Review: Seveneves

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Available at Amazon

This book was a free one at bookshout.com for me. Not sure how I got it free from them but I did.

It was a long read. It has taken me since July to read it using the Bookshout app and reading the equivalent of 2 books a month.

It held my interest at times, and then at others it was boring as all get out. It reminded me of a book that I read when I was growing up. That book was The Last Days of the Late Great State of California. In that story, an earthquake moves across the state line of California, causing it to sink into the sea. The book gives the history of the various parts of the state up till the time the earthquake happens. The opening of the book is much like that. A unknown thing has struck the moon causing it to shatter and it will destroy the earth in about three years. All the nations combine together to send people and supplies to create a space ark to keep the population from becoming extinct. So that is the first part, the technobabble to create the Space Ark.

The second part comes in as we try to make sure the human race survives. But they all fight with each other, so in the end, the human race is reduced to just 7 people, all female. Oh, one just happens to be a geneticist, and we learn of the techno babble that allows them to recreate people from just the eggs, and each woman breeds into their offspring, what they think they will need to survive. Well, if you do not believe in God, then make everyone in your image and you are one. By the way, the woman screw it up but I am not sure the men would have done it better.

The last part they have arrived on earth thousands of years later and making what appears to be first contact, but with what or with whom. While the technobabble is here as well, it is not as much as this part of the book really comes as pure fiction.

As I stated, it did remind me of that book. Why? Because we got a history book of California, almost like they could have used in a history class. In this book, we get a science lesson. And I wonder if people might try to use it as a science textbook.

I would have loved to given this more stars but it just dragged in to many places and I almost gave up reading it.

Safe for all to read. Not sure who I would recommend it to, maybe some science geeks.

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