I finished Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and I am annoyed that the book is actually Seven Eves. Sir…..🙄
Anyway, i thought the first part of the book was very tedious. I’m not into the world building, super detailed books, I’m more of a let’s paint with broad strokes and my brain will fill in the rest. I thought it was very interesting that the 2 parts were so distcintly different. During our discussion, we were wondering why it wasn’t 2 separate books, but we never really found an answer.
ONe of the things that struck me about the book was the downplay and/or avoidance of emotion. The people of earth went through a super traumatic event and then eveyrone was like, peace, we’re going to space? um wut? No mourning the loss of the only existence you ever knew? Surreee. Near the end of the first half of the book there were some discussions about suicide, but it felt meh to me. But, I think the focus was more on the mechanics and how all of the ships worked, etc, and not so much on the human experience. I found it amusing that they brought the reporter on board tohelp with documentation and then he becomes villified for his documentation later. LIke guys, he was doing th ebest he could with what he had.
I thought it was extremely reckless what Sean did, but also, it turned out to be very helpful as it helped the team get supplies. Another part that annoyed me was when we find out that Julia weasled her way into space. Like come on mannn. 🙄 Maybe I should start rating books by the number of eye rolls I give them. Haha. So far this book has 2. THere’s another book I’m reading currently that I’m thinking I will give at least one eye roll to, but haven’t finished it yet, so we’ll see. If you’re into dense, descriptive, world building, the first half of this book may be amazing for you, but it didn’t do anything for me. Also, when we get to the Seven Eves, how did we end up with such an European/American goup of people? Do other cultures not make it? Make it make sense. I thought this first part was mainly a device to share his information about spacea nd robots, etc, and not really to have a discourse on the possibilities of cultural cooperation in space and in the propagation of the species.
Once we get to the second half, things get weird. Essentially, Stepehnson is saying that nations will stop mingling and choose to cluster among their own kind and look at outsiders with a general sense of distrust. Also, I found it quite flimsy to say that the Diggers don’t know about social norms and end up killing Rememberance based off of feeling insulted and having to have the upper hand. Weird flex. I did like that Remembrance would screen Doc’s discussions based on if he was talking to someone he wanted to talk to or not. I would love to have someone who can help me to that extent. 😆 As a whole, the book reads as 2 distinct books and the predictions for the future of th human race left much to be desired. It seems like, in a world where you can create whatever you want, you still make it look like the world we live in today, which is to say you want it that way or you have little hope in the human race of the guture. I’m not sure, but I see a lot of people are in love with Anathem and Cryptonomicon, so I’ll probably read those.
Was Stephenson off base with this one or do you think his predictions for the future have merit?
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