Seveneves

A Novel

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Mary Robinette Kowal, Will Damron

Length: 31 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's Summary

Seveneves was included on President Obama's Summer 2016 reading list.

Seveneves was one of only five books recommended by Bill Gates as "must reads" for Summer 2016.

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.

great idea - poor execution

The premise for this book is amazing, but the characters are flat, the scientific explanations are showy and usually unnecessary, and the metaphors are condescending to the reader. I listened to the whole thing hoping it would pay off, I don't think it did.

Couldn't get through it - narrator so annoying

Terrible narrator - woman doing awful impressions of male voices and foreign accents. Made a romantic English male character sound like a goofy kid's show character, among others. Story was just OK; tech level is current day (more or less). Characters seemed a little one-dimensional (some of that impression could be influenced by the truly awful narrator) Might be worth listening to with a different narrator.

So Much Potential

Let me start by saying that up until Part 3, Seveneves was pegging my Top 10 books of all-time. While I first thought the premise was implausible, Stephenson starting working the technology and I gradually became entranced. He has a no holds barred writing style, and the storyline was filled with a continuous “Science the shit out of this” attitude made famous by “The Martian”. As the implausible became plausible, the main characters came to life as they struggled to make this happen. By the time Part 2 ended, I was at the edge of my seat simply amazed by what had taken place. But then it all went wrong.

The jump from Part 2 to Part 3 was simply too big. The emotional connections made to the main characters were lost. The eager anticipation as to what happens next was lost. And ultimately, the storyline was lost. Stephenson tried to tie everything back together, but the gap-filling backstory was too minimal to be satisfying, and a new level of fantastical science fiction reenergized the implausibility meter. The result was a less than compelling storyline filled with characters you cared nothing about.

The detailed application of advanced technology is what I love best about Stephenson’s books. In this regard “Seveneves” does this well at first, but then goes off the deep end. He’s a tremendous writer who is fearless at exploring new boundaries. But Part 3 should be a separate book, and its replacement needs to continue the excellent storyline developed in the first two sections. That is the story that I wanted to hear.

In summary, this book was totally worth one credit and I thought the first 2/3s was brilliant. I will definitely continue to buy and read Stephenson's books. I'm just sad for what this book could have been. And for those who criticize the narration, the only I can say is get over it. My experience is that woman have a tougher time doing men's voices. But it's mind over matter - if you don't mind, it doesn't matter. It was correct to have the first two sections narrated by a woman.

Odd narrator choice

Is there anything you would change about this book?

This is a tough one to rate. There are long stretches of the book that are fascinating and fast moving. And there are stretches that feel even longer that are dishwater dull. Stephenson is usually able to keep technical discussions interesting -- Cryptonomicon, for example, deals with heavily complex subjects but doesn't get boring. Seveneves does.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron ?

Not sure about who I'd have read it instead, but Ms. Kowal made some very strange choices for main characters' voices. The producer/recording engineer/whoever was sitting in the booth also wasn't paying close attention--there are more than the usual number of garbled and mispronounced words. I get it; it's a long book. But this is not anywhere close to the best of all possible recordings.

Moondust in your eyes

Neal Stephenson's Seveneves concerns the apocalyptic catastrophe that results from the moon being broken up. The initial two-thirds concerns the worldwide response to the impending total destruction by the white sky (moon rocks forming a planetary ring followed by decades of hard rain as a continuous meteor shower obliterates any capacity for life on Earth, followed immediately by the struggle for survival among the dwindling numbers of human who managed to make it into Earth orbit. Then the story picks up again, 5000 years later when humanity has managed to claw their way back to billions and is beginning to reclaim their down well legacy which is slowly regaining the capacity to support life.

Stephenson concentration on orbital mechanics can become quite geeky at times, but the discussions of practical, mechanical issues of living in space is both interesting and compelling. While the tale is near future, there is still much in terms of autonomous robots and miniature versions, called gnats, that function as swarms. Asteroid mining is under serious study and plays a crucial role in survival. Most fascinating is the divergence in approaches to psychology and the development of new "races" based on preferences for mental and intellectual traits. Above all, Stephenson is asserting the fundamental human drive for survival by any and all means.

The choice of two distinct narrators for the distinct time periods was a wise decision. Both perform admirably with good character distinction of both genders as well as the numerous accents, especially in the initial portions.

If you liked THE MARTIAN.....

What made the experience of listening to Seveneves the most enjoyable?

I liked the science. It seemed researched and thorough and plausible. And fascinating. Got me interested. Some sections are less riveting, but they play into a general feeling of the book being thorough and comprehensive.

What other book might you compare Seveneves to and why?

Well, for me it is a good follow up to THE MARTIAN. Science oriented with modern day humans looking to current technology for solutions to thorny problems.

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

I would avoid Ms. Kowal like the plague. I have never encountered a stranger narrator choice. Her sections of omniscient narrtion are perfectly good - a bit robotic, but it works. But her "voices" are preposterous and distracting. How the author could have okayed this narrator is beyond me. Every male character sounds like he is participating in a bad community theater production of a Gilbert and Sullivan musical. She can't do a British accent without making everyone sound like Colonel Fudgewiggens. Which really destroys all men as romantic creatures. Her accent work is appalling. I really can't say enough- every voice - male and female is distracting and aritificial. She needs to receive a cease and desist order NOW. It's a shame because she reads the narrative well. She should just skip voices altogether. Nod to them, so to speak, without attempting to do them. I almost want people to listen just to be amazed.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Well to the narrator, yes. I gasped and continue to gasp every time a new accent arrives.

Any additional comments?

I think I have made my point.

Please someone force an editor on Stephenson!

Would you try another book from Neal Stephenson and/or Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron ?

I believe I have read every book Neal Stephenson has written.

Would you be willing to try another book from Neal Stephenson? Why or why not?

Yes, because his early books contained such brilliant ideas and promise, although his output is a very mixed bag. When he's brilliant, he's simply amazing.

Any additional comments?

If you like astronomy and astronautic adventures in GREAT detail then you'll probably love this one. The moon is suddenly destroyed by a force nobody can ever confirm; possibly a small black hole, but the entire book is about the aftermath. Three sections: the event, and figuring out what it means for earth to suddenly have an asteroid belt instead of a moon; then post-figuring that out, preparing for some fairly serious effects; and then several thousand years in the future, looking back.

There was definitely an interesting story in here. Some good characters and some great details and clearly a lot of research. However, at least half of it could have been cut, and the third section felt a little like a long afterword; it might have been better as an entirely separate sequel with a bit more weight of its own.

I looked up the review I wrote for Reamde and it 100% applies to this one too: "The book was lengthy at almost 1000 pages, and could easily have been cut in half without losing substance. It left me suspecting that Stephenson has reached a point in his reputation at which editors are now afraid to tell him to be more concise for god's sake, so he just rambles on and on when he really shouldn't."

What happened to the end of the story?!?

This book was very interesting with great characters and plot. It's super long and you really get into it. However you get towards the end and all this development is still happening and bam it just ends. Maybe I missed somewhere that this was going to be a series. But if not this book ends like the author was tired of writing so he just quit. Hopefully it is a series and I'm just stupid.

Fatally tedious

This book is not even worth getting long winded about. This is the first time ever I have actually not finished a book from Audible.

The author got so bogged down in unnecessary technical explanation that he forgot to make the story fun. It felt like a 20-something hour long example from a boring text book.

While I appreciate the research involved, I didn't came here for a story not a manual. Other reviewers have cited the age old "show, don't tell" maxim and that is something the author needs desperately to work on.

I don't even want to rate the narrator as I don't trust anyone except maybe Tim Gerard Reynolds to make a book this slow interesting.

Fascinating speculation, a little flawed as story

Neal Stephenson’s novels are ambitious, and Seveneves is no exception. Though this one has a few issues, which I’ll get to, it still has much to recommend it.

The setup is that a mysterious event in the very near future causes the moon to break apart into large chunks. The question of “why” is soon buried under the realization that many moon fragments are going to rain down on the Earth in about two years, scouring its entire surface clean of life.

It’s a scenario so awful that’s it hard to even begin to get one’s mind around it, and Stephenson, other than a few scenes here and there, seems to have decided that the emotional and psychological response of humanity to such an event wasn’t a worthwhile thing to focus on. Instead, his attention goes to the gears and wheels of how the world’s major countries might plausibly establish a small population in orbit, there to live out the next few thousand years. The first two thirds of the book explore this Ultimate Prepper Challenge, and center around two protagonists: Dinah, a classically blunt-spoken uber-geek who’s a master of robots, and “Doob” Dubois, a brilliant science popularizer clearly modeled after Neil Degrasse Tyson.

It’s all well-thought-out and interesting, and I learned a lot about the issues of living and operating in space. Yet, I wasn’t totally convinced by the plot, which relies on people being able to pull off heroic feats of engineering in a compressed timeframe, under profoundly demoralizing circumstances, without anything catastrophic going wrong. While accidents happen and individual characters go on suicide missions, the main danger to the space exodus is an implausible political situation that develops around the one-third mark. NS is great at explaining technical things interestingly over many pages, but he has a tendency to cram explorations of human psychology and motives into short, reductive character sketches. The political figure was a blatant straw man for the author to whack at, and several other characters were also more “types” than people.

At around the two-thirds mark, the space colonization story runs out of steam, and enters a sequence in which the few remaining humans make a crucial decision about the genetic future of their descendents. Then, suddenly, it’s five thousand years later, and we see that humanity, now established in giant space habitats, has split into seven distinct branches, each built around a different genetic line (hence the “seven Eves”).

I enjoyed this part of the book the most. The plot involves a special team of seven, representing all the races, coming together to travel to newly terraformed Earth to investigate a mystery hinted at in part one. The speculations on how an orbiting society might function, technologically, culturally, and politically, are the kind of thing NS does well. The division of humanity into “races” with distinct personality traits and mythos might be troubling in other hands, but is an interesting thought experiment here. The story and its colorful touches are fun, and closer to classic NS than the preceding portion, though the ending wrapped everything up a little too hastily for me. I wish NS’s editor had gotten him to geek out a little less in part one, and to focus a little more on being a fiction writer.

In sum, this wasn’t my favorite in his oeuvre (that would be Cryptonomicon or Anathem), but I did enjoy it. Like Reamde, it has some notable flaws. Audiobook reader, Mary Kowal, who handles part one, is pretty bad at foreign accents and overly dramatic with some characters. Will Damron, who takes part two, is much easier on the ears.

A story of faith

Like all Stephenson novels, opinions differ wildly. Writers like him should be applauded at the very least for even an attempt at something of this size and scope. I got the edition narrated by Kowal and Damron, which worked very well indeed.

Underneath the science this is a simple story of faith, in that humankind has the ability to rise above the idiosyncrasies of 'type', even though resorting to 'type' in the novel was the device by which there was a chance at survival.

Stephenson is a mesmerising storyteller, and this ranks alongside Reamde and The Cryptonomicon as a favourite.

Good Story, but bad character accents.

What disappointed you about Seveneves?

The narrator does all the British accents as if they are semi royalty, as a British person listening to this performance is really off-putting, and ruins the immersion of the story. There is no way that these characters would speak in the way that they are portrayed.

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

Only if there are no British characters, or Mary Robinette Kowal stops trying to do British accents.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Very dissapointed, the story as usual from Neal Stephenson was excellent, but the narration completely spoils it.

Another Neal Stephenson epic

my only complaint is that it finished too soon

He left it open for a, if not sequel, companion novel from a different perspective.

I hoope so.

Brilliant and epic story

Thoroughly enjoyed another brilliant story from Neal Stephenson, I was completely gripped, the audiobook was compelling and loved both narrators performances.