Seveneves

Seveneves took me a long time to complete, and only after two false starts. I'm glad I endured though, because for as long as the ride was, the destination was worth it. It's a tantalizing, thought provoking, harrowing story of the end of civilization as we know it, and it's beautifully executed.

I do with Neal was better at writing character. I feel like his characters are not as fully illustrated as I wish they were, and I have a hard time relating to them. As a result, I often don't care for the characters as much as I probably should, or as much as Neal probably hopes I would. Despite this, the world building and storytelling is so perfectly done, I can excuse a lack of dimensionality in our characters.

I feel like Seveneves would make a terrific limited series on some streaming service - or a film series. It's split up nicely into three sizable acts already. Act 1: Day Zero until the Hard Rain. Act 2: Hard Rain until the Council of the Seven Eves. Act 3: 5,000 years later.

In a lot of ways, I feel like this novel harkens back to the classic sci-fi of the 50's and 60's. Isaac Asimov. Frank Herbert. Arthur C. Clarke. There's a real sense of the core idea here, and Stephenson explores it thoroughly.