Seveneves- Neal Stephenson (spoilers in tags)

[Pecan]

Okay, well I guess I'll pick it up again then. Hopefully the story picks up as well. 

[Reny of Storms End]

Just finished the book and I really enjoyed it. I was pretty much hooked once I had read the blurb. I really do hope he does a sequel. Or, as maybe Scot suggested, tell the story from a different Epic.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just read an interesting take on the "Julia" twist in the second third of the book:

No. There was a huge difference between how technocrats do politics - arguing over the best decision given the available info - and what Julia et al were doing. The non-techies were acting like their opinions were just as valid as anyone else's, despite their complete lack of expertise. The Dunning-Kruger effect made them think that the issues were simpler than they were, and that their own suggestions were just as valid as any techie's. When new info appeared they failed to change their opinions. When irrelevant info suddenly became relevant, they acted like it had been hidden from them by a conspiracy. They were incapable of making good decisions but would not bow to the decisions of the techies, because they did not percieve their own incompetence.

The techies' inaction in regards to Julia was completely understandable. They knew exactly what to do when presented with rationality. Look how often they were willing to sacrifice themselves or each other in order to serve the greater good. It all made sense. When presented with irrationality, they attempted to ignore it instead of challenging it head on. This is what we're currently doing with science and the internet. That's why the story is a parable. Stephenson is trying to tell us that we need to do more to actively quash bullshit, in politics and in social media, before it drags us all into extinction. The worrying part is that he doesn't offer us any solutions. I don't think he thinks there is one.

[maarsen]

Scot, there is always a solution to just about any problem. It's just that the energy required to effect said solution is more  than can be gained once that solution is reached. The only truly unsolvable problems tend to be NP-complete.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Maarsen,

Would people really get up in arms about the nitpicky bullshit that JBF got people upset about in part 2 in the shadow of the death of all life on Earth?

 

 

[maarsen]

19 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Maarsen,

Would people really get up in arms about the nitpicky bullshit that JBF got people upset about in part 2 in the shadow of the death of all life on Earth?

 

 

Scot, my father , on a trip back to the land of his birth was asked by an in-law of an in-law to take a suitcase of old clothes from a deceased mother back to her sister here in Canada. When after delivering the clothes, the sister opened up the suitcase, looked at what was inside and glared at my father, saying 'Mother had more clothes than this!!'

People get upset over the nitpickiest things especially when they are under stress. When things are beyond control, you try to control what you can.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Maarsen,

Good point.

:/

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Movie adaptation announced

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm pessimistic that a movie can really capture the scale of this novel.

[maarsen]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm pessimistic that a movie can really capture the scale of this novel.

I am pessimistic of any movie capturing the scale of any novel. They are two completely different art forms. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I am pessimistic of any movie capturing the scale of any novel. They are two completely different art forms. 

I don't think this story can translate.

[unJon]

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I don't think this story can translate.

I imagine the movie won't cover the whole novel. Just part 1 with sequels to follow. 

[Corvinus85]

Currently reading it; I'm at the 3rd part of it. I have to say this is an excellent book, though I've had trouble with it. I started out intrigued, then I really struggled for the better part of its first half - a lot of technical details, with little else to balance the story as it progressed. But after the Hard Rain section it really picked up, and now I find it highly creative and imaginative. (sad and depressing, too) Props to Mr. Stephenson for all the work he had to do to make it believable and the imagination he has shown.

As to the movie idea, this cannot be any less than a 10 part series adaptation. It may also be difficult to translate due to pretty much the lack of humor. This is not the Martian. Actually, while the Martian is a story that easily make people want for more human space exploration, this one could have an opposite effect. The effect of this story would probably be to try fast track the development of our space travelling technology, but continue to rely on unnamed missions for now. My current opinion as shaped by this book is that until we manage to invent those cool anti-gravity and anti-inertia systems along with buff shielding technology, and have near infinite energy sources (i.e. Stark Trek or the like) humans have no business going into deep space exploration, and we should send robots instead.

By the way, while the chapters have titles, the three parts don't, but I would title them Exodus, Odyssey, and Legacy.

[polishgenius]

So I read this. It's okay. In places it is, in fact, really really good, but it has a few really big flaws that hold it back, like a lot of people had said:

My biggest problem was the transition between parts 2 and 3. He went through all this enormous work to set up how humanity might be saved and then very quickly had to waste it all and whittle them down to the Seven Eves and a solution that he had, in-story, set up as being implausible at best. It wasn't great writing, felt very artificial.

And then after they came out, neither the diggers nor the spacers had changed nearly enough for the course of five thousand years, for me, especially for starting from zero in space, and there wasn't nearly enough actual history in the meantime. It's like, between the initial breeding after the council and the re-seeding of life on Earth, almost nothing actually happened.
The future story itself was fun, taking that complaint out of it, but it didn't end so much as stopped.
Also, the notion that two people directly related to two of the seven survivors managed to create lasting civilisations but no-one else did is too stupid for words. Of course the Pingers came from Cal's submarine. It couldn't be anyone else's. And no-one else in the world thought of digging in in a really deep mine.

The first half or so was pretty awesome though. Up until the comet got back basically. The depiction of the actual White Sky/Hard Rain was great stuff, and although the politics vs scientists angle was crude I liked the character work and did appreciate the focus on women.

A couple of people have said he should have split it into two books, but I think he should have gone further and split the settings entirely- worked out a proper end for the moon disaster story (which, despite having the feel of a prologue that got out of hand, which I'm glad I'm not the only one had that thought, was first according to the acknowledgements) and then do Seveneves and the genetics discourses he clearly designed that for separately by just starting out from the council as a prologue and going from there.

All-in-all, while I can't say I disliked it, it did leave me disappointed enough that I cued up some of Baxter's Xeelee on my e-reader to get the fix of the big SF I was hoping for here.

It was also the first Stephenson novel I've read that feels like someone else could have written it, and better. Even Cryptomonicon (which I wasn't as immediately engaged in as this and haven't yet finished), although it feels rather 'Gravity's Rainbow' in the WWII parts, couldn't possibly be by anyone other than Neal Stephenson, but almost everything here feels like a poorer relation to something else - Kim Stanley Robinson's future-building, Bryan Aldiss' history through extreme conditions (must finally finish Heliconia Winter), Arthur C. Clarke's rocketeering and orbital mechanics.

 

[Lily Valley]

On 6/10/2016 at 11:33 PM, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Movie adaptation announced

OMG, will it have Tom Hanks doing a boring voiceover explaining the difference between a strut and a tress for ten minutes.

On 6/11/2016 at 9:11 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm pessimistic that a movie can really capture the scale of this novel.

I am optimistic that the movie will at least try to do the editing that this book needed.

Scot, if there is a sequel, I am NOT going to suffer through it.  Not even for you, my dear.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Lily Valley said:

OMG, will it have Tom Hanks doing a boring voiceover explaining the difference between a strut and a tress for ten minutes.

I am optimistic that the movie will at least try to do the editing that this book needed.

Scot, if there is a sequel, I am NOT going to suffer through it.  Not even for you, my dear.

I can understand. I still remember the basics of orbital mechanics from high school physics so I had no trouble following that part. Putting that stuff in a movie though, snorefest. 

[Calibandar]

New Neal Stephenson due in June 2017:

 

Quote

Boston, present day. A young man from a shadowy government agency shows up at an Ivy League university and offers an eminent professor a lot of money to study a trove of recently discovered old documents. The only condition: the professor must sign an NDA that would preclude him from publishing his findings, should they be significant. The professor refuses and tells the young man to get lost. On his way out, he bumps into a young woman--a low-on-the-totem-pole adjunct faculty member who's more than happy to sign the NDA and earn a few bucks. The documents, if authentic, are earth-shaking: they prove that magic actually existed and was practiced for much of human history. But its effectiveness began to wane around the time of the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment; it stopped working altogether in 1851 at the time of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. It's not entirely clear why, but it appears that something about the modern world "jams" the "frequencies" used by magic. And so the shadowy government agency--the Department of Diachronic Operations, or DODO--gets cracking on its real mission: to develop a device that is shielded from whatever it is that interferes with magic and thus send Diachronic Operatives back in time to meddle with history"

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 hours ago, Calibandar said:

New Neal Stephenson due in June 2017:

 

 

I'm hooked.  That sounds wonderful.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 hours ago, Calibandar said:

New Neal Stephenson due in June 2017:

 

 

Calibander,

Where are you seeing this.  There is nothing on Stephenson's website about a new book. I'd love a link.

[Calibandar]

It's up on Amazon.

 https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-D-O-D-O-Novel/dp/0062409166/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1479976666&sr=1-1