Seveneves

“The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason”

This captivating opening line sets the stage for what I believed would be yet another exceptional 5-star book by Stephenson.

The book consists of three parts. The first part reveals that the world has only two years left until the complete annihilation of humanity. The central question is: How do we ensure the survival of humanity?

Part 2 begins with the apocalypse and the aftermath, while Part 3 presents Stephenson's vision of humanity's development after 5000 years.

I love speculative fiction, especially when it delves into profound philosophical questions. It's okay if you don't grasp everything immediately; in fact, I enjoy nerdy elements. “Anathem” is one of my favorite books because of these aspects.

So, what's the issue with this book? Ensuring the continuation of humanity does indeed pose a grand question.

The first part covers about a quarter, and the last part around one-third of the book. That leaves roughly half (a bit less) for the second part. In the initial part, Stephenson explains potential solutions for humanity's survival. It has a good pace and provides ample food for thought: how does humanity confront an impending end? Of course, in Stephenson's signature style, he delves into technical and scientific topics. However, as the story progresses, there's an excessive focus on engineering-like solutions, with every “solution” being over-analyzed. This begins bothering me somewhere in the latter part of the first section and doesn't stop.

There are explanations about orbits, orbital plane changes, apogee, perigee, Newtonian physics in weightlessness (very important for matial arts in space), solar flares and Stephenson's endless obsession with chains, chain links, and bullwhips (I wonder what Freud would have thought about that). While it's all quite interesting, the middle section of the book suffers from an overload of “instruction manual”-like technical explanations. Perhaps it would have been better to dedicate more pages to the first part and further explore the social and political consequences of the impending disaster. Also, a few extra pages for the third part could have given it more substance. Alternatively, about 250 pages could have been trimmed.

On the other hand, the end of the second part was fascinating, though it left me feeling like I emerged from a sort of IKEA-desert.

The third part was more speculative. Despite its 300 pages, which could have been a book on its own, the storyline felt thin and one-dimensional. It seemed more like an appendix than the culmination of an epic tale.

What began as a 5-star book gradually dwindled to 3.5 stars in my view. It's by no means a bad book, but given my high expectations, it was somewhat disappointing.