Seveneves

I am an unabashed Neal Stephenson fan; his books are the ones I always pre-order as soon as I hear about them, and I’ve tried to sell all my reading friends and family on his fiction. This latest novel is his most ambitious by far - maybe not in terms of the high-concept setting as was the case with Anathem, but definitely in terms of the general plot and the technological problems the book is discussing (i.e., the Earth is essentially destroyed by a centuries-long “bolide” shower; a remnant of humanity in orbit around the Earth returns five millenia later). I read it as part of his involvement in the Hieroglyph Project; the first two-thirds of the novel reads much like his contribution to the volume of stories and essays.

One has to have a certain amount of patience to read a novel of this kind of ambition; it’s certainly not for everyone. I wouldn’t classify it as one of Mr. Stephenson’s best novels, either (that’s a toss up between Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age as far as I’m concerned, with Anathem a close second) . . . though it is so ambitious and suggestive that it may prove to be his most influential. He has stated in interviews that he tried to leave the reader wanting more, and certainly that’s the case here. I could read several novels set in this universe. My guess is, though, that he’s already thinking about a different set of scientific/historical/technological issues and thus his next novel will be a far cry from this one.