Seveneves

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.

118 of 126 people found this review helpful

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.

264 of 286 people found this review helpful

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.

51 of 56 people found this review helpful

Liked the book, narration could been better

Would you consider the audio edition of Seveneves to be better than the print version?

No. There's a couple of diagrams in the book that really help with visualizing the latter parts of the book. But more importantly, I really thought the female narrator who begins the book was not a good choice. Her vocalization of the male roles is really poor. I really wish they could have used the same woman, Jennifer Wiltsie, who read Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age". She did amazing work with that book and would have done a much better job with this one. The male reader was fine.

What other book might you compare Seveneves to and why?

I think Seveneves is a lot like Stephenson's other works like Cryptonomicon and Anathem. Building worlds and describing tech without as much emphasis on plot turns and twists.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not really that kind of book.

Any additional comments?

A good addition to the Neal Stephenson library. Not his best, but I enjoyed it.

65 of 72 people found this review helpful

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.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

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.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

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.

87 of 97 people found this review helpful

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.

34 of 38 people found this review helpful

Disappointing

What disappointed you about Seveneves?

Too much science not enough fiction.

Has Seveneves turned you off from other books in this genre?

For a while

What didn’t you like about Mary Robinette Kowal and Will Damron ’s performance?

The voices sounded "forced"

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

disappointing.

Any additional comments?

This book could have been so much more. The book concept is awesome but left me disappointed in the telling. The science narrative just goes on and on ad nauseum. If you want to know every little detail of orbital mechanics or how a space station is constructed, this will be perfect. If you are looking for exploration and development of the characters, you will be disappointed.

12 of 13 people found this review helpful

Classic Stephenson

male narrator was fine. almost returned it due to female narrator. trying to use a gruff voice for masculine characters just doesn't work for me (ditto with men trying to imitate lighter feminine voices). Overall, I do better reading Stephenson than listening to him, as I can't visualize worth a damn and he is so dense in terms of description, particularly technical details. Still think he's one of the more creative minds out there

52 of 60 people found this review helpful