Seveneves - August CC Book Club Selection

Parent Cafe
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PlantMom, I really liked The Book of Strange New Things. Its science may have been wobbly, but I thought the imagined psychology of the transplanted Earth people was terrifically well done, and the aliens plausible. I found that book to be quite haunting and thought-provoking. It seemed much, much “realer” to me than another book with a somewhat similar theme, The Sparrow.

My rankings of recent sci-fi I’ve read:

The Book of Strange New Things – five stars

  • Seveneves* – four stars
    The Sparrow – barely three stars
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PlantMom: I’m planning to read Stephenson’s Reamde - though not jumping into it right away. You might be interested: it’s longer than Seveneves. I particularly like this review ;): http://www.comiccrits.blogspot.com/2011/12/reamde-by-neal-stephenson.html

Here’s John’s Comic Crits review of Seveneves: http://www.comiccrits.blogspot.com/2015/07/seveneves-by-neal-stephenson.html

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I really enjoyed the book; used to read tons of sci fi when I was young but not so much lately.

There was too much technical information for me and it did detract somewhat although I tended to skim past it. I generally use a suspension of disbelief with sci fi; same with time travel etc. books. At some point you just have to accept the premises, logical or not, even if it does veer into fantasy. So I didn’t need all the supporting language. And at times it seemed like the technicalities got in the way of the plot. It was kind of amusing that there were immense descriptions of everything rocket-y, but the genetic adaptions were almost presented as magic - or did I miss 50 pages of genetic discussion along the way? It’s possible!

I actually thought there was a fair amount of character development with at least the main characters. I did start getting a feel for their personalities, but would have loved to learn more about them. The minor characters just seemed to glide by as sketches. And the writing of relationships often seemed awkward.

I very much liked parts 1 and 2, part 3 not so much. There was a lot of abrupt plot/time/space changes that made it hard to get into the flow between sections. I would have liked to learn more about what happened during the 5000 year gap; there were bits and pieces that started appearing but nothing cohesive. Part 3 really could have been a totally separate book. I was very surprised that the book ended where it did; I had expected several more chapters to provide some closure.

On the genetic changes, I guess I can buy into the Eve descendents with differing personalities and looks. Also the caveman. But Aquaman was a bit hard to accept, especially since I didn’t get the impression there were genetic specialists on the sub, or even what else was in the deep trenches.

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NJTM–I agree that The Book of Strange New Things was haunting, and the character development, at least of the main two characters, more extensive than most in Seveneves. I did enjoy it too! But…the missing science in it, reflected down to the characters’ lack of curiosity about alien life forms annoyed the heck out of me! I was listening to this while finishing up the last third of our book. Couldn’t help but compare!

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Interesting—and opposing—perspectives. I wonder there is a left brain/right brain link to how we respond to the technical details in a book like Seveneves. My approach is more like Marilyn’s. Suspension of disbelief is a necessity for me because I don’t have the science or technological background to question…well…anything. When I started the book, which is set more or less in the present day, I initially wondered about some of the technology–“Wait. What? Can we actually do that?” (All the amazing things Dinah’s robots do, for example.) But very soon, Stephenson’s explanations were way over my head, and I slipped right into the “Okay, whatever you say” mode.

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Yes… “a feel for their personalities” – but not much more than that (for me). I felt like we got teased: There were moments that stood out (the relationship between Dinah and her father, the affectionate final texting between Ivy and her fiancé, the protective relationship between Beled and Kath Two), but those glimmers were brief and soon gave way to flivvers and varps.

I agree that the relationships were awkward, with the possible exception of Dinah and Ivy—I liked the way that friendship was portrayed. The Dinah-Rhys relationship never quite clicked for me and—here’s where my suspension of disbelief faltered—what was with all their sex in zero gee? “It was just automatic. And it was tremendous” (p. 87).

Really? A little research suggests that “automatic” and “tremendous” are about the last two adjectives that would apply:
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-will-sex-in-space-be-like-2015-6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_space

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I agree with Marilyn–I liked parts 1 and 2 best. I had a sense of the characters and their motivations in the first parts, and could relate to their story–how WOULD the world react if the moon disappeared, if we knew our world was ending, if we had to leave everything behind? How would people manage and get along in space for thousands of years? I couldn’t follow all the technical stuff, but I wanted to understand it, because it helped illuminate the social and moral issues that arose. The story made me care about those people.

5,000 years later, not so much. The characters in the third part were mostly described by reference to their race and Eve history and physical characteristics. The men were easy to mix up. Given the detailed goodbyes of Dinah and Rufus and Ivy and Cal early on, I was pretty sure the descendants of Rufus and Cal were going to show up on New Earth, so there wasn’t much dramatic tension. I couldn’t visualize the Eye or the rest of it, but it didn’t seem to matter to the plot, really, so it just dragged for me. I did like the naming of characters for volumes of Britannica, however. I’ve got a set right here, and Volume 17 really is Sonar-Tax Law, Volume 4 Ceylon-Congreve.

I’m glad I managed to finish, almost in time! Since I don’t usually read science fiction, and dislike long books with few chapter separations, I wouldn’t ever have picked this up on my own, so I’m glad to have read it.

And thanks, Mary13, for researching the important topic of sex in space! :slight_smile: I wondered about that, too.

I don’t think about this stuff often. But by chance our local NPR station played a snippet of conversation with the ISS as filler on Friday, and it gave me the chills. I just kept imagining Dinah and Ivy up there.

If you use Twitter, Scott Kelly has been tweeting some awesome photos from the International Space Station. Apparently he had a TweetChat Saturday afternoon–we could have asked him questions! (The President did.)
@StationCDRKelly

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I was also completely befuddled by the technical descriptions of the various forms of transport, etc., and found myself desperate for illustrations of things I couldn’t begin to conceptualize based on the author’s endless verbiage. This was truly a book where a few pictures would have avoided the need for thousands of words! I felt the same way about The Martian, by the way, and in both cases I look forward to movie versions where I can actually see what the heck is going on. (I’m waiting for someone to post that the technology descriptions were all completely clear and thoroughly fascinating–I think I’ll be waiting quite a while.)

For the above reason, and because of what I consider to be egregiously poor character development, I can’t recommend Seveneves, which I would characterize as a book written with all brain and no heart. I do think the premise was fascinating and thought provoking, and I’d love to see what a better writer could have done with it–David Mitchell comes to mind–or what a rigorously edited version would have looked like. It seems that after they achieve a certain level of success, no one dares edit some authors, and their work is the poorer for it.

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One of the things I liked best about the book was the tiny robots. I assume that something close to the robotic technology described in the book exists today. It’s certainly something I’d never imagined! So intriguing…

I thought the description of the little robots swarming over the asteroid and mining the ice was amazingly…er…cool! :slight_smile: I must admit, however, that the whirling-chain-of-tiny-robots-as-weapon, in the far-future part of the book, seemed almost a little silly.

Even with my scanty knowledge of science, the following questions occurred to me about the world of the far future:

  • What had people done, during those 5000 years, about hydrocarbons? Stephenson envisioned a highly technological future society that I thought seemed unlikely without a source for hydrocarbons. For example, where did they get the oil for lubrication of moving parts? Were all their fuels (other than solar, or whatever), as well as lubricants, derived from plant sources?? What about plastics, which are manufactured from complex hydrocarbons?
  • What about rare earth metals? Stephenson envisioned a far-future with a lot of same technological gadgets we have today, but even today there are supply issues related to the rare earth elements required by our technology.
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Wonderful. I had hoped it was true. That’s the kind of well-researched minutiae I can appreciate.

Agree on all counts!

That’s one of those things that would be a fun special effect in a movie version—mini robot chain mail might play well in Terminator V. I thought the final combat sequence of Seveneves moved slowly. I wasn’t invested enough in the characters to feel any suspense about their respective fates and I had a little trouble keeping straight who was pursuing whom and why.

Would you think less of me if I told you I had to look up “hydrocarbons”? :slight_smile: Maybe our heroes ran across a supply in interstellar space: http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-find-petroleum-space-2012-11

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I’m reading Part 3 right now. I am a huge sci-fi fan as well as an engineer, but I have to agree that his technological descriptions are really hard to follow. I wish he’d had a better editor, along with an illustrator.

I do like any book with a section that starts, “Five thousand years later…” but I agree with others that a couple of intermediate steps would have been helpful.

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I like Part 3. Truthfully, the book has to end 5000 years later, as earth repopulates. Otherwise you’re left hanging. However, I’m grateful that Stephenson does not include a play-by-play of those interim years. If anything Part 3 makes me think less about the technology and more about that decision to rescue Julia and Aida. Trouble at the time and trouble throughout millennia. On the other hand, does the human race need the some sort of push-pull conflict? Aida makes certain that happens with her genetic requests. We have a case here of “The more things change, the more they stay the same?”

For what it’s worth, I’d rather have stayed on earth and given it up when the Hard Rain starts. I decided that early on and never understood Julia’s last minute flight to Izzy (except that it remains in character for her). And what the heck, she shot Pete Starling, right?

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I really dislike books with few chapters. It is difficult to find a stopping point. I never liked Julia. I can’t believe that she went up in the rocket instead of sending her daughter.

I got hung up in the genetics part of it. There were so few “eves” that genetic diversity would have been important, wouldn’t it have?

Do you really think that there would have been 4 billion people up in space? That seems unrealistic, given limitations on resources.

I too glazed over the long scientific descriptions. I do wish he would have included a glossary of terms so I could look back to help remember what certain terms were.

I am glad I read it. I would read a sequel. I would like to know more about the Pingers story and the Diggers story. I liked Station Eleven so much more.

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Thanks for that link about finding petroleum in space, Mary. “Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a waste-product of dying stars”…who’d a thunk?

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I just returned from a weekend away at a wedding. One of my friends over the weekend said that it would be so great if earth had two moons and I said it would just be one more to blow up. The people near me looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

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Lol, cartera!

NJTM, that’s an interesting question about hydrocarbons. I think what you’re looking is a source of carbon available to those stranded up in space. Once there’s a sufficient source of the element, enough to be converted to CO2, plants would be able to take single carbon molecules of carbon dioxide and “fix” the carbons into usable chains of carbon based oils, sugars, etc. I found this article about carbon availability in our solar system: http://discovermagazine.com/1996/apr/carboncapitaloft741

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^Interesting, Plantmom. But would it be possible to grow enough plants to feed four billion people (good point about the dubiousness of that number, silverlady!) while at the same time manufacturing sufficient hydrocarbons to meet tech needs? And then there’s the fact that plants need a lot of water, in addition to CO2.

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Julia was awful. But to give the devil her due, since Julia’s daughter had Down Syndrome, it might have been impossible to send her off on her own, or even under the care of Pete Starling.

I’m with you – during the cringeworthy description of Tekla’s daily routine of deflating and removing her foley catheter and defecating into a plastic bag (p. 86), I wrote in the margin, “I’d rather die in the Hard Rain, thank you.”

Re Pete Starling, if I understood the scene correctly, he was killed suddenly by a small bolide, as Dinah was trying to help him out of the capsule. Julia’s crime in that instance was that she saw the gory disaster, panicked, and in fear for her own life, closed the hatch on the dead Pete and the live Dinah (p. 336).

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NJTM, you’re right. Clearly, even with the pages filled with technical detail, I took some great leaps of faith to believe in this “realistic” scifi! To support billions in space with food and materials, not only would you need a lot of plants, water, CO2, and ample light, but you’d have to have soil or water tanks for hydroponics, and more important, gravity! I did a quick search about the study of plant growth in space, and it seems as if this is the state of the matter right now: http://earthzine.org/2014/08/26/growing-algae-in-space-could-be-like-recycling-on-earth/

If we’ll be depending on spirulina as a food source in the near future, I foresee big trouble. Apparently the human body can digest only about 100g per day, because higher quantities cause gout :frowning:

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I know that Starling gets hit by a small bolide while Dinah tries to move him to safety. However, Dinah already notes that the bloody Starling’s shoulder holster has no gun. Julia already has it and later she makes the following remarks while talking to Spencer re Tekla:

I figured it meant that she’d fired the gun already. Maybe it just means I don’t trust her not to have fired it; she had it and Starling didn’t - can’t think of any good reason for that.