I haven't read Childhood's End. I really enjoyed Seveneves, though. But there's just a lot of cool stuff in the story that is worth the exposition. As others no

I haven't read Childhood's End. I really enjoyed Seveneves, though. But there's just a lot of cool stuff in the story that is worth the exposition. As others note, the book is written in sections; if you really don't want to go through the triumph and heartbreak of the outplaying story, it wouldn't be awful to jump to a later section. I may be a bit heretical saying so, but some ideas later in the book are just wonderful. You'll lose out fast forwarding, but I'd recommend that over skipping it :)