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The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason (2017)
- OneTimePetes 5y agoA massive body such as the moon, would re-merge by gravity alone, wouldnt it?
- sneak 5y agoIt is such an epic opening line. I re-read it three times. Massively underrated novel. It could have easily been a series of books like Dune, but for whatever reason he opted for a single, hastily-wrapped-up gigantic one.
- ddalex 5y ago> hastily-wrapped-up gigantic one All of Neal Stephenson's books are hastily-wrapped, like he just got out the point he wanted to make and cannot be bothered to finish the book
- ambirex 5y agoin all fairness, at that point, he has usually written quite a bit. ;)
- InTheArena 5y agoI think baroque cycle broke that mold a bit. Otherwise I agree.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jo6gwb 5y agoNeal Stephenson published a new book in late October 2021 called Termination Shock. Not a recommendation but more of an FYI for fans if his work.
- devb 5y agoIt was actually published today!
- daltont 5y agoThe plutonium rock band "Disaster Area" for Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: "Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason."
- RobRivera 5y agoThis is quite literally clickbait
- catlikesshrimp 5y agoif the moon exploded unexpectedly you wouldn't read it from HN first The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason [Book]
- simonh 5y agoIf it happened while the moon was not visible from your part of the world, and you were reading HN at the time you might well do. One of my favourite Larry Niven stories is Inconstant Moon. One evening the moon starts getting brighter and brighter, people start partying in the street and it becomes almost as bright as daylight. The protagonist goes to a bar and starts getting as drunk as possible, because he knows where the light of the moon comes from, the effect this must be having on the sunward side of the Earth, and what that means is about to happen where he is.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoI figured it was some moon on a planet not near us, or a nightclub.
- muzani 5y agoIt's a simulation. I thought it's clear in context. The only other possible context is that it's another moon (but that would be a moon and not the moon). Maybe it would be less clickbaity framed as "The moon blew up" or "A simulation of the moon blowing up"
- frazbin 5y agoif this headline reads like clickbait, you might be a little jumpy.
- geocrasher 5y agoWe live in a world where any compelling title is accused of being clickbait.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoIt's been pointed out before by smarter people than me. But the biggest implausibility of the book (besides the submarines) is the modelling of the moon fragments as rigid, brittle bodies. Large objects are not rigid.
- mro_name 5y ago> Large objects are not rigid. I like that a lot.
- gmuslera 5y agoI see it as 3 books, the first two with the race towards saving mankind from extinction, and the third one the future after 5000 years. No matter how implausible you find that the moon blow up and the fragments did a dance that ended 2 years later, but the third part was a solid block of suspension of disbelief, specially for the genetic and psychological/sociological aspects of it. I don't know, if the initial phrase was "the moon grow legs and walked through the sky", it would had been more plausible than the third part of that book.
- Vecr 5y agoThe whole idea of the book is really weird in general. It feels like a writing exercise in taking something utterly implausible and putting enough "scientific" details in it that people take it seriously. What's with the multiple human subspecies thing as well?
- dredmorbius 5y agoThat is more-or-less Stephenson's schtick. Snow Crash is metaverse + extreme libertarianism + software/mind virus. Diamond Age is nanotechnolgy + neovictorianism + clades. Cryptonomicon is digital currency (not quite blockchain, but close), plus some WWII stuff. The Baroque Cycle is "how did modern finance get invented* plus seggsytymes. Anatham is "philosophy, protractors, and starships, but medaeval-like". His earlier works (Big U, Zodiak, and the two he wrote with his uncle) also centre around one core technological concept, interacting with society, business, politics, etc. But the gist is "take some idea and run with it, see where it goes".
- djmips 5y ago2017 post.
- pmontra 5y agoThe book is full of large orbital machines. They are explained thoroughly and there are some drawings but I wish the author had pictures and videos of them on his web site to see how they work.
- pilsetnieks 5y agoI wouldn't be surprised if Bezos owned those ideas.
- pilsetnieks 5y agoFor the downvoter: Stephenson used to be an advisor for Bezos-owned Blue Origin for 7 years; supposedly he developed at least some of these far-out space launch and orbital mechanics ideas during that time. It's just a facetious comment and I'm not seriously saying Bezos owns the thoughts in Stephenson's head. However, I wouldn't be very surprised if there were some BO-affiliated patents or research papers along similar lines that bore Stephenson's name as well on them.
- Kaibeezy 5y agoThe High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space, 1976, Gerard K. O'Neill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Col...
- rbanffy 5y agoI hear there is a documentary available on Apple TV, but I couldn't find it (either on Apple TV or anywhere else)
- Kaibeezy 5y agoI had an invitation to see it the day it came out, but now it’s nowhere to be found. Not even on Exodus, which is weird. I’ll go take another look... Looks like you can rent it on Google Play for $3.99, which is good enough for me. Appears to have won a bunch of awards. https://thehighfrontiermovie.com/ https://thehighfrontiermovie.com/