Seveneves

Starred review from March 9, 2015
Stephenson’s remarkable novel is deceptively complex, a disaster story and transhumanism tale that serves as the delivery mechanism for a series of technical and sociological visions. When the moon explodes, it doesn’t take long for scientists (including Doc “Doob” Dubois, who bears no small resemblance to Neil DeGrasse Tyson) to realize that the debris will soon cause the destruction of Earth. The residents of the International Space Station, including roboticist Dinah MacQuarie and commander Ivy Xiao, immediately begin working with their colleagues on Earth to turn the ISS into a viable habitat for as many people as possible. The next two years are filled with heroic sacrifices, political upheavals, and disasters, most of which are only exacerbated when Earth finally succumbs to the “Hard Rain,” meteorite bombardment that last for millennia. The survivors—seven fertile women—are destined to repopulate the human race, and it’s only here, over halfway through the story, that Stephenson (the Baroque Cycle) really shows his hand, moving ahead 5,000 years to explore the moral and political implications of the earlier events. There’s a ton to digest, but Stephenson’s lucid prose makes it worth the while. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff and Verrill.

April 15, 2015

After the moon is destroyed by a mysterious force, humanity faces the terrible knowledge that life on Earth is doomed. The countdown to the planet's annihilation in a hail of debris known as the "hard rain" is spent on a huge initiative to launch as many people into space as possible, building a community of small arklets around the fragile bulk of the International Space Station. The few chosen for the program will need to find a way to survive the roughly 5,000 years it will take for Earth to cool and become habitable again. VERDICT The huge scope and enormous depth of the latest novel from Stephenson (Reamde; Snow Crash) is impressive even from an author known for wallowing in the details. Divided roughly into thirds, the narrative never fails to carry readers through the author's sometimes unfortunate habit of leaving all his research on the page, a quibble about a major work of hard sf that all fans of the genre should read--just set aside a good chunk of time. [See Prepub Alert, 11/24/14.]

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