6 ms·

What was so different between the two acts?

eric_h 9y ago
The first act is about how the present day human race survives the moon being destroyed. The second takes place 5000 years in the future and is essentially about the return to earth. I don’t share GP’s opinion, I quite enjoyed both acts. I do agree that the pace of the two is quite different - the first being a bit more sci-fi thriller pace and the second is a bit more contemplative.
- Jemaclus 9y ago
  There's actually three acts: Earth, Space, Moon. It's really a trilogy smushed up into one book. I agree, though. The first two acts were great, and the third fell flatter than the earlier two. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. It's nice to imagine what would happen, and it's pretty hard scifi throughout, albeit greatly accelerated.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    Fair enough, but I lump the first two together in my head simply because they occurred in the same time frame, at least compared to the third act
  - rtkwe 9y ago
    Yeah, though I tend to like breaking it into 'the end of Earth and our efforts to survive that end' and 'what happens to a society that's been through that trauma and their return home' split. The time jump really makes the jump feel more solid between book/acts 2 and 3 to me.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago
  It's two separate books that were put under the hydraulic press and smashed into one tome. Keep that in mind when reading it, otherwise the second act is jarring.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    Yes, well said. Honestly it's kind of like reading "The Diamond Age" immediately after reading "Snow Crash" and expecting them to be similar since they're set in the same universe.
vkou 9y ago
Act 2 is Neal Stephenson's re-imagining of the Fellowship of the Ring - complete with the cast that makes up the fellowship, and roughly 500 pages of walking to places, so that they can walk to other places, so that they could walk to other places, without doing much of anything. Beautiful worldbuilding, but very much not like the rest of the book.
- mjd 9y ago
  I said very much the same thing in my review: “[The characters] spend most of the third part literally doing nothing. They are assembled into a team of seven by a nebulous authority for some secret purpose; neither they nor we are told what it is. They go from place to place to investigate something or other, making several pointless stops and excursions and wondering, as I did, what was going on and when something was actually going to happen.” https://blog.plover.com/book/Seveneves.html https://blog.plover.com/book/Seveneves.html
  - jrockway 9y ago
    Literally doing nothing seems to be a valid literary technique. The part I remember most from Cryptonomicon is about some guy eating cereal.
    - sevensor 9y ago
      Funny, that scene stuck with me too. With UHT milk. Extra cold.
    - mjd 9y ago
      I have no problem with that in general. The cereal-eating was focused and vivid (it was Cap'n Crunch), and anyway it was over in a couple of pages. Nicholson Baker's entire novel The Mezzanine is like that, and it's just fine. But so much of my time was spent reading about those people going from A to B to C on their way to D, and for what? There was a similar episode in _Anathem_, which I generally liked. But for some reason the characters had to go from A to B and the best way to get there was to go over the North Pole, and the book stopped for fifty pages until they got over the Pole and everything could continue. In a different world some editor would have persuaded Stephenson to cut the whole thing out, and I used to hope he would one day meet that editor and we would live in that world, but by now I've given up.
codemac 9y ago
The first part is a race against time to survive. The second part is a war between humans for scarce resources in space. The third part is about humans, who are largely doing fine, finding out stuff about the past and themselves. There are some deadlines & urgency in the last part, but I think it's a tall task to try and create urgency when the previous sections were about the entire human races being extinguished.
joshrivers 9y ago
Myself, I enjoyed the entire book, but I understand the let down feeling some here are expressing. The first part is immediate, gripping, intense, and hard to go through it (but you don't want to stop, because it is so good). After all of that resolves, it's pretty hard to emotionally connect with the rest of the story, since you are exhausted from all that came before. The final act is worthwhile and interesting, it's just a pretty big change in direction.
loeg 9y ago
The first part is "real time" and very intense and nerve-wracking. Then in Act 2 it skips forward 5000 years and tries to tell you what happened later. It feels like an extended epilogue and none of the original characters are alive for you to care about. I liked it, but I can totally see the criticism.

The first act is about how the present day human race survives the moon being destroyed. The second takes place 5000 years in the future and is essentially about the return to earth. I don’t share GP’s opinion, I quite enjoyed both acts. I do agree that the pace of the two is quite different - the first being a bit more sci-fi thriller pace and the second is a bit more contemplative.

Jemaclus 9y ago
There's actually three acts: Earth, Space, Moon. It's really a trilogy smushed up into one book. I agree, though. The first two acts were great, and the third fell flatter than the earlier two. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. It's nice to imagine what would happen, and it's pretty hard scifi throughout, albeit greatly accelerated.
- eric_h 9y ago
  Fair enough, but I lump the first two together in my head simply because they occurred in the same time frame, at least compared to the third act
- rtkwe 9y ago
  Yeah, though I tend to like breaking it into 'the end of Earth and our efforts to survive that end' and 'what happens to a society that's been through that trauma and their return home' split. The time jump really makes the jump feel more solid between book/acts 2 and 3 to me.
Florin_Andrei 9y ago
It's two separate books that were put under the hydraulic press and smashed into one tome. Keep that in mind when reading it, otherwise the second act is jarring.
- eric_h 9y ago
  Yes, well said. Honestly it's kind of like reading "The Diamond Age" immediately after reading "Snow Crash" and expecting them to be similar since they're set in the same universe.

vkou 9y ago

Act 2 is Neal Stephenson's re-imagining of the Fellowship of the Ring - complete with the cast that makes up the fellowship, and roughly 500 pages of walking to places, so that they can walk to other places, so that they could walk to other places, without doing much of anything. Beautiful worldbuilding, but very much not like the rest of the book.

mjd 9y ago
I said very much the same thing in my review: “[The characters] spend most of the third part literally doing nothing. They are assembled into a team of seven by a nebulous authority for some secret purpose; neither they nor we are told what it is. They go from place to place to investigate something or other, making several pointless stops and excursions and wondering, as I did, what was going on and when something was actually going to happen.” https://blog.plover.com/book/Seveneves.html https://blog.plover.com/book/Seveneves.html
- jrockway 9y ago
  Literally doing nothing seems to be a valid literary technique. The part I remember most from Cryptonomicon is about some guy eating cereal.
  - sevensor 9y ago
    Funny, that scene stuck with me too. With UHT milk. Extra cold.
  - mjd 9y ago
    I have no problem with that in general. The cereal-eating was focused and vivid (it was Cap'n Crunch), and anyway it was over in a couple of pages. Nicholson Baker's entire novel The Mezzanine is like that, and it's just fine. But so much of my time was spent reading about those people going from A to B to C on their way to D, and for what? There was a similar episode in _Anathem_, which I generally liked. But for some reason the characters had to go from A to B and the best way to get there was to go over the North Pole, and the book stopped for fifty pages until they got over the Pole and everything could continue. In a different world some editor would have persuaded Stephenson to cut the whole thing out, and I used to hope he would one day meet that editor and we would live in that world, but by now I've given up.

codemac 9y ago

The first part is a race against time to survive. The second part is a war between humans for scarce resources in space. The third part is about humans, who are largely doing fine, finding out stuff about the past and themselves. There are some deadlines & urgency in the last part, but I think it's a tall task to try and create urgency when the previous sections were about the entire human races being extinguished.

joshrivers 9y ago

Myself, I enjoyed the entire book, but I understand the let down feeling some here are expressing. The first part is immediate, gripping, intense, and hard to go through it (but you don't want to stop, because it is so good). After all of that resolves, it's pretty hard to emotionally connect with the rest of the story, since you are exhausted from all that came before. The final act is worthwhile and interesting, it's just a pretty big change in direction.

loeg 9y ago

The first part is "real time" and very intense and nerve-wracking. Then in Act 2 it skips forward 5000 years and tries to tell you what happened later. It feels like an extended epilogue and none of the original characters are alive for you to care about. I liked it, but I can totally see the criticism.