I’ve never done one of the CC Book Clubs but this book sounds right up my alley. I’ve got it on hold here in San Diego (just got a library card this week) and also put it on ehold as a Kindle download at our old library. Curious which one will come through first.
Welcome, Marilyn! I hope one of your holds comes through soon – although I have to say, Seveneves is a pretty fast moving 860 pages, so if you get it on July 31st, you can just pull an all-nighter. 
Or join in when you finish. Discussion lasts about 10 days. I’ve been late to “class” on an occasion or two.
Finished !!! I took Seveneves to the beach with me. Oh to be there all summer, with a book group–sounds like heaven.
@Marilyn, I can’t remember the last time I read a book so quickly. I’ll probably join the real discussion a couple of days late as I’ll be in a cabin with no internet the last week of July and first weekend of August. Though I might come down the mountain just to talk. 
Here’s a news item from yesterday that you might find interesting (at this point for me, absolutely anything about the International Space Station is interesting): http://europe.newsweek.com/international-space-station-evacuated-due-russian-debris-330460
Also, this is a great article about the ISS, complete with cool photos and videos: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/09/14/the-skies-the-limits/
My son who likes space-related things once insisted that I watch an hour-long video tour of the ISS. I was only mildly interested at the time, but now I understand how a person could really dig this stuff.
I asked him for the link to the tour video, and here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afBm0Dpfj_k
Thanks for link NJtmom-
From Mary’s link -
With all the dramas on earth, missed this news - thanks for posting
Many years ago DH got an award along with the rest of the group that developed the light weight aluminum for the external fuel tanks for the space shuttles. We got to go to a launch with special tours, including a walk through model of the space station. Very interesting!
I just discovered that my new library system has two elibraries - OverDrive and 3M Cloud - and I was able to check out Seveneves from the latter so have just begun reading it. I get a kind of Ray Bradbury feel from the first couple of pages. Now I have to go cancel the other two holds I set up…
I’m hoping to finish Seveneves in time for the discussion. Like Stations Eleven, this book isn’t one I’d chose on my own, so I’m happy to expand my reading horizons.
: And then there’s asteroid mining: http://gizmodo.com/weve-taken-another-big-step-toward-asteroid-mining-1719616539
Welcome to our discussion of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson!
I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s comments. I’m glad I read the book, as I never would have picked it up on my own and it was, for me, an unusual reading experience. I appreciated the imaginative scope of the work and the way the author was so fully and enthusiastically caught up in the world he had created. As for what I didn’t like…well, I’ll express those thoughts in the course of the discussion. Much of it is just personal preference.
I could not find any prepared discussion questions for Seveneves, so here is a home-made list to get us started. A general thank-you to various online reviews that provided ideas, and a particular nod to the SF Book Club at reddit.com and the Seveneves review at Patheos.com, from which I took several of the questions below, some verbatim.
Discussion Questions
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What did you think of the novel’s technical jargon and the lengthy descriptive passages? Did it add to your enjoyment of the story or detract from it?
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The lack of character development in the novel is mentioned in even the most positive reviews. One writer comments, “…we never see any characters who have anything but a passing difficulty in clamping down on the destruction of literally everything of importance to them, in order to accommodate more descriptions of rockets.” Is this a valid criticism, or are complex, three-dimensional characters beside the point in hard science fiction? Is it the norm of this genre to emphasize the technical “how” over the emotional “who”?
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Although not the focus of the story, what did you think of Stephenson’s description of humankind’s final two years on the doomed Earth? Do you think individual nations and politics-as-usual would remain more or less intact, as he has portrayed it? Or might there have been complete and utter economic and social collapse? What would YOU do under those circumstances?
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How realistic is the Cloud Ark concept? Could a ship of human beings really survive for years in space, much less millennia? Are there any requirements for long-term human survival that Stephenson might have neglected to take into account?
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Many readers and reviewers have likened Doc Harris to Neal DeGrasse Tyson, and Stephenson affirms the similarities. Do you think any of the other leading characters were patterned after real-life public figures?
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What do you think happened to the Mars expedition? Why did Stephenson leave this as a loose end?
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How do you envision life among the Seven Eves? What problems might they have encountered? For example, how difficult would gestation and childbirth in zero gravity have been? What would life have been like with a dozen toddlers on the [i[Endurance*?
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What is your opinion of parthenogenesis, the means by which the women initially repopulate the world? Is Moira’s plan to design seven races with specific traits (and with men) scientifically sound or does Stephenson veer into fantasy at this point?
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Why did the descendants of the Seven Eves avoid interbreeding to such an extreme degree? How could a strict adherence to seven distinct racial lines have been maintained in the first few generations on Cleft? From an ethical standpoint, why are second and third generations constrained by the ideologies of their Eve? If every Eve gets to decide her offspring’s traits, shouldn’t their daughters be allowed the same privilege?
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Neal Stephenson has been accused of “accidental” racism in Parts 1 and 2 (stereotypical depictions of certain nationalities) and overt racism in Part 3 (where, as one reviewer wrote, “every single character has their actions and choices described in the context of their race”). Others hold an opposing view, i.e, Stephenson’s “racism” is deliberate social commentary on the fact that humans will always find a way to create “us” and “them.” Which view resonates more with you?
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What did you think of the physical and linguistic evolution that took place among the Spacers, the Diggers and the Pingers? Not enough change over the course of 5,000 years, or too much?
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Parts 1 and 2 have a different style, tone and (of course) cast of characters than Part 3. Which section did you prefer and why?
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In reading the novel, did you think Neal Stephenson was influenced by, or subtly acknowledging, other great Science Fiction authors? (For example, Sonar Taxlaw is reminiscent of the Book People at the end of Farenheit 451.)
(For the original source of some of the above questions, as well as some lively discussion from SF fans, go to http://www.reddit.com/r/SF_Book_Club/comments/38ayvh/spoilers_racism_is_seven eves/ and http://www.patheos.com/blogs/imortal/2015/07/08/neal-stephensons-seveneves-thoughts-on-an-impact-event/)
I’m on a roll after writing out the above questions, so here are a few initial thoughts.
My answer to discussion questions #1 and #2 overlap. The science part of this science fiction novel was way over my head, I admit it freely. It was virtually impossible for me to glean anything valuable from the tech passages. On the “best books” thread, cartera45 wrote:
That’s how it was for me, except that I’m not sure anything stuck. 
But I read every word and did reap some enjoyment from the book–in spite of the tech talk, not because of it. I felt that the long technical passages took up valuable space at the expense of character development, without offering any thematic connection to the story. I found a review that does a good job of explaining what I mean:
Wow, I have so much to say in response to a lot of these questions that I don’t know where to start.
I am definitely one reader who let the technical information “wash over me.” I didn’t understand most of it, but I did enjoy it!
What I liked about the tech content of the book was Stephenson’s evident knowledgeability (especially in the long first part of the book – the second part seemed more far-fetched) and enthusiasm for “all things space,” combined with his ability to communicate this in a manner accessible to the general reader. One of my sons is into this stuff, but I was never really able to understand the fascination before.
Ordinarily, I like books with plenty of character development, but I don’t think its lack mattered in this case.
I must say that I liked the mood of suspense that Stephenson established right from the very first sentence. I felt that I was practically holding my breath for hundreds of pages!
I am out of town at a wedding and won’t be home until mid week. I’ll try to keep up, but won’t have a lot of posting time.
Overall I liked the book, but felt there were flaws. The technical talk did get long at times. Understanding, or not understanding, the language didn’t bother me. It made sense in the context of the story, although l would have been okay with less. I found myself reading through some of the tech talk passages quickly, longing to get to more people talk.
I let the technical information wash over me also. However, kudos to Stephenson because in the long run I actually grasped most of what he imparted. I’d read though pages of an info-dump that I didn’t think I got. Later, when the characters reappeared, I realized that I had context for the setting and actions. I’m not sure I would have without all the technical info though it did get long.
By the way, I ran across this: http://gizmodo.com/heres-how-space-megastructures-will-look-according-to-1705593580
The only technical info that frustrated me was the stuff about the imagined “Eye” in the second part of the book. I just couldn’t visualize what Stephenson was talking about, and the one illustration was not helpful.
Greetings, fellow earthlings I thought this was just about a perfect summer reading choice. I wish Stephenson had written more–and extended part II. Maybe he will in a sequel.
I greatly appreciated the technical detail. One reason I don’t read much science fiction is that I have a hard time wondering if story scenarios are reasonable. I don’t want to have huge nagging questions about the real life science and laws of nature creating doubt over and over, making me wonder if an action could really happen (although I’m totally willing to do so for Star Trek ). For example, I listened to another SciFi novel recently, The Book of Strange New Things in which people from earth are sent to a new planet somewhere in distant space where they encounter new species of human-like (kind of, sort of) beings. No mention of how they make this space leap, no reasonable explanation of how medicines (antibiotics/insulin) provided to aliens could work, etc. It drove me nuts, taking away from the story as a whole. Stephenson’s rich technical detail added much to the book, imo, helping me suspend my doubt about the consequences of the moon exploding, or the possibilities of intercepting an asteroid, or creating a boost strong enough to move the space station to a higher orbital.
The character development wasn’t particularly strong, but in this book I didn’t miss it too much with all the suspenseful action. I was too busy turning pages to see what was going to happen!