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Mark Lawrence is on page 688 of 872

I have some significant reservations about the 3rd part.

With hard SFF where pages are spent exhaustively explaining systems, I feel that it's fair to speculate about the science, just as with historical fiction there are people who focus on historical accuracy.

The idea that this populaton of 3 billion, after 5,000 years still can't match our microchips (which they have examples of along with info) is ... wrong.

— Mar 06, 2026 05:06AM

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Mark Lawrence is on page 608 of 872

It's a big fat book, broken into 3 parts that could each be a smallish book.

I'm in section 3 which takes place much later. Huge amount of "world building" (excuse the pun) about world building, reams of detail about how this or that system works.

I did enjoy the urgency and drama of the closing sections of the previous part.

— Mar 05, 2026 01:09AM

Mark Lawrence is on page 150 of 872

It has a lot of the detail porn that made me DNF Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.

I just waded through pages and pages detailing the controls and maneuvers for two pods to spin around on a tether. I don't mind a little, but this is a lot.

However, I'm still engaged because:

a) it's still not as dry as Red Mars
b) the doomsday scenario makes it all more tense and emotional and interesting.

— Feb 28, 2026 10:19AM

Mark Lawrence is on page 50 of 872

I'm enjoying the story, though I have major technical objections.

I can't see that it is possible to break the Moon into 7 big pieces - fragmentation would start immediately.

If it were possible it would take hours at most, not 7 days, for scientists to note the inevitable catastrophe.

It's orders of magnitude easier to survive underground in bunkers than in space.

— Feb 26, 2026 11:13AM

Mark Lawrence is on page 20 of 872

The Moon blows up on line 1 :o

— Feb 25, 2026 11:47AM