Seveneves

Seveneves is an incredibly rich and thrilling speculative fiction by Neal Stephenson. It’s 860 pages long but stays captivating through out, only easing towards the last chapter that could be a standalone novel on its own.

The premise of the book can be summarized by its first sentence which is an opening bang like no other.

The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.

Without revealing too much about the story, Steveneve’s follows humanity’s fight for survival over the course of 5000 years (focusing on a first 5 years for a better part). It manages to combine orbital mechanics and politics in one chapter and continue with robotics and genetics in another one while staying approachable and fun to read.

The story of Seveneves doesn’t shy away from hard topics, deaths, and grim outlooks. It’s a worthwhile albeit lengthy read that makes you travel through time (from 7pm to 2am before you even notice) and yet, it might be one of the few chosen books that require and are worth a second read.