Seveneves - Book Review
Seveneves - by Neal Stephenson - is a SF novel. I'm already a big fan of the author - specially because of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, so once I saw the blurb that was distributed some weeks before the release I just had to get it.
The main event that starts the story is that somehow, the moon is destroyed and break ups in several pieces. Which are constantly bumping into each other and breaking up.
Soon enough they realize that Earth is going to get a nice set of rings, like Saturn. However, a lot of those pieces are going to start falling and the whole is planet is going to burn for thousands of years.
Now their only chance is to Exit Earth into space... or go deep underground or in the ocean.
The whole thing reminds me a lot of Exit Earth by Martin Caidin, where the solar system passed through a slightly denser cloud of dust, which just happens to make the sun burns hotter and gets you the same effect - i.e. scorched Earth. The ways they use to try to escape is similar too - space, moon (not really an option in the same sense on SevenEvens...), underground (I think?) and deep seas. It does make me wonder if Neal also read it...
Exit Earth tech feels a little more like we would expect from our current tech level. And their goal ends up being just leaving the ecliptic for a few years - much less challenging than the thousands of years of Seveneves.
Anyway, I can also recommend Exit Earth, I really enjoyed it. Don't look for my review though, I don't think there were even blogs last time I read it :-)
The escape from Earth story flows into a return to Earth, after several thousands of years, when they are now terraforming Earth again and a scout finds something weird.
Even though the book has 880 pages, I didn't feel it dragged so much as Cryptonomicon (still good) and Quicksilver (never finished reading it...). It flows very well with only a few bits where the longer explanations break up the action on an noticeably annoying way.
Overall, a very pleasant read, with plenty of survival drama, and a nice ending. Recommended.
The main event that starts the story is that somehow, the moon is destroyed and break ups in several pieces. Which are constantly bumping into each other and breaking up.
Soon enough they realize that Earth is going to get a nice set of rings, like Saturn. However, a lot of those pieces are going to start falling and the whole is planet is going to burn for thousands of years.
Now their only chance is to Exit Earth into space... or go deep underground or in the ocean.
The whole thing reminds me a lot of Exit Earth by Martin Caidin, where the solar system passed through a slightly denser cloud of dust, which just happens to make the sun burns hotter and gets you the same effect - i.e. scorched Earth. The ways they use to try to escape is similar too - space, moon (not really an option in the same sense on SevenEvens...), underground (I think?) and deep seas. It does make me wonder if Neal also read it...
Exit Earth tech feels a little more like we would expect from our current tech level. And their goal ends up being just leaving the ecliptic for a few years - much less challenging than the thousands of years of Seveneves.
Anyway, I can also recommend Exit Earth, I really enjoyed it. Don't look for my review though, I don't think there were even blogs last time I read it :-)
The escape from Earth story flows into a return to Earth, after several thousands of years, when they are now terraforming Earth again and a scout finds something weird.
Even though the book has 880 pages, I didn't feel it dragged so much as Cryptonomicon (still good) and Quicksilver (never finished reading it...). It flows very well with only a few bits where the longer explanations break up the action on an noticeably annoying way.
Overall, a very pleasant read, with plenty of survival drama, and a nice ending. Recommended.
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