5 ms·
I agree with the first two thirds of what you've said, but not the last third - which parallels my feelings about the book. The third part of the book felt lik
by pavel_lishin 2y ago
I agree with the first two thirds of what you've said, but not the last third - which parallels my feelings about the book.
The third part of the book felt like it was meant to be a full-length sequel to Seveneves, but was cut down to a novella-length post-script.
- surprisetalk 2y agoI feel like all the folks (including myself) who really enjoyed the book believed that the "Seveneves" was an intentional palindrome, and the two distinct parts of the books were intentionally mirrors/foils of each other. Without that assumption, I can see how the second part of the book would feel arbitrary.
- pavel_lishin 2y agoMaybe I'm not a reliable-enough reader, but I didn't particularly see a palindromic effect in the last part of the book. (Which to me still feels like the last third - to me, the book feels like the book has three sections: the setup, the survival, and the aftermath. I haven't read it in long enough to see if it's actually split that way in any sort of specific "Part 1, Part 2, Part 3" way.)
- Vecr 2y agoI guess because it's the it's the "seven eves" that are the big bolides the moon breaks into, and the "seven eves" of the new species of humanity in the second part.
- ben_w 2y agoI didn't even notice that the name (let alone the novel) was a palindrome, that makes a lot more sense.
- pmontra 2y agoThe last part is not as frantic as the first one, for good reasons. Nevertheless there are a lot of huge orbital machines and political plots that keep it going. Maybe there is some unbalance of tension between the two parts but I enjoyed the last one too.
- moomin 2y agoUnfortunately the political plot is “Hillary Clinton fails to engage with reality and it falls to genius billionaire Elon Musk and a self-insert modelled on Neil deGrasse Tyson and a self-insert to save the day.” which has, and I think this is an understatement, aged extremely badly.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoI liked the part where one of the tech CEOs ate a bit of radioactive nickel or whatever and diarrhead to death.
- blkhawk 2y agoIt might age like fine wine once the current political situation passes. The self insert part is also very uncharitable.
- moomin 2y agoUncharitable, yes, but bluntly, he’s got form. Look at Dodge in Reamde. And I dunno about age improving it. Niven and Pournelle’s politics just looks kind of ridiculous now, even if you don’t know exactly who they had a bee in their bonnet about.
- Vecr 2y ago> and a self-insert modelled on Neil deGrasse Tyson I don't think that's horribly unrealistic, is it? He's pretty much a scientist the media picked to represent the topic, like Dr. Fauci in real life. They could have picked a coronavirologist, but they didn't.
- yk 2y agoThe third part is a complete change in tone, but it is actually necessary for the entire book because without it the ending would be implied to be extraordinary bleak.
- aloe_falsa 2y agoThat's exactly what ruined it for me. The few apparent survivors of the human race are huddled in a tin can, running out of resources - fade to black - and suddenly, by divine providence and author fiat, everything is fine. It kills the suspension of disbelief.
- LordN00b 2y ago...and 5000 years! That's 2.5 Jesus's of time and distance.
- MrDresden 2y ago... and comes accross as a deus ex machina transition. More authors should be brave and have their stories end bleakly. Great examples that come to mind would be 'Death's End', 'Echopraxia' (to a lesser extent also the prior 'Blindsight'), 'Consider Phlebas', just to name a few.