Seveneves

A Novel

De: Neal Stephenson

Narrado por: Mary Robinette Kowal, Will Damron

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic - a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world were ending?

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain....

Five thousand years later, their progeny - seven distinct races now three billion strong - embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown...to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

©2015 Neal Stephenson (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

HORRIBLE narration by Mary Robinette Kowal

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I think I would tell most people to stay away from this book. Not necessarily because it was bad (though it could have been seriously edited down), but because it wasn't worth the 30+ hours of time invested. I usually love sci-fi and as a scientist I especially like stories that are mostly true to scientific scrutiny (the martian for example), but the first 2/3 of the book just dragged on for me. This was partially because of the weird pacing (he would spend endless pages on the smallest of details and then skip forward in time weeks or months without warning) but mostly because of how much I hated the narration of Mary Robinette Kowal. By making every voice sound like a cartoonish caricature of racial identification she made me literally roll my eyes every time she tried to use an accent. Maybe this would have worked if she was reading a book to toddlers but I found it incredibly distracting and annoying. By the time I got to part 3 which is read by Will Damron I had nearly forgotten what a good narrator sounds like. Part 3 was a breath of fresh air and somewhat justified the rest of the book but I wish I could have gotten there without having to spend 20 hours hoping the book would get better. Overall I would pass.

Would you be willing to try another one of Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron ’s performances?

I will avoid Mary Robinette Kowal like the plague, but Will Damron is fine

Was Seveneves worth the listening time?

no

It was OK, but not his best work by far.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

For a hard core fan, sure but otherwise no.

Would you recommend Seveneves to your friends? Why or why not?

Not to introduce them to Stephenson

What three words best describe Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron ’s voice?

Audible. Clear. Paced
I admit I prefer men voices, or more specifically, lower register voices for narrative. This is exacerbated when women narrators try to drop in pitch for male dialog..its just never seems to sound anything other than a girl trying to fool the school shes the Dad. I'd rather they just read in normal timbre.

Any additional comments?

First off, one needs to keep in mind that is is an impressive and commendable undertaking and achievement. I may not have liked it as much as others, but I am still in awe of the mans imagination and ability to just write, in such volume.The third book is the only one where you see flashes of Stephenson's gift. The first two books have interesting hard spec fic constructs but not much else I found. The story was predictable, with each plot twist either baldly obvious or telegraphed from many paragraphs away; which is puzzling because Stephenson is a master at weaving a complex plot, with many things hidden in plain sight. The third book was olnt a bit better, but it also had some of the manic energy that gleefully (to me anyway) infects his writing. Had the novel ended at book 2, I can't say I would have looked to a sequel. But book three turned that around somewhat. Remember just a humble reader here: criticism is easy, doing is hard. If you haven't read Stephenson, do so, just don't start here. If you want a recommendation , I was introduced to him in Cryptonomicon, i was hooked within 25 pages.

Thin Plot—Thinner Story—World-Building Exercise

I like Neal Stevenson as much as the next guy and more than most. My introduction to his fiction came relatively late. I have long been a fan of Snow Crash but did not come to appreciate his other efforts until recently. And so it was with great anticipation with which I approached his new novel Seveneves, which was to be the first new Neal Stevenson release to occur while I considered myself a true fan.

Neal Stevenson here proves that his narrative voice is capable of wide variance from one novel to the next; seeming to be a different author. In Snow Crash he is a gonzo genre-busting cyberpunk virtual reality hacker. In The Diamond Age he morphs into a William Gibsonesque near-future cautionary tale teller. For multi-volume series The Baroque Cycle he explores the very nature of the scientific method as a plot device—quite successfully, I might add. In Anathem he becomes an SF religious allegorist reminiscent of Walter Miller Jr. In Cryptonomicon he deftly weaves code-breaking with World War II heroics. For Reamde he becomes a top-shelf political techno-thriller novelist. And now in Seveneves, he writes a throwback Hard Science Fiction™ global disaster novel told in the clear—some may say non-existent—style of Isaac Asimov. If the name Neal Stevenson did not appear on the covers of all these titles one would be hard pressed to determine that all were written be the same author. There is one giveaway. The common element in all Stevenson’s work is his endearing tendency toward Attention Surplus Disorder, a label given to one of the characters in Anathem, but which aptly describes his obsessive-compulsive attention to detail.

This book has a plethora of interesting forays into world-building. First is a near future world where humanity has become a space-dwelling race. The second is a post-apocalyptic space-faring group of survivors. Next is the group of their descendants engaging in re-terraforming earth. The problem for me is that in each section the world –building situation takes precedence over the story. This novel suffers from the implausibility of the situations the humans are dealing with. It seems that the quirks of our culture are still felt five millennia in the future and the races established by the survivors still remain distinct despite living in close quarters. The novel is unrealistically told as if nothing of historical importance occurs in the five thousand years between the major sections. This implausibility makes it impossible for the listener to engage with the characters who are sorely impacted by their dire circumstances; circumstances which just don’t have a strong enough connection with reality, or even to plausibility, to allow the reader to make an empathic connection with the characters. As a result the book seems to be a collection of outlines of pre and post-apocalyptic scenarios strung together with a few key characters who are mere place-holders occupying a necessary slot in the framework

It took me a few hours to warm up to the voice of Mary Robinette Kowal. And, though I grew to appreciate her narration because she tries to give each character a voice, I still cringe sometime when she reads some of the male characters as if they were surfer dudes. To her credit, she is, for the most part, not intrusive and lets the words tell the story. The second half of Seveneves is narrated by Will Damron, who delivers the text in straightforward fashion assiduously avoiding undue emotional inflection or any hint of drama. The two narrators are well matched in that they read clearly and with a steady pace. I prefer Mary Robinette Kowal since she adds a much needed element of the dramatic to her performance that Will Damron seems to shun.

Seveneves stems from a long line of Sc-Fi planetary-scale disaster novels. Other noteworthy examples in this sub-genre are:
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE bu Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer
THE WANDERER by Fritz Leiber
LUCIFER’S HAMMER by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Way too drawn out

This could have been a descent story if it was to about half as long. Way to drawn out in minuscule detail.

Interesting story

It’s an interesting take on an apocalyptic future and how the human race got there, but holy crap there was sooooo much unnecessary math! I love a good explanation of science and physics, especially when relevant to some action scenes, but it was so disruptive and long winded.

Great Start Then Lost Interest

The first two sections of the book are different prospective of doomsday. A great different genre approach. The last section went too far in depth for an audiobook. Definitely a good read.

It's not the destination, it's the journey.

This is pure Stephenson. As with all his novels, it's about the journey, not the destination. Not a great ending, but the journey there is absolutely fascinating.

The book is extremely technical and mathematically geeky. I wouldn't recommend it for a first Stephenson read. But if you're already a fan (I am), this is a great one. Extreme technical knowledge is not necessary. If you've heard of swarm intelligence, and think living in space might be fun, you're good to go.

It doesn't beat Reamde, but definitely above Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.

What’s with the narrator change!?!

Honestly this is a great book and I really enjoyed the first two parts but the change in narrators for the final part really killed it for me. Maybe if the change was to a different female narrator it would have been better but the change from a woman to a man was very jarring to the flow of the story. I mean I get it, the narrator change signals a major shift in the story but it really doesn’t work here.

Would be great if they could get the original narrator to redo part 3.

To long and drawn out

I loved README, so I thought I would give this a try.
Author goes off on unnecessary explanations on the science of space. Made it hard to listen to at times. And feel like you are back in high school science class.

Should have been 2 separate books

I enjoyed this book immensely, it does have a few shortcomings. (No Spoilers)

I feel that this should have been broken up into two separate books. The first half of the story was filled with details - lots of details which were well researched and written, many times I was struck by a "I didn't know that or I would have never thought about that" in certain situations - Orbital Mechanics, space flight, space travel etc.

The second part of the book is where things become rushed. It was wrought with incomplete character arcs and an ending in typical Stephenson fashion. I just felt if it had its own stand alone book it could have developed the characters more and delved more into the politics and other aspects of the events that shaped the second part as well as go further into the events/characters at the end.