The Day the Moon Blew Up

>Seveneves belongs in the subgenre of hard science fiction, which means it emphasizes scientific accuracy. Everything adheres to physical laws, so unlike Star Wars, no one travels anywhere near the speed of light.

A pity then that a little basic chemistry eluded both the writer and the critic - there's no carbon on the moon. Rather difficult to support humans, and carry out feats of biotechnology, without it...

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 doesn’t care how such a thing might work, you will find yourself skimming parts of Seveneves" is probably true for most lay readers.

The only thing that somewhat frustrated me about it, as I suspect is the case for most people, is the fact that the last third of the book feels like it could (should?) stand on its own. That being said, there's enough room for Stephenson to explore in more depth some of the events leading up to the third act in subsequent novels... so here's hoping. I figure explaining why I feel this way would be a bit of a spoiler. Bill does enough to allude to it.

Anyway, thumbs up from me. I enjoyed every bit of it, and Bill's review does a good job of selling the book without spoiling it.

Definitely one of my favorite books. I bought a hard copy and read through it immediately. Then I got the audio book and listened to it in my car while commuting. What a great piece of work.

A couple of fun things hidden (or not exactly) in this video:

There's no missing a couple of Neal's swordfighting buddies at 1:07.

Wondering where the camera stand is? Look for its reflection in the window behind Bill at 1:52.

What car did Bill drive to the meet-up? Probably not the Model X. My money is on the Porsche 959 shown at 2:17.

(It's also a safe bet that the meet-up actually began at the Burgermaster, since that's in Bill's neighborhood. That way Bill only has to make one round-trip to Seattle instead of two.)

I'm totally failing to get the joke with the shovels and pickaxes at the corner of Boyer & Howe at 2:40. (Surely not a macabre gag as they cross towards Lakeview cemetery...)

And of course the gaggle of kids in Madison Park at 2:54 are observing the moon through a telescope.

My theory about the book, and the reason why there's such a tone change at the end is that this book is the kickoff to a much larger cycle.

If it is, I think there's an authorial question -- when do you shift gears to the far future, and how? It makes some sense to me that readers might find the style transition jarring between volumes. Also, some of the cool stuff starts to happen later.

So, perhaps -- hopefully -- we can look forward to more. There's plenty teed up in the novel; it seems like every group of humans that went out on their own survived in some way, (making me think the Mars folks are going to be around at some point), and we still haven't found out just who blew up the moon.

Stephenson created the Hieroglyph project, trying to get sci fi authors to inspire more science, and I suppose more faith in humanity. I would be surprised if we don't get more of this story aimed at inspiring us in a variety of ways.