kipattant anyacsavar, úgy is mint ötlet, megfelelő célt szolgál-e a történet fogaskerekében.

jó, most kicsit gúnyt űztem belőle, de mivel az utóbbi időben kifejezetten sok olyan regény került a kezembe, ahol leginkább is csak a tőmondatokig jutott az író a fogalmazás ördögtől származó bugyraiban, ezért szinte jólesett torgyáni körmondatokat olvasnom. kisebb problémám azzal akadt, hogy ezek a körmondatok még hosszasabb körgondolatokká alakultak és elég sokszor már abban sem voltam biztos, merre vagyok arccal.

viszont ha valaki otthon van a csillagászatban és az asztrofizikában, és sokkal jobban érdekli a tudományos háttér, mint a szereplők sorsa, akkor nyert ügye van és ez a seveneves neki való.

magyarul talán kicsit könnyebb olvasmány lett volna, de most már mindegy.
mellesleg pont ma olvastam egy rendkívül érdekes írást a bookriotön, ami végleg rádöbbentett, hogy ez tényleg nem az én könyvem, soha nem is volt az és valószínűleg nem is lesz.

I just couldn't do it. So many pages of extraneous details. This is why I don't like sci fi. I made it to page 400 and the book was due and while I'm curious how it ends, I'm not THAT curious.

Excellent hard science fiction story

An epic hard sci-fi!

Long and dense, but a fascinating level of scientific detail. I really enjoyed the thought-provoking ideas about what future evolution of humanity could be like under post-apocalyptic conditions. Well worth the effort.

Truly an amazing book!

I read this after Adam Savage and the crew at Tested.com recommended it, and boy was it worth it.
If you like technical talk, if you loved The Martian, go read this!

My only problem with this book was that I felt the third part could've been a separate book, a sequel if you may.
But the first two parts of the novel will make you laugh and cry, feel anxious and tense as never before, and you will hate some of the characters even more than Umbridge (trust me on this).

Definitely going to read more Neal Stephenson books after this one!

Truly an amazing book!

I read this after Adam Savage and the crew at Tested.com recommended it, and boy was it worth it.
If you like technical talk, if you loved The Martian, go read this!

My only problem with this book was that I felt the third part could've been a separate book, a sequel if you may.
But the first two parts of the novel will make you laugh and cry, feel anxious and tense as never before, and you will hate some of the characters even more than Umbridge (trust me on this).

Definitely going to read more Neal Stephenson books after this one!

Space birds & the bees
a little hard to swallow
rest in pieces, moon.

I've wanted to read some Neal Stephenson for a while and was recommended this book by a friend.

I'm afraid I found the 880 page Seveneves very hard work, with huge swaths of information dumping, pages of pointless description and dull characters. Towards the middle, I must admit I was ready to bail out.

I hate to abandon books, so I knuckled down and soldiered on and it did improve a lot towards the finish line.

A lot of people have raved about this novel and I know it's me that's wrong. There's an excellent book (or even a trilogy) in there somewhere, it just really needed an editor to whip it into shape.

Fantastic story. Loved it.

Mmm, ok - I couldn't finish this book. It was like a large-scale The Martian (i.e. how do we solve this big problem with science), but without any of the humor or a character that I found compelling. (What I loved about The Martian was the zany first person irreverent narrator)

I was bored, skimming ahead hoping it would get more interesting... and I just gave up. Starting to think I need to give up on reading Stephenson (I loved Crytponomicon but can't get through any of his other works.)

I really enjoyed this book. The first 2/3 were fantastic and the last third was good as well although the change in the narrative took me a little while to get used to.

Many people have told me to read books by Stephenson, but I never had. My co-worker was reading this one so I took it as my introductory work. I was not disappointed. I really loved the characters in the first two parts and just how believable their reactions to the catastrophe were, even right up to the end, where laws were not so important anymore. The part where the people on the surface were killed was just stunning. I appreciate the grandiose future that he portrayed in the third part, but I did not find it as gripping as the other parts. I thought that in many ways more would have changed in 5000 years, language would have diverged further, more of the “epic” would have been forgotten due to loss of recordings or ability to read them.

“At the end it is just a Neal Stephenson book”

And that's it.

Except this one is a bit different. For once, I enjoy most of the writing and never felt this “why is it written like this” feeling. But on the other hand this book very much lacked a good editor because there are a lot of parts where rambling goes on for 10 or more pages that has absolutely nothing to do with the story, or any characters or pretty much anything. Something that could be written in 2 pages.

The other, and usual, complain is the ending. This is pretty much expected that a book by him just ends so abruptly that it feels like ran out of ideas and therefore a proper ending. It feels rushed, like in three pages we are done, while other things take 50 pages to explain.

Still, this is the first book by him where I can give four stars without feeling bad, because even though with all my complaining I really enjoyed it.

This may be the best book Neal Stephenson has written. He could easily expand this with at least 2 more books. (that's not really a spoiler, is it?) However, it is a complete story already. Making this into a trilogy would probably be disappointing because he covered the timespan from the most interesting viewpoint.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com.

This is the first Neal Stephenson book I actually liked, though it did take me a while to get into it. I think I fell in love around the 40% mark and read the remaining 500 pages in the space of 3 days. In fact I was reading it on a train at one point and literally had to put the book away because otherwise I would not have wanted to get off the train.

The first thing I love about this book is the very first line: “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason“. At no point in this 900 page book do we find out why the moon blew up, it just did. And I love that because why the moon blew up isn't the important thing. Seveneves is all about what happened next because the moon blew up.

If that first sentence is enough to make you want to read this book, stop reading this review right now. Seveneves is the type of book where its best going in knowing as little as possible. Go buy the book and come back after you've finished it.

The first 60% of Seveneves takes place directly after the break up of the moon. We see scientists realise that the huge chunks of rock that were previously the moon are going to start breaking up and falling to earth – which the scientists refer to as hard rain – causing the atmosphere to burn and making the earth uninhabitable for thousands of years.

In a way the first part of Seveneves is very similar to The Martian. But instead of Mark Watney you have the entire human race trying to figure out a way to not die. The result is a colony of the smartest people on tiny ships surrounding the International Space Station. We see everything these people go through trying to get to a safe place in which they can start to rebuild the human race.

I don't want to give away any spoilers for the second part of the book but it takes place 5000 years after the moon's breakup and deals with the consequences of the decisions made by the original members of the mission.

I cannot say this enough, I loved this book. I love that we get to see the consequences of one characters action thousands of years later. I love that this whole world feels so fleshed out. I love the artwork made for the second part. I love that this is about evolution and natural selection and genetics. But above all, even with all the super technical sciency stuff, I love that this book is primarly about people and the choices they make

A terrific idea, but as usual with Neal Stephenson, lots of nerdish technical details, that for me (this time) got in the way of the story. The first two parts of the book were, I felt, too long, and the third too short, but, hey, you can't please everyone.

The ending of the book leaves it open for a continuation. I hope so.

This was the best book I have read in years! Stephenson's vision of what the near future would be like in the face of apocalypse is more realistic and well thought-out than any other apocalypse type book I have read by far (and I've read a few).
Within this grand view of the world he portrays, piles of imaginative concepts and inventions are thrown in, from developments in robotics to human genetic modification. These little side-inventions contribute largely to how realistic this world feels.
The characters that drive this story are very well-developed, in some cases so much so that their traits take a life of their own. There is a refreshing number of strong and deep female characters, and for any fans of Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson, there is a character that seems like an amalgamation of those two as well.
To read a book that was this well-researched and imaginative really forces the reader to push the boundaries of their own imagination, and in many ways, that is the whole purpose of fiction. Despite the large size of this book, I was upset when it ended. I just wanted to know every detail of the world the author created and I never wanted the joy of reading such a creative work to end.