Seveneves in Beyond Reality

Jul 01, 2015 Wealhtheow rated it liked it

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, queer-characters, pocmaincharacters

The book opens "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason." From then on, humanity is on a desperate race to find ways to survive the coming meteor storm, which will bombard Earth for centuries, leaving the Earth's surface a desolate wasteland. Their primary tactic: create a space station that will hold a few thousand people and sufficient technology and biological samples to recreate Earth's biome after the meteor bombardment. The book follows various scientists and engineers ...more

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Apr 10, 2015 Banner rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This is epic science fiction. The scope of the plot covers 5000 years of human history unlike anything mankind has experienced before. Neal Stephenson, lives up to his reputation as a writer of hard science fiction. I've read 5 or 6 of his books and still can't say why I like him. He is extremely detailed and fact oriented. His style can seem dry at times, but taken overall he writes amazing stories that keep me engaged.

There is a "before and after" aspect to this story, that leaves me a little ...more

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Jul 08, 2015 Tani rated it liked it

Shelves: male-author, sff-2016, sff-award-2016, 2016-novels

I listened to this book in audiobook format. I started it almost a year ago, soon after it came out. At the time, I had just started a new job, and I was commuting about 3 hours a day, so a long audiobook seemed perfect. Unfortunately, I was also leaving the house around 6 in the morning, and let me tell you, I'm not a morning person. Because of the hour, I started to get really sleepy while listening to this book, so I ended up taking an almost year-long break from audiobooks! I think that this I listened to this book in audiobook format. I started it almost a year ago, soon after it came out. At the time, I had just started a new job, and I was commuting about 3 hours a day, so a long audiobook seemed perfect. Unfortunately, I was also leaving the house around 6 in the morning, and let me tell you, I'm not a morning person. Because of the hour, I started to get really sleepy while listening to this book, so I ended up taking an almost year-long break from audiobooks! I think that this definitely had an effect on my view of the book. I spent months looking at on my currently reading list, rolling my eyes and wishing there was an easy way to get it off of there without actually abandoning the book. I will also freely admit that I'm not a big audiobook fan. I keep trying, because I love the idea of being able to do something productive with the time I spend commuting, but listening to books is hard for me. So, yeah, I'd say I'm a bit biased against it.

This is nothing against the readers, I will add. I thought both of the readers did a really good job and that they were easy to listen to and to follow. Actually, part of the reason that I listened to this book at all was because Mary Robinette Kowal is one of them, and I so loved the first book of her Glamourist series.

As ashamed as I am to admit it, I'm beginning to think that 'hard scifi' just isn't really for me. Seveneves reminded me a lot of my recent experience reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. I did like Seveneves better than the Mars books, but it was still nowhere near being a favorite for me. I wish I could pinpoint what exactly the problem is, so that maybe I could find some hard scifi that's a bit more to my tastes.

Part of it, I'm sure, is the tendency to explain ad nauseam. I understand that this is science, but I don't really need to be spoonfed. I'm a bright girl, I swear. I can fill in a few minor gaps without the world falling apart. The explanations may be fascinating on a purely scientific level, but on a story-telling level? They're not always great.

I think another part of it may be the unrelenting reality of the slowness of change. Even within the characters themselves, personal growth is slow or nonexistent. Don't get me wrong. I liked a lot of the characters. Dinah, Ivy, Moira. I liked their ideas and their lives, their hopes and dreams. But after a while, they felt a bit stagnant. The story of survival took precedence over the story of how survival changed them, and I'm more interested in the latter than the former.

I think I was especially frustrated by the final section of the book, where we flash forward 5,000 years, only to find that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I was disappointed to see that these far descendants had made so little progress from their forebears, that they were still so very rooted in the past. Yes, I understand why it might be so, but it felt like a let-down to me.

Anyway, I'm very glad to be finished with the book, and although it wasn't my favorite, I wouldn't say it was wasted time, either. I would definitely like to keep reading Stephenson. I just think I'll be taking a nice long break before I pick up my next book by him. ...more

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