What if the moon blew up and its pieces posed an apocalyptic threat to the Earth? How would the world deal with it and engage in long-term planning for civilization? If you want an answer to that quandary, particularly, Neal Stephenson’s answer, then dive into his latest novel Seveneves. That is exactly how the novel begins, with something later to be dubbed the Agent. An early caution, Stephenson never reveals the source of the Agent for its only bearing on the novel is setting events in motion and causing the moon to explode. This is initially met with awe, wonder, and shock. Only after these emotions have settled themselves does pragmatism enter, in the form of Doc Dubois, who is all but a stand in for Neil de Grasse Tyson; a brilliant scientist with many, many followers on social media and a man who helps to disseminate science to the masses. He has the ear of the President of the United States, Julia Bliss Fletcher (J.B.F. for short by the masses) and it is surmised by Dubois (and confirmed by many others in the scientific community) that within two years of the destruction of the Moon, Earth will be hit by Hard Rain, leaving no chance for survival. With that in mind, plans are made to send a portion of humanity into space, specifically to the International Space Station – ‘Izzy’, which will be expanded into the Cloud Ark to make room for more people and many genetic files for sustaining humanity over the 5,000 years of the Hard Rain and decimation of the surface of the Earth.
Stephenson builds up a fascinating society of survivors on Izzy, with Dinah McQuarrie as protagonist for much of it. She was assigned to Izzy long before the moon exploded and comes from a family of scientists and keeps in touch with her father through a jury-rigged communication system. Her father and a group of people have set up an under-ground bunker to survive as long as they can, but once the Hard Rain hits, Dinah is cut off from him forever. Although she is the primary point of view character on Izzy, Dinah is far from the only woman, many of the scientists and characters who hold authority on Izzy are women. If Doc Dubois served as the protagonist for the early portion of the novel on earth, Dinah is very much the protagonist of the action and story on Izzy. That said, Dinah is best friends and essentially the second in command to Ivy Xiao, the appointed leader of Izzy who also suffers the loss of a loved one because of the Hard Rain. As the Hard Rain approaches and life on the Cloud Ark begins to find a semblance of a rhythm, an unexpected visitor arrives, throwing all sociological order out the window through claims of authority that are not valid. After all, the Cloud Ark has no ties to the Earth below and is essentially its own nation. This imperils humanity to an even greater degree; essentially stomping on one of our hands which is grasping on to the ledge for survival.
Those one or two years of planning before the Hard Rain apocalypse comprise the first two thirds of Seveneves. It takes nearly 600 pages of the 800 page novel before Stephenson introduces the next stage in humanity and the repopulation of the Earth, which of course does not go off without a hitch. The novel takes a sharp jump to that 5,000 years into the future promised on the dust-jacket and the story is an exploration of the long-range effects of eugenics, genetic manipulation, societal evolutions, and tribal mentality. Unfortunately, for me, it was a very abrupt change of pace that made the final third feel like a separate book or a sequel to the first two thirds rather than the same novel. The tone felt somewhat like a biblical recitation of this person begat that person who begot this person. Once the plot of the finale began to take over this element, Seveneves regained some steam and finished off quite nicely for me.
Stephenson seems to revel in focusing on granular details of some of construction of his space habitat and many of the particulars involving the technological aspects of the Cloud Ark comprise a great deal of the text of the novel. Some of that minutiae halted the progress, for I was much more enthralled in the character interactions between Dinah, Doc Dubois, J.B.F. and the other characters as they struggled to keep humanity alive from a sociopolitical perspective. Writing this review I’ve come to think that perhaps that’s the rub Stephenson is positing here – humanity can survive such a cataclysm from a technological ingenuity perspective, it is the egos of individuals and their societal upbringings that would be the largest barrier.
While Fantasy may be the more dominant of the sibling genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Neal Stephenson is a certifiable brand name in the Science Fiction sibling. His work hits the New York Times Best Seller lists, landing at #1 so a new novel from him is a certifiable Publishing Event. Such is the case with Seveneves. Stephenson takes the familiar end of the world scenario and illustrates through both the Hard Sciences of Astrophysics and Engineering as well as “Soft Sciences” like Sociology and Psychology a very plausible and fascinating look at how our world, in that old twenty minutes in the future trope, would handle such a glorious and terrific (in the Hindenburg sense) situation. While such a blockbuster concept of the moon exploding and heralding an apocalyptic time on earth seems a sure-fire summer read, Stephenson crafts a rigorously thought out scenario for his story absent from many a summer read. Seveneves is, in the end, enthralling and tedious, glorious and wonderful. A novel that is far better as a sum of its parts, for it is an uneven, thick beast of a book that requires patience, but is ultimately very rewarding.
Recommended
© 2015 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover, May 2015, 880 Pages
ISBN 978-0-062-19037-6
http://www.nealstephenson.com/
http://www.nealstephenson.com/seveneves.html
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, William Morrow Books / Harper Voyager
