Seveneves

Executive Summary: Another interesting book from Mr. Stephenson, that was somehow a bit too short for me despite its 32 hour duration. This one won't be for everyone, but I'd put it on par with many of his previous books.Audio book: This was my first time listening to a book narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal. She's really excellent. So excellent, that I was pretty disappointed when it changed to Will Damron for Part 3. I'm not sure why they did this. Was Ms. Kowal too busy to finish recording? Was it intentional?That isn't to say Mr. Damron is a bad narrator. I just didn't like him as much as Ms. Kowal, and the change in narration was jarring. If there was any place in the book it was appropriate to change, it was with Part 3, but I think it would have been better suited if they had just stuck with Ms. Kowal.Full ReviewI've been a fan of Mr. Stephenson ever since picking up [b:Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1424472532s/830.jpg 493634] back in college. I haven't read all of his books, but I've enjoyed all but 1 of those that I have.I had no idea what this book was about when I volunteered to review it. Much like most of his work, it's long. The start is a bit slow, and as usual it goes off on tangents and into way more detail than is necessary on things. In some of his books, I've enjoyed those tangents and the excess of detail. In others, less so. This one was somewhere in the middle for me.This is the kind of thing that will turn many readers away early on. I was never bored myself, but I wasn't really engaged in the book until nearly halfway. In a book this long, that will be too much of a commitment for many. However, I suspect if you enjoy the detail and tangents, you'll be engaged much sooner.This book is split into three parts. The first part is essentially a present day disaster story. The second is largely a space opera, and the third is a bit of a post apocalyptic tale.Many authors might have focused on one aspect of this story. Instead of giving us bits of history that help shaped the world of part 3, we live many of the details in parts 1 and 2. For me personally, I would have liked part 1 to be shorter with more time spent on part 3. Part 2 was my favorite of the book, but that may be because I felt despite being a third of the book, part 3 ended too soon. I have questions still. A lot of them. Is Mr. Stephenson planning a sequel that will contain some of these answers? I hope so.This isn't a case of a long book that abruptly ends though. For me the issue is that Mr. Stephenson did such a good job with the world building that I want more. I felt like there wasn't enough. I would have happily sacrificed much of the present day (which I found slower anyways), for more time in the future story with the world he created.Mr. Stephenson doesn't spend all the time on world building either. He develops several interesting characters that are used to make most of the story character-driven. We have a largely female cast, and somewhat diverse background for most of them. Overall, while this isn't my favorite Neal Stephenson book, I really enjoyed it, and I hope we get another book set in the same world that he built in part 3.

Not my favourite Neal Stephenson book. His style has certain features (or flaws, if you want), and here they seemed a bit more pronounced. Also, he has apparently written a book, then decided it needs another book to explain how things got set up like that. The result is massive, and there's plenty of detailed explanations of various things.

The main premise is really interesting though, and I found the first two parts in particular gripping. The beginning of the third part, not so much, but fortunately it picked up speed in the end. All in all worth the rather hefty amount of time reading this book required. For Neal Stephenson fans, but the rest of you should probably start from somewhere else in his bibliography.

A technocrat's pie in the sky. A missed opportunity: Too much technobabble and too little of the truly interesting aspects. Human ingenuity and futurology is cool, but the book is 800+ pages and some of the technology reads like a well-written wikipedia article with no narrative function. That being said, there is enough interesting ideas and characters that make the book worth reading.

A qualified thumbs up for this one from me. It's much much better than his last effort, the dire Reamde, but still doesn't regain the heights of Cryptonomicon or Snow Crash. The main issue for me is what Stephenson chooses to show. I was a bit peeved after reading fifty pages of orbital mechanics to discover that, while all these velocity changes were going on, just over there they were having revolutions and space cannibalism and all sorts that gets glossed over in a paragraph or two. The structure of the book is a bit frustrating as well - there's nothing wrong with the first two thirds, but the final section is begging for more exploration. It throws up all sorts of interesting ideas and developments that don't have time to go anywhere.

That said, it's still a good read. If a giant rock does ever hit the moon, this is probably how it'll go down.

Having just collapsed off the Baroque Cycle is it purely masochistic of me in thinking that this tale was probably more appropriate for a trilogy? Each section leaves you wanting more, a bit more depth, a bit more options explored, a few less strings left dangling. There were so many aspects of the plot that were introduced and then left unexplored, which is not necessarily a negative thing but, as a new Stephenson fan, I would have welcomed (or at least have been desensitized) to a few extra thousand pages...

Unlike Anathem, this one drew me in right away. Unfortunately it didn't keep me. The scope and theme makes for a great story – something happens that destroys the moon. How does humanity react? I felt like things went from entirely too optimistic, to way too pessimistic real fast. While relying on imperfect characters to move the plot along, the story leaned too much on their impact on everyone else in a way I felt didn't hold true to those people. Not as good as Anathem, but some interesting points. This book in 3 parts could easily have been 3 books. I appreciate the storytelling, and Stephenson's desire to tell an entire tale at once, but I would have preferred more “Gravity” and less a series of unfortunately decisions.

Unlike Anathem, this one drew me in right away. Unfortunately it didn't keep me. The scope and theme makes for a great story – something happens that destroys the moon. How does humanity react? I felt like things went from entirely too optimistic, to way too pessimistic real fast. While relying on imperfect characters to move the plot along, the story leaned too much on their impact on everyone else in a way I felt didn't hold true to those people. Not as good as Anathem, but some interesting points. This book in 3 parts could easily have been 3 books. I appreciate the storytelling, and Stephenson's desire to tell an entire tale at once, but I would have preferred more “Gravity” and less a series of unfortunately decisions.

Ah, Neal Stephenson. “Lange lange boeken met ingewikkelde ingewikkelde plots”, zo zit die mens in mijn hoofd. De schuld van Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle en (vooral) Anathem.

Zijn eerste werken, helemaal in de sfeer van cyberpunk (ah, the memories), had ik gelezen toen ze uitkwamen, en Cryptonomicon ook en de drie boeken van de Baroque Cycle ook, maar door door Anathem ben ik niet geraakt. En ik besefte heel lang niet dat de mens van Snow Crash dezelfde mens van System of the World was, zo verschillend vind ik ze geschreven. Net zoals ik het wel ergens intellectueel kan bevatten dat Stephenson de mens van Mongoliad is, maar het niet echt helemaal visceraal besefte.

Het was dan ook met een zekere “ahem ik vraag me af waar ik me deze keer aan kan verwachten” dat ik aan Seveneves begon. Want ah ja, naar goede gewoonte had ik geen korte inhoud, reviews of opinies gelezen.

Bijkt: 't is het einde van de wereld, en wat er daarna gebeurt. Net op een mystieke manier of zo (alhoewel, misschien, zei hij ‘spoiler alert' knipogend), maar op een zo realistisch mogelijke harde SF-manier.

Er vliegt iets in de Maan — een zwart gat, iets anders, maakt niet uit: het gevolg is dat de Maan in zeven grote stukken uiteen barst, en dat zeer snel duidelijk wordt dat de hele mensheid niet zo lang meer heeft. De brokstukken botsen namelijk tegen mekaar, vallen daarbij uiteen in kleinere stukken, die ook tegen mekaar botsen en lang verhaal kort: zeer binnenkort zal er met aan zekerheid grenzende waarschijnlijkheid een situatie ontstaan waarbij er zoveel brokstukken zijn dat het onvermijdelijk is dat er ergens binnen een jaar of twee een kettingsreactie komt waarbij een groot deel van die kleine en grote brokstukken op de Aarde gaan neerregenen, en dat het geen week duurt of de hele aardoppervlakte staat in brand, de zeeën verdampen, einde van dit hoofdstuk leven op Aarde.

Twee jaar om een noodplan uit te werken, met technologie die niet zeer veel verder staat dan wij op dit moment.

Volgen spannende avonturen in probleemoplossen, pragmatiek en politiek. In ruwweg twee helften van gelijke grootte: de race naar de ruimte om zoveel mogelijk mensen te redden, en dan wat er tijdens de cruciale eerste jaren gebeurt met die mensen in de ruimte. En om het helemaal af te maken: ergens dik voorbij de helft van het boek begint een hoofdstuk met het equivalent van “...en vijfduizend jaar later...”.

Wat u dus eigenlijk twee boeken in één geeft: een apocalyptisch verhaal en een genesis-achtig verhaal. Het eerste heeft niet zo heel veel happy ends, het tweede is wat utopischer en open van einde.

Geen groots of fantastisch boek, daarvoor vind ik de genetische woo-woo in het tweede deel té veel woo-woo, en zoals (helaas) vaak bij Stephenson is het idee gelijk veel beter dan hoe het uiteindelijk allemaal afloopt. Maar geen verkeerd boek, hoegenaamd niet. Content het gelezen te hebben. En voor wie bang was van Stephenson na zijn moeilijke boeken: Seveneves leest als een (ruimte)trein.