Great Moments but Awful Quarter Hours—in Space

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Book Review by Michael Isenberg

The composer Rossini once said that Wagner’s operas have great moments but awful quarter hours. Apparently what’s true of Grand Opera is also true of Space Opera. For although Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves features captivating characters on spectacular adventures, between the adventures are vast stretches of emptiness, much like space itself.

And I can’t wait for a sequel.

Seveneves is about nothing less than the annihilation of all life on the surface of the earth. It begins with the words, “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.” We never learn the reason and it’s not important. What is important is that simulations show the remnants of the moon are going to collide and break up into ever smaller pieces, until a sudden rain of meteors kills everything below and makes the earth uninhabitable for five thousand years. There are only two places to shelter from the coming apocalypse—in the cramped quarters of deep mines or the inhospitable vacuum of space. The only good news coming out of the simulations is that the human race has two years to prepare.

Part I of Seveneves is the story of those two years and the effort to launch as many humans into space as possible—which will be a couple thousand at most. This part of the book was like an early episode of Star Trek: TNG—interesting to Trekkies but free from the challenges and conflicts that are the essence of good fiction. The crew of the International Space Station (“Izzy”) is hard at work expanding the available living space, but things pretty much go according to plan. Granted, the mortality rate is high, but that's expected. Among the first group launched into orbit, the “Pioneers,” something like two dozen people die. Fortunately they're just the redshirts of Seveneves—I can't even recall if they had names—so we don't have to care about them. #sarcasm

Surprisingly, there’s not much conflict back on earth either—despite the need to make decisions about who will live and who will die. This is in part because of the foresight of US President Julia Bliss Flaherty ("JBF") and other world leaders, who keep people busy with tasks to contribute to the building of the human future. Not all the contributions are actually useful; the politicians are a little devious in that. But the lack of conflict is also a choice on the part of Mr. Stephenson. In an interview with the Seattle Times, he explains, “My general observation about people who have been in wars, and disasters, is that there’s always instances of bad behavior. But for the most part, people tend to rise to the occasion.” Although this is an insightful observation, it does not make for good storytelling. Furthermore, what little conflict does occur on the planet surface we see mostly through the eyes of of the Izzy crewmembers, who have their own job to do. What happens back on earth seems increasingly distant and unimportant to them.

So we don't hear much about conflict in Part I. What we do hear about is the technology of space colonization—and we hear a lot about it. Mr. Stephenson put significant intelligence into his game of “What if”: I.e., what if we had to move into space? How would we go about it? His answers are imaginative, scientifically sound, and abundant. There is a great deal about mass ratios and delta-vees. The Pioneer living modules are little more than pressurized plastic bags, but Mr. Stephenson takes five pages to describe them. Arguably, this is the real point of the book, and I'm being unfair by bringing up considerations of plot structure. Personally, I like reading about technology. I’m a scientist and an engineer by training, Apollo 11 was a formative experience for me, as it was for many people my age, and I’ve been criticized for being too technical in my own fiction. So if I say there's too much technical stuff in Seveneves, there's way too much. When I was about 100 pages in, I cared so little about what was going on in the book that I posted on Facebook, “You'd think the destruction of all life on earth would hold my interest more. Should I keep going?”

My friends told me I should and I was glad I listened to them. The pace picks up considerably in Part II, starting with the actual destruction of earth, which is bittersweet in its numerous examples of the human spirit standing defiant until the end. My favorite: as the meteors begin to fall, there is a live classical concert broadcast from the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Dressed in white ties and tails, the musicians are determined to keep playing until the building crashes down upon them.

Inevitably the music stops (literally) and the story begins in earnest. The Izzy crew must now confront its technical challenges without supplies or expertise from the ground. On top of that, there are political machinations afoot: JBF, now the former president, since the United States no longer exists, is unwilling to accept retirement in space gracefully. Instead she sets about rebuilding her political base by stirring up trouble. Although JBF has real-life fans online, I find her thoroughly repulsive. I have sympathy for the colonists who follow her, though: they have legitimate grievances against the elitist technocrats running the colony. 'Twas always thus: the disenfranchised allow themselves to be co-opted by the ambitious. It ends badly for them, both in real life and in Seveneves, where the colony splits—with deadly consequences.

The lion’s share of Part III is a single long chapter called “Five Thousand Years Later.” The descendants of the survivors now number in the billions. They live mainly in a habitat that rings the earth in geosynchronous orbit. In a cool twist, they have video of most of Parts I and II—they call it “The Epic”—and it plays constantly on screens in bars and transportation hubs; the Part I and II characters are now revered historical figures. Down on the planet surface, life is stirring once again, and small parties of scouts, colonists, and terra-formers are returning. Unfortunately, most of Part III reads like Part I.

It begins with the journey of the scout Kath II from earth to the habitat ring. The means of transportation are ingenious, but for Kath—and therefore for us—it’s a routine journey. Nothing really happens along the way but it still takes fifty pages. Indeed, much of Part III is merely a sightseeing tour of Kath’s world. It’s an incredible world, but not incredible enough to compensate for nearly two hundred pages that are heavy on technology, but light on challenge and conflict. Along the way Kath is recruited on some sort of mission, but neither she nor the reader is told what. When the Big Reveal finally comes, it turns out to be something I completely predicted. With that behind us, the story does pick up again, and there are some pretty good battles before it’s over.

Any book with the epic scope of Seveneves necessarily has a large cast of characters, and every reader will have their favorites. Mine include:

Dinah, a fellow introvert who spends much of her time alone in a little workshop at the front of the space station. From there she programs cute robots to crawl around an asteroid that Izzy has in tow (Naturally, we learn all about the different types of robots, their history, their construction, and their capabilities).

Tekla, an Olympic athlete/cosmonaut, who joins the Pioneers early on. I picture her as Mother Russia, the villain's hired muscle in the movie Kick-Ass 2. Tekla could have easily been typecast in a similar henchwoman role, but she knew enough about the bad old days of the Soviet Union to steer clear of villains like JBF. (Anyone who read my novel Full Asylum knows I have a soft spot in my heart for amazon women, with bonus points if they "get it" when it comes to freedom.)

Sean, an entrepreneur who charges off on a deep space mission simply because he sees a need and decides to fill it. This puts him in a rare Part I conflict with government space agency bureaucrats, who “were baffled, nay, infuriated by the ease with which a few upstart tech zillionaires could command the world’s attention and go rocketing off on ill-advised, hastily planned missions of their own choosing.” Some even wanted to lock him out of Izzy—which would have killed him. Mr. Stephenson explains in his Seattle Times interview that he wanted to show that both the public and private sectors have valuable contributions to make to space exploration.

Aida, a younger colonist who overthrows JBF as leader of the rebel faction. I wouldn’t say I like her, she's an awful human being, but she is intriguing. In her, Mr. Stephenson draws a vivid portrait of a smart, sullen, millennial nihilist who is at war with society via social media. Perhaps you know the type through their comments on Facebook. Stephenson takes that character and transports her to a situation where online warfare has far more immediate consequences.

You may be surprised, in view of my criticisms, that I really meant what I said at the outset about wanting a sequel. There are two reasons for this. First, some loose ends scream to be tied up. In particular, there was a breakaway group of colonists that tried to go to Mars. They’re presumed dead, but we never find out for sure. Their adventures could be a whole book in itself. Also, in Part III, there are mentions of a never-seen group of powerful individuals dedicated to a mysterious purpose known as “The Purpose.”

The second reason I want a sequel ties to something Mr. Stephenson said—again, in the Seattle Times: “All science fiction and fantasy is about building worlds.” In Seveneves he builds a fascinating one, and I’d like to spend more time there. As for whether I will have the opportunity, last I heard, Mr. Stephenson isn’t saying.

Michael Isenberg is senior editor of Nerds who Read and author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com.