“He ate his own leg. Soft cannibalism, he called it. Legs are of no use in space. He blogged it. Then it went viral.”

This is merely a bait, the novel is not grotesque. Actually, it is classy and lacks postmodernism completely, subjectively unexpected from an author mentioned frequently alongside the word “cyberpunk”.

A not so important personal record

“Seveneves” is the first Neal Stephenson’s novel I finished. I have a copy of “Snow Crash”, gave it a try once, dropped following few evenings. It wasn’t bad, but at the time did not fly that well. Since I’ve finished “Seveneves”, I picked "ThermalTermination Shock" - quite fitting, considering the current heat wave in Europe.

Then, there’s that famous Linux&Emacs essay. I have a tongue-in-cheek here, of course, the subject is broader and undoubtedly worth reading. Yet, the eminent status it bears I don’t understand. Maybe, back then the significance was higher, perhaps the matters discussed were not spoken vocally and to the mainstream public before.

I bought “Seveneves” in 2016, and it might has been qualified for the oldest uncracked book I owned. Nine years later, I read it finally.

Rocketpunk

There are many things I should avoid speculations on, the language and the overall composition to start with. But to mention, prior to this novel, Stephenson has been writing for a good quarter century. That he is an experienced writer and an accomplished storyteller is clear.

The dynamic is notable - and not so expected. The story unfolds quickly, and events - big events, arcs rather epic at, unsurprisingly, astronomical scale - are thrown in a rapid succession. Even though a literal countdown shapes the first half of the book, for such a confined, claustrophobic setting I anticipated more of a “Das Boot” atmosphere. Negative, the story is fast-paced, ample of action, many (if not too many) characters. I would have preferred it to be different, for flavor only - shouldn’t the orbital affairs be on a slower side?

The fast-paced story co-exists with the snail-paced narrative. For this, the novel is often criticized, such critique is unsound. Many sections are lengthy descriptive notes, which, as per the NYT and numerous other reviews, require efforts on the reader’s side and could be tedious. But “Seveneves” is a novel of hard science fiction, pages of speculations on plausible concepts are canonical. Of note, hard science fiction is rarely an easy read (Greg Egan’s works exemplify), and herein the scientific bits are trivialized well.

As for the hard content, I played enough “Kerbal Space Program”. I like the “rocketpunk” denotion, a tangle of orbital mechanics on top of contemporary space explorations. That too speculative technologies are scarce is conventional for this setting, hard to forget the author’s work at Blue Origin. Towards the end, there is an explosion in hypothetical tech - sky hooks, habitats, generic Arthur Clarke’s things. Then, the author tries to talk biology too, these parts are Marvel bad, resembling Peter Parker’s monologues from the 90s animated series. To my impression, the hard stuff ends with rocket science. And sad it is, as the author definitely bumped with someone skilled with plasmids and pipettes; the book has the finest definition of bench science I’ve seen, to quote directly: “Doing tricks with liquids - because that’s all a lab is.”

Characters are not that brilliant. As mentioned, there are too many of them, and the quantity constrains proper development. But an actual issue is the cartoonish nature of so many key characters. That space Russians are fatalistic I can take, but should they style a collective Dolph Lundgren? And, on a side note, why technical gizmos are named “ЛУК” and “КУЛАК”? “Lucifer’s Hammer” (a fine novel from 1978, shares a lot with “Seveneves”) did cosmonauts and such so much better. A legit complain - numerous characters are depicted with all the Hollywood cliches possible, and do not fit the otherwise serious and almost realistic setting. On contrary, many supporting characters are authentic and narrated very well, see the epigraph.

I liked the societal speculations. To list few, as on the verge of the catastrophe the stock market ceased to exist, personal wealth vanished. Social networks and their role in decentralized and isolated society, and in general the concept of decentralized space habitation. The story was written before the COVID pandemic, yet one may reflect retrospectively on so many things: secluded communities, conspiracies. Lots of fine ideas were developed. This is neat and, to my taste, constitutes the best. Why Stephenson is a big author is clear - to write science fiction with arts and humanities is hard, way harder than writing hard science fiction. My personal and very favorite, a concept to commit, is amistics - a play around Amish communities, a civic restriction of certain types of technologies.

Meta-plot

The main story, or what one could call it, spans a generation, yet is epic in scale; though the plot twist clearly shrank the definition of “epic”. But “Seveneves” consists of three parts, to enumerate them won’t make a spoiler: before, after, millenniums after. And, looking at the opinions on the Internet - majority does not really like the third part. I think it is good. Reading the final chapters felt a little out of place, but then a genuine suspense and some intrigue have started building up, uncommon for the genre. Sadly, this progeny arc wraps up fast and feels indeed forced. I would love to see more of the post-apocalyptic distant future, and exploration of the once a dead planet. Perhaps, a sequel would look good, albeit a short one.

And with the sequel, no strong connectivity to the book one would be required. In its current form, the integrity issue is real and the stories don’t match. Funny, this gap made me to add two more books to the short-term reading list, both revolving around the concept of generation ship and long-term space habitation: Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Aurora” (as of today, I am finishing it with great pleasure) and “Orphans of the Sky” by Robert Heinlein.

10/10 if I were a teenager

The book is good. I got the first taste of the author, though to iterate again - the novel was written in 2015, and that Neal Stephenson knows the art is clear. I would absolutely love to read “Seveneves” in my youth, back when I have been reading Asimov and the science fiction alike. Naturally, I don’t classify it as adolescent literature; the read is not juvenile and definitely not simple. But, with all the borrowing from and juggling with classical ideas, the book would be more impressive, and even exciting for a reader less familiar with the genre and its tropes. I have a kid, though. In time, I know what to suggest.