Seveneves discussion

[Let me start by saying that I have only just started part two of the book, so this might be addressed later on]

The first part of the book, and at least the start of the second, details the building of the Cloud Ark in orbit above earth. We see what modifications are made to Izzy, the lifting of people and 'vitamins' into orbit. Issues like micrometeorites, equipment failures, lack of resources, sustainability are discussed. It becomes obvious that the next five to ten thousand years are going to be dangerous and cramped for what is left of humanity.

So why stay in orbit around a soon to be dead planet, and just leave for Mars?

Getting there should be hardly a problem as we see the technology is available for the Arjuna team to jaunt off in the first part of the book to capture a comet in heliocentric orbit.

Packing resources for the interplanetary trip seems of little hindrance as we see how much materiel is able to be launched from earth to build the Cloud Ark.

And most of the dangers of living in orbit would be solved by living on a planets surface, with some atmosphere and easy mining for resources.

I imagine that for the story Stephenson wants to tell the action has to take place in orbit, but there should be at least some explanation as to why Mars has been ruled out from the beginning.

It's because they always plan to return to Earth after the Hard Rain. And the fuel needed to go to Mars, then back, would likely be prohibitive.

The book has a lot of "reasons things were done" because Stephenson wanted to tell a very particular story.

They could have setup an electromagnetic mass driver, or just a Big Gun to get insane amounts on non-fragile material to orbit, in huge quantities.
At least one government with Nukes would have tried to build an Orion ship to move large numbers of people off planet.

He didn't want to write that story so those things never even came up, not even with a simple throw away line that they had to put all their resources on the Cloud Ark.

I really wanted to know what destroyed the moon.

Hi all. Superblinky, the Mars thing becomes important later. Others think just like you! I think that the identity of The Agent might be revealed in the next two books in the trilogy.

Lesley wrote: "Hi all. Superblinky, the Mars thing becomes important later. Others think just like you! I think that the identity of The Agent might be revealed in the next two books in the trilogy."

Just curious - how did you find out there was going to be a trilogy? Also, I think I read somewhere that Cryptonomicon was going to be a trilogy. Do you know anything about that?

I hadn't heard about a trilogy, but it would make sense. As was said in the book, the Pingers and the Diggers both have their own epic stories of how they survived, and it would be interesting to get their points of view.

I have to add that as a librarian I love that the Diggers kept a paper copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica for research purposes. It was the original World Wide Web.

Hi All,

SPOILER ALERT

1)I can't remember just where I read that Seveneves is the first book in a trilogy - I am pretty sure I read it before the book was published; when I was trawling for morsels. Another Stephenson!!
2) I had not heard that Cryptonomicon was to be a, or part of a trilogy. Perhaps the original idea was to divide it into byte-size pieces.
3) You are right about the Pingers and the Diggers, Nadine.
4) On that point- I thought that the Pingers evolved into amphibians pretty darn quickly - 5,000 years? Whereas the Diggers had not turned into mole-creatures. And they are all still speaking pretty recognisable English?? All three civilizations??
5) About the EB and the Cycs - I too liked that idea but I am sure that I have read something just like that before, about people like the "Cycs" and it is bugging me. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?
6) Another question - why were the Reds so adamant about winning the Diggers over? Wouldn't they just kill them?

I have to say, I will not run to buy the second book. :(

SPOILER ALERT

I haven't been able to find anything just now about Seveneves being part of a trilogy- just a reference to it being a kind of trilogy - world blows up/people set selves up in space/return to Earth.
But it really felt like part one of a trilogy to me, particularly the ending.

I did find a good review. Sorry, I couldn't copy the URl but it can be found at -
"The Millions" headed "The Creative Chrysalis"

Thanks SuperBlinky for starting this discussion. I have just quit "Seveneves" in the middle of the 2nd section because I cannot take the incongruities any longer.

First, Stephenson has created an incredibly thought-provoking work although flawed by its depth of characters and "nerd-centric" view of the world. That being said, I am completely intrigued by the book but I feel as if I have been late night verbal sparring over beers with a pig-headed friend who can't see anyone else point of view.

SPOILERS AHEAD>>>>>>>

Plot holes as I see them:

1) First, when have the nations of the world agreed to anything, ever heard global warming?

2) Why not take care of the threat first. You have 2 years to move, blow up, push away the moon. I know the mass of the 7 pieces are large but it was never even discussed in the book. Was it?

3) Assuming the nations reached an agreement to work together, that doesn't mean the people would. Stephenson assumes everybody is just gonna keep running things down here on Earth so that a small group of space nerds can survive. Really??? All those soldiers and sailors are not going to leave their posts and go home, teachers are going keep teaching useless lessons to children who don't need educations, food manufacturers are going to keep on keeping on till the end, truck drivers are going to go out behind the wheel.... THE BIGGEST FLAW in the book is the lack of chaos. From the moment the announcement of the White Rain, there would have an massive interuption to all aspects of human activity. Nothing would run on time and supplies for everything would be disrupted. There would be no mass churning out of rockets (where would they get all the required fuel, anyway) The space station would not be able to sustain the stress of the Cloud Ark.

I think the biggest frustration of the book is the great detail in the science described but a seemingly complete lack of understanding of the humans behind the science. These plot holes nagged at me so much I can't finish a book that I want to love. It's as disappointing as a bad kiss.

SPOILERS. You're so right, Phillip. Earth would be one huge riot, not a whole lot of people carefully selecting their best and brightest and then working hard to ensure that these lucky ones can survive. And there'd be mass chaos with billions trying to get onto the cloud ark. Just think of the evacuation of SAIGON!
I respectfully suggest that you might find it worthwhile to read on. Not that the incongruities become any less annoying (in fact there is the same problem in reverse by the end of the book), but if you like the science space bits, there's lots more of that in the second half of the second part and the third part is different again (with its own annoyances - but Stephenson is still Stephenson).

Please see my review here...I' like to know what you think

http://www.thevarnishedculture.com/se...

Darn it. I'm not reading the first book of a trilogy then waiting a couple years for the next one, then more for the last. I've declared a moratorium on that. My memory is filling up with all these trilogies, and 6 book series, and 8 book series...

I'll buy the books, then read them when the last one comes out.

GRRM and Rothfuss have wrecked me for series books. Twenty years for completion because they want to keep on writing (sometimes over writing) about their invented worlds? As cool as they are, I have plenty of other really good books I don't have to be "on the hook" in order to enjoy it. Waiting for the end of some of these is like a Fox TV giving us a season and a half if a really good show then dropping it cold with no real ending.

Stephenson is really good about sticking to a timetable and plot. His discipline when writing is nothing like GRRM's. He has stand alone books and trilogies that are all enjoyable. This book could be treated as a stand alone if you prefer.

I do agree about GRRM. I won't read another book of his, but I think comparing the two authors is like apples and oranges.

Lesley, Regarding why Red wanted to win the Diggers over rather than kill them, there are two main reasons which are expressed in the book. The first reason is that the Diggers are in territory that, by treaty between Red and Blue, is assigned to Blue. The point is made in the book that if the Diggers were just a few hundred kilometers to the west, Red would have simply obliterated them. In other words, if the Diggers had popped up in territory that Red controlled, Red would have killed them. But bombing Blue territory would be an even more egregious violation of treaty than landing a small party there to meet the Diggers was. It would be an all-out act of war against Blue. So instead of doing that, Red decided to turn the Diggers to their advantage, which brings me to...

The other reason, discussed at some length in the book: Propaganda. Red arranged a moving and appealing ceremonial meeting with the Diggers, and broadcast it on television into space where it would be watched by zillions of people in both Red's and Blue's part of the habitat ring. Red put out the narrative that Blue and its out-of-touch Ivyn leaders had sent a bumbling bunch of losers down, who had started a fight and taken hostages (Sonar) instead of greeting the Diggers with respect. This propaganda is more valuable than simply bombing the Diggers off the face of the planet. Red is playing a long game against Blue, and propaganda is a huge part of that game.

Thanks Carlageek. Regarding the first reason, obviously I wasn't reading carefully enough at that stage. I understood the propaganda reason, but I just didn't buy it. Will say more when I have time. thanks!

Lesley wrote: "About the EB and the Cycs - I too liked that idea but I am sure that I have read something just like that before, about people like the "Cycs" and it is bugging me. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?"

It reminded me of Fahrenheit 451, with its underground society of people who are each keeping alive a classic book by memorizing it.

The big argument against Mars in the book is lack of protection. Keep in mind that most of the free floating Swarm was taken out in a solar flare. That's the reason they were so insistent on basically burying themselves in iron. Being in the Cloud also gave them ready access to a number of resources and without reintroducing the problem of needing to launch off of the surface. While they seem to have overcome that issue by the time of the last part of the book, it seems like it would have been a significant issue.

As far as countries working together: they didn't. Venezuela being an obvious example (and let's be honest, what happened to them was terrible and in no way justified). The Pingers also represent just one aspect of the ways in which everything was NOT behind the Cloud Ark. By the end of the book, someone suggests that there was a project just as large behind them (which also goes some way toward plugging the evolution plothole: they would have had just as much--more, really--incentive to dabble in genetic modification).

A lot of the other stuff probably isn't necessarily more complicated than just not being the type of story Stephenson wanted to tell. That said, I don't think it's necessarily a hole in the plot so much as something that wasn't included.

totally agree with the plot hole about humanity not devolving into chaos and anarchy, but there's an even worse one: are we supposed to believe that two pockets of humanity survived on earth, and under wildly disparate circumstances,, and all those really smart scientists weren't able to realize that and pursue those solutions, instead of the insanely complex (and expensive) effort to launch everything into space?

Yep Joe, a very good point. The point is made that the photos taken by the guy who remained in the submarine (whose name escapes me) revealed that it was equipped with all sorts of survival technology.

I think that with any fantasy or scifi work, there needs to be a willing suspension of disbelief. The author wanted to tell the story of the space survivors. He could have used varying POVs (which drive me crazy sometimes) showing how other survival methods were happening. Those other possibilities turned out to be small scale in the long run. So I think with this book, you liked it, or you didn't. That's cool.

@Lesley and @Joe On the points about how fast the pingers evolved, and about Cal's submarine surviving:

This is how I chose to view it in order to not go crazy from the plot holes: Both Cal (the submarine captain) and Rufus (The cave digger) had access to people deeply involved in the efforts with the cloud ark (To wit, Dinah and Ivy) so that they could pump them on information about the tribulations ahead that were not available to others. Rufus then got in touch with the best miners in the world who all got together to create the community that became the diggers. Presumably Cal did something similar, possibly even with government backing. So he brought together as many Nuke sub captains as he could, and they spent the two years prepping for long isolation in the mariana trench. It might even have been the case that the swarm was only ever bread and circuses, and that the real american survival effort was the submarines, where they put everyone who didn't need to publicly go into space as well as enough genetecists to enable them to transition to the pingers. The hole in that theory is, of course, what the president did going to space in that case. I chose to reconcile that point by considering whether I would have told JBF of the existance of that plan, to which the answer is obviously no in the post-agent political system.

One thing I would like to know, though, is: Why had all the pingers seen the photo that Cal took of the engagement ring? In the hectic moments after diving from the hard rain he just ran down from the conning tower, gathered everyone around him and went "Hey, check out this awesome selfie I just took! Let's make sure we preserve this for posterity!"?

Thanks Niffe, I certainly agree with your idea about the Cloud Ark being bread and circuses, a diversion. I can't even remember the bit about the Pingers and the photo, but that's very funny. I'll have to have another look at it.

Joe wrote: "The Pingers also represent just one aspect of the ways in which everything was NOT behind the Cloud Ark. By the end of the book, someone suggests that there was a project just as large behind them (which also goes some way toward plugging the evolution plothole: they would have had just as much--more, really--incentive to dabble in genetic modification)."

So it turns out Joe had already expressed, much more eloquently than I did, the same ideas that I tried to formulate. Maybe I should have read the whole thread carefully before posting...

Niffe wrote: "So it turns out Joe had already expressed, much more eloquently than I did, the same ideas that I tried to formulate. Maybe I should have read the whole thread carefully before posting..."

No way, I think you had a lot of ideas that weren't at all in what I said and a lot more intelligent. The "bread and circus" idea actually makes the book a whole lot more compelling from a possible plot hole standpoint and actually makes a ton of sense in the context of what ends up being the real ultimate source of conflict / warfare in the second part.

I've got nothing on the "why do they all recognize the picture that was sent to someone else" question. It's a comically obvious thing to not have thought of.

Wasn't it mentioned in the book that the Ark actually was a "bread and circus" thing? I seem to remember that being mentioned at some point.

As to why every pinger recognises the pictute; it may well have been the last picture of the sky ever taken. And also the first, if not the only picture of the start of the white sky and the hard rain.

Øystein wrote: "...As to why every pinger recognises the pictute; it may well have been the last picture of the sky ever taken. And also the first, if not the only picture of the start of the white sky and the hard rain. "

It was certainly discussed at length that the people on the space station were worried that certain people in government only viewed the cloud ark that way. Specifically they tried to identify who they were so as to be able to put their own "weight" behind the others.

What I propose is that it was suggested towards the end of the novel that there was a different, parallel and non-showy, project under way - the underwater one.

I guess I can accept that reason for his highly personal picture being well known in the pinger society. I thought about that before, but still find it quite weak in the circumstances. However, as I prefer to work with any author to make the story hang together, rather than nit pick them apart I will happily accept that explanation. Even if I find it a little difficult.

Honestly, everything about the pingers was a bit of a mess to me. To give just another minor example: I know morse code since my time in the navy. Sending morse code by tapping is very difficult (Long taps are not possible, so the da's become double taps, and the di's single taps. Thus both sending and receiving becomes a little bit like trying to write/read letters that are mirrored and upside down. It's possible, but very very annoying and time consuming). However, doing so with full tilt sledge hammer blows (so that even the double taps happen seconds apart) is close to impossible for me to imagine. But again, I prefer to work with the author, so I am trying to ignore that one as well.

Niffe wrote: What I propose is that it was suggested towards the end of the novel that there was a different, parallel and non-showy, project under way - the underwater one.

I think they put that forward as a theory in the book, and considered it to be a fairly plausible one.

I agree that this reason for the picture being so wide-spread is a fairly weak one, and not really all that realistic. But it falls well within my limits for willful ignorance needed for this kind of book.

The most bits that was the most challenging to accept for me came in the last part of the book. I felt like a fair bit of it was rushed.
The Diggers were way too shortsighted in their behaviour towards the party. They are the descendants of a very strict society that had an amazing ability to plan their future. Once they observed the survivors in orbit, and understood that they were terraforming the planet, i feel like they would have planned for a first encounter, and given strict orders to every expedition as to how they should behave. It seemed, to me, extremely stupid to attack people with the ability to drop comets and asteroids on their heads.

Another thing that bothered me, which has been stated here earlier was the fact that the Pingers had changes into aquatic beings in 5000 years. I could have accepted it if they stated that they had been doing heavy genetic manipulation during that time. But Sonar Taxlaw specifically stated that it had all been done through selective breeding, stating, if i remember correctly, something like "If we could create Chihuahuas from wolfhounds in 2000 years, think what could be done with humans in 5000!". Now, I do not know much about this topic, but i believe selective breeding neccecitates the ability to kill off, or at least prohibit the breeding of those individuals with traits you don't want. And you probably want a fairly large amount of offspring to choose from. I dont think you would have enough resources to do this in a single, or even a small number, of submarines. That is, of course, unless they had even more backing than the Cloud Ark, and had the time to build stuff under the sea that gave them the room, resources and amount of people they needed(This is of course all speculation).
Lastly, how do you breed for retractable genitalia in humans? Also, WTF??

Øystein wrote: "Now, I do not know much about this topic, but i believe selective breeding neccecitates the ability to kill off, or at least prohibit the breeding of those individuals with traits you don't want. And you probably want a fairly large amount of offspring to choose from. "

I thought the exact same thing. It seems to me that if you wanted to make that transition, in that short a time, you would, at least initially, have to kill off almost all children as only the ones with exceptional "blubber", lung capacity and genital retraction could be kept alive. So I simply chose to assume that Sonar Taxlaw was wrong and that the pingers had indeed managed to develop advanced genetics. Occam's razor simply makes that the better assumption here.

I really enjoyed reading Seveneves. It's a very technical book, but that's okay for the most part, except for one huge technical problem that keeps bothering me precisely because it tries so hard for technical accuracy.

Right after the last battle, at the end of the first half of the book, when they dock in the Cleft, they're all talking about the problem of having only seven women, and no men. How are they going to reproduce without any men, or sperm, and the whole genetic library they took up is lost somewhere out there in the arklets? They talk about various genetic tricks they might pull off. But right in the next chamber, there are the dead bodies of at least a dozen men, probably more. Each of those recently dead men has a supply of sperm in their testicles. It's even frozen and preserved. And of course even if there's a problem with the sperm, their bodies contain a full load of male DNA and Y chromosomes in every fricking cell. So there's no need for parthenogensis or trying somehow to reconstruct male DNA in the future. It's right there on the ship in cold storage. If Moira can work some sort of magic in their labs to clone babies, she can certainly clone male babies from those dead guys. And even make test-tube babies from all sorts of combinations of the DNA of the dead and the living, sperm and eggs and so on.

And of course, as their civilization gets a big foothold in space and begins expanding, they can probably find those missing arklets floating around out there, and make use of the large library of DNA they hold. Even one arklet of distributed DNA would be a huge stock to work with compared to the seven Eves.

So the whole idea of the seven races seems like silliness to me, when there's no reason for that restriction at all. And of course, as others have pointed, somewhere along the way, and most likely in the very next generation, people are going to interbreed between these "races" which aren't genuine races at all, they are just progeny of seven individuals. Genetically speaking, it's a very, very bad idea to keep one single parent's genes unmixed. Hybrid vigor is the key to genetic health. So the very next generation of children should have been interbred with each other to keep the whole human race healthy rather than inbred. Sure, I suppose with a great deal of effort one might take out obvious genetic anomalies, but there's just no advantage to creating an entire non-interbreeding race from just one individual. Anyone at all familiar with genetics would see that right off the bat and reject that approach, and try to get as much genetic variation as possible as quickly as possible.

I guess Stephenson just really liked the idea of seven races with their own "characteristics" including even emotional moods and personal inclinations, which just isn't how it works. And to get there, he needed to cheat at the end of the first half of the book. I liked th book, but it's still cheating.

Mars: Yeah, I wish Stephenson would discuss this option early in the book. The reality is reaching Mars is way more difficult than reaching ISS, you have to have a lot of fuel in orbit just to fly near Mars, then there's the difficult problem of landing. Another factor is the launch window for minimal energy transfer orbit from Earth to Mars only occurs every two years or so, if you travel to Mars outside this window the delta V needed increases, and the fuel needed increases as an exponential of the delta V.

Countries of the world work together: It's not unprecedented, see the Montreal Protocol for an example. The disagreement on global warming is mainly caused by economical concerns, i.e. if we limit carbon emissions then a lot of people could lose their jobs and energy price could skyrocket. This is not an issue when everyone is going to die in 2 years.

Blow up, push away the Moon: People don't realize just how big the Moon is, and how small the amount of energy human race commands. Even if we launch all the nukes against the Moon it wouldn't make a difference.

Lack of chaos on the ground: Actually this is one refreshing thing I like about this novel, no random people killing each other for no reason, or countries nuking each other for no reason (well, at least not till the end, I can see people start going irrational once white sky appears). The fact is humans are remarkable creatures, people can adapt to very difficult circumstances as long as you give them some hope, which is what the Cloud Ark is.

The amount of rocket fuel needed: Actually this is a tiny amount comparing to our regular energy needs. I think near the end they're launching 4 heavy lift rockets everyday, each one probably have 1000 to 2000 tons of propellant. The US consumes about 1 million tons of gasoline everyday.

Ok, I’ll admit, I did find this totally sci-fi mediocre with potential for a great story but ultimately let down by the strange mix of flow-stopping droning technical information alongside massive technical holes (both laughable and ridiculous) … so – as this was my first Stephenson, should I persist with him, or are his other works similar?

Paul wrote: "Ok, I’ll admit, I did find this totally sci-fi mediocre with potential for a great story but ultimately let down by the strange mix of flow-stopping droning technical information alongside massive ..."
Hi Paul, it would be a great shame if you gave up on Stephenson. His books are a strange mix of the (as you say), mediocre and the great. I think that most Stephenson fans would join me in heartily recommending "Snow Crash", "The Diamond Age" and - when you have lots of time - "Cryptonomicom" and The Baroque Cycle. Really good sci-fi.

Paul wrote: as this was my first Stephenson, should I persist with him, or are his other works similar?

Nope. In my opinion this and REAMDE are the weakest of his mature (say, Snow Crash and later) books. It shares some qualities with my favorites of his books - it's clearly the same author and I still had a fun time reading it (twice) - but he has produced much better.

Conrad wrote: "I really enjoyed reading Seveneves. It's a very technical book, but that's okay for the most part, except for one huge technical problem that keeps bothering me precisely because it tries so hard f..."

Agreed! Another issue with the seven races - during 5000 years there was almost no mixing between the races, and an inter-breed is a total rarity? I lived for a long time in Toronto, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Inter- breeding happens even in the most insular groups (let's say, orthodox Muslims or Jews) of immigrants in the second generation, despite cultural and religious barriers, family disapproval etc., and increases from there. The "pure" races (well, not really races, but that's another story) just does not seem plausible, and they look to me like a totally artificial construct.

Niffe wrote: "Øystein wrote: "Now, I do not know much about this topic, but i believe selective breeding neccecitates the ability to kill off, or at least prohibit the breeding of those individuals with traits y..."

Also I'm pretty sure I've watched a show on Animal Planet or Discovery or something about dogs that explained that for some reason (can't remember what it was) canines are easier to change with breeding than any other animal. That makes sense considering you don't see that type of variety with any other animal that's bred.

Phillip wrote: "I think the biggest frustration of the book is the great detail in the science described but a seemingly complete lack of understanding of the humans behind the science. These plot holes nagged at me so much I can't finish a book that I want to love. It's as disappointing as a bad kiss."

Exacactly, and the second part SUCKED so HARD, it was as if the author went "hmmm I set this development in motion and absolutely no changes of any significance is going to happen in 5000 years"
I.e. everything was different versions of planet of the hats - Without practically any interbreeding between the races! (extremely unlikely because people, you know, have sex, even if you would rather have them adhere to some artificial way of procreation and retaining a completely arbitrary goal generation after generation. Especially in the beginning when you only have a couple of hunded people for the first couple of hundred years).

Another major plot-hole is the lack of underground nuclear bunkers. We know they have them in USA and Russia. Expanding those a bit and filling them up with survival gear and babes for the politicians and military guys would be ten times as efficient than lifting it into orbit and straight into a meteor shower.
And hiding submarines in the Marianer Trench? No way a nuclear submarine can stand that kind of pressure.

I did like the first part though, from a basic "this is roughly how you get stuff done in space"-perspective

Nadine wrote: "Stephenson is really good about sticking to a timetable and plot. His discipline when writing is nothing like GRRM's. He has stand alone books and trilogies that are all enjoyable. This book could ..."

Believe me, I didn't want to compare Stephenson's writing style, or his output to theirs... It was series to series that was the comparison. I have all of his books, my opinion has varied on each book, but I'm still a fan, always will be.

Actually, ~cats are the most pliable in breeding... For some reason, their genes mutate faster than just about any mammal. (Learned that in Anatomy & Physiology 101).

Great discussions here, very good questions!

The biggest fact I had problems with was the adaptation to undersea bodies in that amount of time. But then I did some quick research on humanoids in anthropology. I do believe it would happen in that time frame, especially if "nudged" in the needed directions.

Carbon dating shows many changes over that time period in some genetic lines, among found specimens. And that's random breeding, in earth space, with all the goodies of edibles. Stress has always been know to cause the type of mutations that help any species survive their environment.

Also, faith in the author, his resources, his ~research, is big here. I trust that he's done his research, knowing there'd be questions.

And I'd read more on this subject, if he did decide to make another book. I'd love to hear the histories of the other groups! And yes, knowing Stephenson and his writing practices, it wouldn't take the rest of MY life for him to do more books.

Meran wrote: "Actually, ~cats are the most pliable in breeding... For some reason, their genes mutate faster than just about any mammal. (Learned that in Anatomy & Physiology 101).

Great discussions here, very..."


Certainly, some significant changes in human physiology could take place over the span of 5000 years. More blubber, tougher skin that doesn't dissolve in water and more streamlined bodies are all conceivable, as far as I know, in this amount of time.

However, gills and retractable genitalia are completely foreign functions to the human body, so how would you even start breeding for it? I am thinking, like Niffe, that Sonar Taxlaw was wrong when she stated that the pingers only did selective breeding.

Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about this, so I may be completely wrong ^^'

The problem of the seven races remaining "pure" over five THOUSAND years was the biggest flaw in my mind. And even if they somehow had to remain genetically pure (perhaps their genetic manipulation kept them from interbreeding?) it's even less likely they would remain culturally true over that period of time. Consider how different people are now than they were 5,000 years ago. Then there's the problem of language, which has been mentioned. Heck, sometimes I can't even understand other English-speakers if their accents are thick enough. Language, and culture, are forever changing. But not in this book!

One of the plot holes for me as that we read the Earth gets super hot during the hard rain, to the point that it glows tangerine orange. The author evens says that they had to drop comets for the water after things start to cool, so I take it that much of the water had boiled off into space. (Or how did it not end up like Venus?). So, with the seas boiling off like that, how did the submariners not got boiled alive? How did the diggers survive the molten earth?

I agree on the Mars aspect, too. I kept thinking that if the Earth is destroyed in the hard rain how can Izzy possibly escape? The only logical option is to head for Mars.

Jo wrote: "One of the plot holes for me as that we read the Earth gets super hot during the hard rain, to the point that it glows tangerine orange. The author evens says that they had to drop comets for the w..."
Oh boy, this book gets harder and harder for me to believe in, as people like you - Jo, Jerry and others - point out problems with it.

I devoured this book multiple times like I do all of Stephenson's novels, so this might be long as I'll give my input on topics already mentioned. On a side note and judging by prior comments here, I might be in a minority of people who prefer his newer writings over his old ones as Anathem and Reamde are my all time favorite books.

Mars was something that was addressed in the novel when they were arguing whether to settle in the Cleft or go to Mars. The rings formed from the remnants of the moon would have added protection from nasties in space. The Earth has a magnetic field that shields a lot of stuff. Our atmosphere shields even more. Mars doesn't have a magnetic field and doesn't have an atmosphere sufficient enough to shield from anything. It does, however, have water frozen on the surface which boils off when melted and underground.

There's another problem with Mars. It's the distance and difficulty required to get there. Mars doesn't stay in one spot. Its orbit around the sun varies just like the Earth's does. There are only a few opportunities this century for ideal circumstances to send people to Mars, and even assuming this story takes place in one of those years the window of opportunity to send supplies ahead of time (which would be required) is narrow and virtually impossible for payloads enough to support a population large enough to sustain the human race the natural way.

The firestorm caused by the moon's bombardment of the Earth's surface wouldn't have boiled off all the water, just most of it. You have to remember there's a LOT of water on the Earth and not all of it is on the surface or near it. The diggers survived just how the Cretaceous mammals did. The surface was super hot, but if you're deep enough you're safe and kept at a constant temperature by the Earth's core. The Pingers would have survived for similar reasons. Water is a fantastic insulator and would have insulated them. They also hid in underwater caverns which offer additional protection.

The separate races didn't stay pure over 5000 years. They needed to stay separate at the very beginning because of the parthenogenesis necessary to create a population. It's mentioned in the novel that interbreeding occurred. It's not as common as remaining within their own race just like it is in our world over our last 5000 years. The genetic tampering and mutations of these separate races effectively created different species that are in appearance extremely different from one another, and for the most part people of the differing species preferred people of their own species just like occurs today.

Gills aren't foreign to humans. As embryos we form the same way all vertebrates do, and have pharyngeal pouches as embryos which form into gills in fish; the information is there to have gills. However, the pharyngeal pouches form many other things for us, and returning to gills would likely mean giving up a lot of things like speech, the thyroid, etc. without some sort of evolutionary leap into a completely different classification of animal as they'd no longer be mammals. They would have had to develop genetic manipulation techniques of their own perhaps from their own genetics equipment which is very likely given the events of the story. It's a fantasy, science fiction, anyway.

Language did change in the novel, and that was addressed as well actually in quite a lot of detail. The language largely spoken was a mixture of mostly English and a wee bit of Russian using a mixture of Latin and Cyrillic characters as the alphabet. The language would have had shifts along the way but would have had some similarities to their originators and knowledge of English and Russian would have been known just like we know Latin and Ancient Greek and can even reassemble PIE. This was shown in full force when Doc Hu was trying to make sense of "CRAFTSMAN" as he transliterated the letters into their alphabet and even explained the meaning to the others and vaguely touched upon in the screens showing "The Epic" which were subtitled. We needed to understand what they said so we were given their conversations in English. The language the Diggers spoke was largely English but changed a bit. The language remained the same largely because of the encyclopedias and other books including dictionaries. Their language would have evolved extremely slowly just like ours does today. Less has changed in English in the past 300 years than the 300 before it except for a bulging vocabulary. They would have understood each other because the people living in the rings around Earth would have been exposed to mostly English all their lives because of "The Epic". We're not given much info about the Reds in the novel, but we know they speak a different language. My best guess their language is an evolution of Italian.

In real life if faced with something like that we'd all be dead either before the moon rain, during, or after. It's not certain whether we'd cooperate, but it's a likely outcome. There'd be dissenters, and there were in the novel. It's likely we'd annihilate each other, too. Stephenson tries to ground this story in hard science, but it's ultimately a fantastical science fiction novel.

For all his technical detail, there are some very simplistic, if not actually childish, aspects to the author's view of both human behavior and the passage of time.

Five thousand years later these people are watching videos created during the Hard Rain? How much do we retain of anything from 5000 years ago? Five hundred, maybe.

Five thousand years later there are still distinctly (and sophomorically) different races? No. And the blue/red divide based on personal squabbles from 5000 years before? No.

Stephenson had a desire to create a world with a lot of semi-human cultures - cultures, not races - all at odds with one another. It almost feels like he wrote the book backwards from that.

I am still listening to the last part of it but came here to see if I could get enough of a summary to just quit. Maybe so.

Dan wrote: "Five thousand years later these people are watching videos created during the Hard Rain? How much do we retain of anything from 5000 years ago? Five hundred, maybe."

We read epics today from over 2000 years ago, try the Mahabharata as an example. The oldest preserved texts are from 400 BCE. Given the advances in how we preserve our cultural artefacts these days, it not hard to imagine them lasting 5000 years or more, especially since the Hard Rain is the most defining (and probably beloved) part of their history.

Dan wrote: "Five thousand years later there are still distinctly (and sophomorically) different races? No. And the blue/red divide based on personal squabbles from 5000 years before? No."

Here in India, our destructive caste system, and the resulting bitterness and squabbles have lasted millennia already. Christians and Muslims have been squabbled on and off in different regions and for different reasons for over a millennia as well.

Why is the book so hard to believe? 5000 years is a little long to imagine, given that our recorded history is only 2000-3000 years, but the situations aren't completely ridiculous.

Phillip wrote: "Thanks SuperBlinky for starting this discussion. I have just quit "Seveneves" in the middle of the 2nd section because I cannot take the incongruities any longer.

First, Stephenson has created an ..."

AGREED on the lack-of-chaos after the announcement of Hard Rain. If this really happened, in this day in age, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out how terrorists around the world would react. Gotta get those 72 virgins while you still can.

A fantastic read and probably my #2 slot for the Hugos. I agree with most of the plot holes and let me add my own.

1. The president of the United States was not informed about an underwater Cloud Ark but a captain of a US submarine was? GTFO

2. The Arkies are starving and dying off in droves out in space with no plan, they're in dozens of independent vehicles that don't require the approval of the group to fly off, and not a one tries to rejoin the Cloud Ark?

3. How small is this world that the 3 surviving human races descended from 2 degrees of Kevin Bacon? Dinah's immediate family spawned both the Diggers and 1/7 of the Cloud Ark races? and Ivy's close relations spawned the Pingers and 1/7 of the Cloud Ark? Reading about the author's immediate family gave me the impression that Dinah's immediate family was somewhat based on his, thus it being an exercise in ego masturbation that they spawned two major branches of humanity.

4. There's no way that only 1 group of miners would get the crazy idea of digging into the ground really far. And the book heavily indicated it was just one group given that their descendants were a few hundred fair skinned redheads, which are recessive traits. Digging was the first thing that occurred to me as soon as I read about the Hard Rain. There would be dozens of Digger races if there was one... and there probably wouldn't have been one (see my next gripe).

5. The Diggers were stuck in a very small confined space and managed to have enough resources, especially food, to survive for thousands of years? No one recycles that well. What about all those sicknesses that spread like wildfire, especially with poor nutrition? This is just so implausible.

6. Over the course of about 5 thousand years there remain the same number of races made up of the same genetic groups? Races are fluid as are political groups and they change from decade to decade and century to century. Less than twenty years ago, middle eastern people were considered white. Now they're their own race. Eastern Europeans were considered a different race in the US many decades ago.

7. Finally, they keep the homocidal cannibal around? The one who is trying to raise her children to defeat everyone else's children? Let me ask everyone here. Would you want your children growing up with her around? I don't care how close you think you can watch her. Would you allow that?

Micah wrote: "A fantastic read and probably my #2 slot for the Hugos. I agree with most of the plot holes and let me add my own.

1. The president of the United States was not informed about an underwater Cloud..."

All excellent points, Micah. I am surprised that you still rate it so highly? And may I ask, what is your number 1 pick for the Hugos?

This may have already been answered in a previous comment but I haven't found it. If the crew in the beginning of the story was able to use their MAV to return to the Hermes, why couldn't Mark use his MAV to return to the Hermes the same way? Was it because the Hermes could not stay in low orbit due to their current fuel capacity? Wouldn't orbiting Mars provide the gravity assist to help them slingshot out of their orbit? Isn't that what they did when they MAV'd out from the storm in the beginning?