His role as TV's Dr. Harrispopularizer of scienceasserts itself, and he soon is besieged with requests to "explain" why scientists missed the approaching "meteorite." Latent radioactivity in the spacecraft's fuel rods will convert comet ice into steam. You'll never look at the moon the same way again. Moments earlier, he had noticed a blur flourishing in the vicinity of the reiner gamma formation, near the moon's equator. With immediate needs accounted for, the discussion turned toward the obvious problem at hand. Truce of the burning tree -- how realistic? But she didnt. So a Julian and a Moiran could have three kids, who might randomly be a Julian, a Teklan, and an Aidan. The predicted "hard rain" starts 701 days after the moon's shattering, and Earth's surface is annihilated. Endurance was standing on her head, the torus aloft, iron Hammerhead nose-down on the iron floor of the crevasse. compounds of carbon and hydrogen). Seveneves is a speculative novel dramatizing humankind's effort to survive following the Moon's explosive fragmentation by some inexplicable agent. Neoanders have a similar arcane body of knowledge that involves super-sonic whips made from battle bots. US President Julia Bliss Flaherty manages to get herself up to the Cloud Ark despite provisions that members of government would not be launched into space. The byproduct of using a Thor is a huge space rock that will be dropped somewhere on the surface. Then I met someone who had gotten annoyed enough to begin counting pages when it happened and got to around 259 pages of it. Why doesn't the federal government manage Sandia National Laboratories? Replying to @FrustratedinGP. . Using the genetics lab, each of these women infuse their descendants with modifications that they think will facilitate survival. From coronal mass ejections they were equally immune. Traditionally plastic comes from oil, but no one said it had to be dinosaur oil, vegetable oil can also be used to make plastic. Reminder to self: no review posting until less than 30 days before release date. At first sight it has it all: original ideas, thorough descriptions of new technologies and scientific theories, but it's very long with a boring plot and a bunch of unlikeable characters. In present-day Utah, an amateur astronomer notices a dusty blur near the Moon's equator, and is thrilled to blog about it on his phone. It was impossible to be the object of that gaze without thinking of what she and the others had done, and without imagining that you were being sized up as food. The orbiting human races fight over exclusivity of contact with the survivors, and discover means of communication with them. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. According to her, Ada and the other Black Bolo survivors had calculated, in the last weeks, that their turn to cannibalism would be so repugnant to the survivors of Endurance as to render them permanent outcasts. Scientists are confident the Agent will be identified. The Cradle, being a counterweight attached to the Eye, is essentially a floating town that moves above the surface of Earth. The histrionic, emotional Ada, named after an opera character. Seveneves is a novel by Neal Stephenson describing humanity's efforts to deal with a Detonation Moon of unknown origin and the ensuing 5,000 years of biological, societal, cultural, and technological change. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, two separate survival plans emerge. She had sunk into a profound depression, emerging from it at seemingly random moments to chatter about whatever stray thoughts were flitting through her head. They met in the Banana, sitting around the long conference table. There were definitely people of mixed race in the book. No bolide could touch them down here. The ultimate, permanent, destination is a massive iron moon remnant scored with a Grand Canyon-sized zone named Cleft. It's just a rant about a plot point that doesn't make a lot of sense. What is the purpose of this D-shaped ring at the base of the tongue on my hiking boots? Some children have a cleft lip or cleft palate because of changes in their genes. They could not long survive without robots to do work for them and computerized control systems to keep the installation running. At a Caltech campus party, Dr. Harris meets elementary school teacher Amelia Hinojosa, and they fall in love. At length, it is understood that yet further disagreements and even violence will forever mark the races of humankind, wherever they may travel. The premise of Seveneves is in the novel's very first sentence (you can read the first chapter on Gizmodo here ): The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. A WEEK LATER, WHEN THE LAST OF THE VICTIMS HAD SUCCUMBED to their wounds or to radiation sickness, eight humans remained alive and healthy. S-F: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy. crevasse - a deep fissure. The seven Eve's descendants are mating with each other all the time, but a baby will always randomly come out as one of the seven "races," because of some genetic programing the seven women put into their offspring to ensure that the trait they wanted to "fix" in humanity lived on. Kulak of the Red is that, at least during construction. They are called the Seven due to Luisa's having passed menopause. The greatly enhanced ISS crew, most of whom occupy arklets, have little time to carry out final communications with loved ones and must maneuver the Cloud Ark away from debris as well as deal with last-minute "stragglers" (the U.S. president, Julia Bliss Flaherty, among them) who managed to launch into space during the brief "white sky" period. The Eye itself constantly moves around the Ring Habitat, acting as a form of transport. Because it really is two totally separate novels.). A young filmmaker, John, finds himself in a very dark place after losing his eyes in a bizarre event. 2) Why not take care of the threat first. Corporal punishment was at least a theoretical possibility. Luisa likened it to the growth of spiritualism after the First World War. The Diggers live in a much more dogmatic, tradition-driven society, but also don't appear to worship any gods. Was it? For those who have been disappointed in previous attempts to read recent Stephenson works, I see improvement in his character development and tendencies toward digression and diversion. The only glimmer of hope in Stephenson's novel comes from a plan to try to create space colonies where humanity can survive for thousands of years. Five thousand years later after a catastrophic event rendered the Earth a ticking time bomb, the progeny of a handful of outer space explorers--seven distinct races now three billion strong--embark on yet another audacious journey: to return to Earth. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Truce of the burning tree -- how realistic? Ironically, the last male gives his life for the remaining women, putting them into a difficult situation where they are forced to use alternative means of reproduction. Ada's curse ensures that all of her descendants will be treated with contempt by the other six races. Like I said, I'm still reading the book, so I don't know if my hypothesis can hold up, or not. The first contact between the Diggers and the Pingers is said to have occurred some time in the past. If each Eve and her offspring were physically separated, this might make sense. everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Seveneves. Even though many of these had been lost, what remained was still more than enough to keep a small colony in aspirin and toothbrushes for a long time. The story tells of the desperate efforts to preserve Homo sapiens in the wake of apocalyptic events on Earth after the unexplained disintegration of the Moon and the remaking of human society as a space-based civilization after a severe genetic bottleneck. Seveneves is available now in the US and May 21st in the UK from HarperCollins. Betas are the most numerous of the subraces and don't seem to have a specific defining trait, which can make them a counter to Moirans. Please don't post comments as answers. This was also driving me crazy. For example, look how much black blood has intermixed with whites (and that's just over a few hundred years, not 5000). So it's pretty hard to swallow that they survive for 4500 years with the finite resources brought in a few cans. And they had plans for rebooting digital civilization later; they had tools for making tools for making tools, and instructions on how to use them when the time came. . These now projected upward like leaves. Sean Probst's Ymir spacecraft completes a half-year journey to capture the "Greg's Skeleton" comet. Ada initiates a kind of a genetic arms race against the other Eves, trying to anticipate whatever qualities they give their progeny and giving her own children complementary and counterweight features. Dinah sent out some Grabbs to weld the ship to the asteroid. The Diamond Age, or, Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Thanks for contributing an answer to Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange! Dr. Harris meets with U.S. president Julia Bliss Flaherty, and tells her it's crucial to stop asking what happened, and start talking about what's going to happen. Rufus' compound survived to the far future. Seveneves is a novel by Neal Stephenson describing humanity's efforts to deal with a Detonation Moon of unknown origin and the ensuing 5,000 years of biological, societal, cultural, and technological change. The healthy ones patched holes, repressurized modules, got the torus spinning again, and turned it into a sick bay, which filled up immediately. The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. A handful of characters here get fleshed out enough as lively personalities for satisfactory levels of emotional engagement, and the expository writing he incorporates to explain science and engineering feats are less like information dumps and more subjugated to the critical problem solving of the characters heroic missions. But look at the (later) attraction of Kathtwo and Beled, and imagine a world where frequent sexual reproduction and avoiding inbreeding were absolutely essential to the survival of the human species. Five thousand years later, their progeny seven distinct races now three billion strong embark on yet another audacious journey . This includes some potentially. Amazing stand alone sci-fi, highly recommended. The ISS is attached to a captured Arjuna (near-Earth) asteroid, Almathea, which is being mined for nickel and iron by Dinah MacQuarie's robots. The descendants 5,000 years in the future in the. Their accounts were recorded and archived. One idea that I had was that NS could have just included one line that says that Moira developed some kind of genetic coding that ensured the babies would carry the genetic traits of the mother always. the tensions that caused the Break between the Swarm and the Endurance. This is the backdrop against which Neal Stephenson has set one of his most ambitious and visionary fictions: Seveneves. The human race faces a catastrophic event which leaves them scrambling to survive. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and . He observed: "Some researchers had begun to express concern over the possibility that a collision between two pieces of debris might spawn a large number of fragments, thereby increasing the probability of further collisions and further fragments, producing a chain reaction that might put so much debris into low Earth orbit as to create a barrier to future space exploration. This seems like it would have a blending effect, but I think it's conceivable that the kids would tend to fall into one type or the other, so that the racial types could be preserved, depending on what the genetic differences between Moirans and Tecklans are and how they are inherited. Above the spinning torus, where Moira was even now unpacking her genetics lab, Tekla was inspecting the arklets on the top level, learning which were whole, which were beyond repair, and which could be patched up for future occupancy. @ScottWhitlock Mixed race people were a tiny minority. Part 3 lists several stages in the development of the races. The cannibals had ended up under Ada, who because of her intensity and her charisma had gradually emerged as the leader of the Black Bolo Brigade. He and millions of others throughout the Americas witness the same chilling sight: a greater-than-moon-sized cloud which, after the dust settles, turns red. Since one of the Seven Eves was a Russian Cosmonaut, the Russian influence is quite apparent in The Spacers' language and culture. Interesting, and extremely entertaining book. As the population multiplied, in the period known as Propagation, separate racial groups tended to form isolated colonies across Cleft, and further afield, leading into an era where the races diverged again: Isolation: the formation of racially pure populations. Seveneves is a hard science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson published in 2015. The time leading up to Cleft, the time between Cleft and the Ring, and then the Ring to the end. These survivors evolved into two races, the Pingers capable of underwater exploration, where the ejecta of "Spacers" are discovered. 8. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Dubois "Doob" Jerome Xavier Harris, Ph.D. observes the moon's destruction during a fund-raiser at Caltech Athenaeum. So the canonical answer is each of the races kept to their own habitats during the 4,000 year period before the habit ring was constructed, and thus there was little opportunity for the groups to mix, as travel was difficult in this era. [10], Bill Gates recommended Seveneves as one of five books to read in the summer of 2016, praising in particular its scientific accuracy. Seveneves is a superhuman achievement, dense, eloquent, exhaustive, exhilarating, powerful, utterly readable, and ultimately uplifting. 1. cleft - a split or indentation in something (as the palate or chin) indentation, indenture - a concave cut into a surface or edge (as in a coastline) 2. cleft - a long narrow opening. It is decided that the only places anyone might survive are in space, or deep underground. Insights into the human character shine like occasional full moons." -- Boston Globe Parent based Selectable Entries Condition, Duress at instant speed in response to Counterspell. I have no idea, Luisa said, how anyone could read these threads and find hope in them. It is not a stretch to think that they used the same technology to harvest things they needed (water, metals other than iron, certain naturally-occurring compounds, etc) from elsewhere in the Solar System. Book about a good dark lord, think "not Sauron". Two people of intermediate skin colour will have mostly kids with intermediate skin colour, but a few offspring can have quite dark or quite light skin. . Played straight, however, in that there is still some drift in how the members of The Epic are portrayed outside of the actual recordings. rev2023.3.1.43269. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. It's driving me nuts. Blue's army is mostly Teklans, who are hulking supersoldiers genetically engineered from a Russian badass. It's eventually revealed that something akin to the Cold War has once more resurfaced between the Blue/Dinan and Red/Adan states. 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