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The Day the Moon Blew Up

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Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#71

Post by mirimir »

Jedd wrote: post #68
mirimir wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also loved The Baroque Cycle , and Mongoliad (which also, now that I think of it, features that immortal mystic). It's hard to explain the connection with Anathem without too many spoilers. So I'll just note that Earth does explicitly exist in the Anathem universe.

Oh, I've read both Anathem and Seveneves, and while I appreciate that Earth is referenced in the former, I don't recall anything that felt like it may connect (no hint of a multiverse in Seveneves, f.e.). I think I read some interview with Neal a while back where he said he hadn't considered writing anything else in the same universe as Seveneves, but if there was interest, he may come up with something. Obviously th…

It's the Purpose vibe. Plus all the mystery about the Agent. But then, I didn't get the Hitchhikers' Guide joke about that :(

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#72

Post by arethuza »

wrs wrote: post #36
bryant wrote: post #4

Seveneves is one of my favorites, even though it gets mixed reactions from a lot of others who've read titles like Anathem. I can't compare it to Anathem (the only other Stephenson book I've read so far is Cryptonomicon; looking to change that), but I can say I love the technical depth. Perhaps it's because it helps me suspend disbelief much more easily, though Bill's point that "if you’re the sort of reader who does…

Like all Stephenson, this book is full of ideas that are just...huge. The frustrating thing is the feeling that it should be merely the first book in a long, rich series, like Niven's Known Space. But the guy has so many ideas he just has to crank out this giant book and move on to the next one...

Doesn't the Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon count as a "long rich series"?

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#73

Post by RangerScience »

I devoured Seveness. The first third of the book - the consideration of what I might do if faced with such a reality - was perhaps the most I've ever felt reading a book. (The contender for that would be Wise Man's Fear)

I find that question waaay more effective than "what would you do with a billion dollars?". Everything you know and love will be gone, completely, with the barest chance that you can contribute to something surviving... But you have time enough left to love it. Or contribute to something surviving.

It's pretty intense.

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#74

Post by RangerScience »

The whole last third of the book makes waaay more sense when you think of it as an MMO backstory:

- Two factions (literally, red and blue) with mostly the same but kinda different everything

- Thirteen-plus subspecies of human, with their own unique racial bonuses and skills (chain whip thing!).

- Pristine, empty, Earth-like local, ripe for building...

- ...and with monsters! And treasure!

Right?!

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#75

Post by vidarh »

mirimir wrote: post #70
vidarh wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awesome book either way, but it can be read very much either in a hopeful vein, or a very depressing one: (Spoiler warning; for various works for the rest of this comment - assume that if I mention a work, there'll be a spoiler later in the sentence...) Humanity stagnates before ending as the last of humanity's children transforms and are isolated from their parents. The parents generation slowly or not so sl…

SPOILER ALERT The second Battlestar Galactica series does reach a conclusion, sort of. It ends with a loop backward in time, through a black hole. Surviving humans and humanoid Cylons interbreed with protohumans. So history is cyclical.

I don't think that description is right. They never fall into the black hole - they jump away. Unless I'm badly misremembering, it's pretty clear that the Battlestar Galactica crew's ancestors "earth" is a different planet.

At least the characters believe it is, and the Baltar and Six that appears in the epilogue also talks about it as a different planet and a new cycle.

While the theme of cyclical history is recurring throughout the series, that is about recurrence of a similar set of events, as in hinduism [1], not an actual loop.

[1] http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/h_time.asp

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#78

Post by dsr_ »

GantzGraf wrote: post #59

Was anybody else turned off by the author's approach to characterisation in this book? I feel like he's over-explaining their reasoning/motivation for doing the things they do to the point where it's irritating. It's like he's trying to tell you everything about a character in the shortest time possible. No subtlety. Am I overreacting? I'm still within the first third but I don't think I'll be able to get through the…

Characterization is not one of Stephenson's strong points.

Try an experiment: skip to 2/3 through the book, where it says "Five thousand years later..." and pick it up as though it were a new book. I think you might be happier.

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#79

Post by yoodenvranx »

100k wrote: post #56

"If Stephenson wrote Huckleberry Finn it would be 4,000 pages long and mostly about paddlewheel design" -- https://twitter.com/baconmeteor/status/663076130077802496 I have heard good things about this book, but it has been a while since I could get into Neal Stephenson's work. My favorite is one of his earliest, Zodiac. It's the only book of his I've read that doesn't just...end.

> "If Stephenson wrote Huckleberry Finn it would be 4,000 pages long and mostly about paddlewheel design"

And this is the exact reason why Stephenson is one of my favorite authors.

Re: The Day the Moon Blew Up

#80

Post by jeremysmyth »

arethuza wrote: post #72
wrs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all Stephenson, this book is full of ideas that are just...huge. The frustrating thing is the feeling that it should be merely the first book in a long, rich series, like Niven's Known Space. But the guy has so many ideas he just has to crank out this giant book and move on to the next one...

Doesn't the Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon count as a "long rich series"?

Only in the loosest possible sense. Having the same (or similar, or related) characters does not necessarily imply a "full rich series". The Baroque cycle, sure, because the characters share arcs. Cryptonomicon is a completely different story though.

Stephenson said this about the relationship between Cryptonomicon and its different-timeline "sequels" (not yet written at this point): " I'm trying not to give the idea that it's a tightly locked together set of books... There are always a few strange little corners of the story that may not make sense outside of the context of the full series, but 99% of it can stand on its own reasonably well, I hope."

http://www.locusmag.com/1999/Issues/08/Stephenson.html

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