Captain America: Civil War

Movie Review by Michael Isenberg

The topic of today’s entry in Nerds Who Read is more nerdy than read-y: The latest movie release from Marvel Entertainment—Captain America: Civil War.

The movie borrows its premise from The Incredibles: people are fed up with the collateral damage superheroes bring in their wake as they save the world. Property destroyed. Innocent people killed.

When a bomb detonates in a Nigerian office building during an Avengers operation, the world decides enough is enough. A bunch of nations get together and draft the “Sokovia Accord,” a treaty that places superheroes under the control of the United Nations. From now on, the Avengers won’t decide for themselves when and where to deploy. Bureaucrats will decide for them.

Tony Stark/Iron Man is all for it. “We need to be put in check,” he says. But Steve Rogers/Captain America is more skeptical. “If we sign these accords, it takes away our right to choose.”

What starts as a theoretical disagreement is soon put to a real-life test. There is another explosion, this time at the ratification ceremony for the accords themselves (An aside: I don’t think the writers understand what “ratification” means). Security footage shows the bomb was planted by Captain America’s old war buddy, Bucky “The Winter Soldier” Barnes. The UN, with Iron Man’s support, want to take Bucky down. But Cap suspects there’s more to the story than meets the eye, and indeed, dirty work is afoot. Helmut Zemo, the former commander of an elite Sokovian paramilitary unit, is definitely up to something. Cap wants answers and he wants to protect his friend; that means finding Bucky first and keeping him alive. Soon the whole Avengers team unravels as the members split between Iron Man and Captain America.

It’s sad when old friends fight. Especially when none of them are really bad guys. The challenge for the writers of Civil War is to put Cap and Tony at loggerheads without it being a downer for the audience. They succeed by making it fun. The main battle scene is full of great special effects and clever wisecracking. A couple samples of the latter: After Iron Man gets knocked on his ass (a temporary setback) his suit’s computer voice informs him, “Multiple contusions detected.” Tony replies, “Yeah, I detected that, too.” And when Black Widow—the member of the team most conflicted about the civil war—comes face-to-face with Hawkeye, she asks, “Are we still friends?” Hawkeye’s reply: “That depends on how hard you hit me.” To add to the fun, both sides, realizing they’re shorthanded, bring in reinforcements from other corners of the Marvel Universe. I won’t say who they recruit—I don’t want to spoil the surprise (albeit it’s in the trailer)—but one of these superheroes steals the show.

If actions sequences and wisecracks were all there were to Civil War, it would come off as campy. Fortunately there’s a great deal to it that’s serious. A second battle between Cap and Iron Man—this time one-on-one (mostly)—is more bittersweet. And there is the very real issue, at the root of Civil War, the conflict between government control and freedom. Indeed, I’m not the first to notice that the Marvel Civil War mirrors the Republican Civil War that is raging as I write this. Not only is the Grand Old Party, like the Avengers, tearing itself apart between the authoritarians and the libertarians, but old allies have turned decidedly bitter. (An interesting side question: Who is Donald Trump in this? Is he the authoritarian leader, billionaire Tony Stark? Or is he the outsider who instigated the conflict, Col. Helmut Zemo?)

I did have some criticisms, and here I get into some spoilers:

• The plot is overcomplicated. The movie could have stood on its own as a conflict between Cap and Iron Man, or as a conflict between Zemo and the Avengers. But the writers rammed the two conflicts together and it’s messy. Like a set of simultaneous equations that are overdetermined. Also it gives the writers a cheap out: they can resolve the conflict without ever having to face the issue of whether the Sokovia accords were the right thing to do.
• Zemo’s plan is a house of cards. It depends on Bucky being taken alive and turned over to the UN, who then must take him to a particular prison, which conveniently for the plot has no backup power source in the event of a blackout. Zemo has no control over any of this; there is no way he could possibly count on every one of these elements falling into place.
• We learn that Bucky is not the only Winter Soldier—the Soviets made five more who are hidden away somewhere. The movie seemed to be hyping an impending conflict between them and the Avengers, but it never comes, thanks to some bulls--t. In a way, I was relieved—it was already a long movie. But still, sloppy storytelling.

In spite of the shortcomings in plot construction, I enjoyed the movie immensely. Perhaps my favorite part was some words of wisdom from Captain America’s almost-but-not-quite old flame, Agent Carter. They were quoted by another character at a time when Cap was torn over whether to sign the Sokovia Accord:

Compromise where you can. Where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say "No, you move."

These words, like the movie, are a wonderful tribute to human integrity.

Coming up next on Nerds Who Read: a review of the Marvel Civil War graphic novel

Michael Isenberg is senior editor of Nerds who Read and author of Full Asylum, a novel about the conflict between government control and liberty. With hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com.

Not Batman vs. Superman

The Batman/Superman Movie: World’s Finest
Review by Kerey McKenna

To kick off my series of reviews of great Batman/Superman (and sometimes Wonder Woman) crossovers, I will start with the first time I saw my two childhood heroes together on the same screen: The Batman/Superman Movie: World's Finest (1997). This animated TV film (full running time just over an hour) officially bridged the successful long running Batman: The Animated Series and its Superman companion series. Much as the new DC Comics movie, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice attempts to found a shared cinematic universe, World’s Finest is a crucial link in a chain of animated projects in a DC Animated Universe, culminating a decade later in the TV series Justice League Unlimited.

Using the established worlds of both shows, World’s Finest hits the ground running. Given the iconic characters and brisk pace, even someone with only a passing knowledge of comic book lore can follow the character motivations and plot. The Joker (played with fiendish glee by Mark Hamill) steals a large chunk of kryptonite, heads to Metropolis, and asks a king's ransom of corrupt business mogul Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) to eliminate Superman once and for all. Fortunately Batman (voiced by Kevin Conroy) is fast on the Joker's heels; he teams up with Superman (Tim Daley), and they form the "World's Finest" team to stop Luthor from ruling the city and the Joker from tearing it down.

I feel that this really works as a Superman/Batman project (and not a Superman versus Batman project) because it simultaneously creates a unified world that nevertheless contrasts the realms of Superman and Batman. The art has a classic feel to it (deliberately inspired by the Max Fleischer Superman shorts of the 40's). Gotham, with its tommy guns, fedoras, and art deco buildings clearly invokes the pulp origins of superheroes. In contrast, the retro-futurism of Metropolis reflects the space race era optimism of the post-World War II era when Superman was at the height of his popularity.

Instead of building up to a contrived slugfest between the title heroes (they soon reach a détente), the tension between the two is over Lois Lane (Dana Delany): it looks like Bruce Wayne just might win her heart and whisk her back to Gotham faster than a speeding bullet. Also, while conventional thinking holds that it is a challenge to script a conflict in which Batman can stand up to Superman's enemies, we see here that Superman also has quite the challenge: keeping up with a twisted and wicked intellect like the Joker’s.

Speaking of the Joker, a common critique of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (which I predicted, based on the trailers) is that Jessie Eisenberg seems to be playing some kind of Joker/Lex Luthor mashup with the resources of a business tycoon and inventor but the tics and love of chaos-for-chaos’s-sake of the Joker. In contrast, World's Finest demonstrates the opportunity that Dawn of Justice lost by not having the Joker and Lex in the same story. In a tenuous alliance or at each other's throats, these two characters are a hoot to watch.

While the creators of Dawn of Justice claim that an R-rated director's cut is headed to DVD that smooths over some of the plot holes in the theatrical release (and delivers more violence), World’s Finest provides a more general-audience-appropriate take on these iconic characters.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham, Massachusetts on May 7, 2016. Learn more at www.watchcityfestival.com.

A Cold Chill Out of the North

Stand Still, Stay Silent. Written and Illustrated By Minna Sundberg
Webcomic review by Kerey McKenna

“The First Rule for survival outside the safe areas: If you come across a Beast, a Troll or a Giant do not run or call for help but stand still and stay silent. It might go away.”
—Minna Sundberg, Stand Still, Stay Silent

If, like me, you choose to start reading Stand Still, Stay Silent during a cold New England winter night, I recommend you do so with a cat nearby. As we learn from this webcomic, according to Scandinavian lore, cats can sense malicious trolls and spirits. Having one softly dozing on the couch beside you might help re-assure you that the creaks and groans of a house settling at night isn’t something nasty scampering along your roof or tapping on your windows trying to get in.

Written and Illustrated By Minna Sundberg, Stand Still, Stay Silent (updated an impressive three times a week considering the high quality of the artwork) is an ambitious project to tell a post-apocalyptic horror tale from a Scandinavian perspective.

Ninety years after a mysterious pandemic killed numerous people and animals or twisted them into murderous abominations, the nations of Scandinavia (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland) eek out an existence in isolated and fortified settlements. In many ways they follow in the footsteps of their Dark Age Viking ancestors, huddling in their keeps to ward off the cold and the monsters that lurk in the darkness, while knowledge of the outside world ebbs with each generation. Many have even returned to the pagan gods and magic of their ancestors in order to ward off the monsters, a strategy that is eerily effective.

Also like their Viking ancestors, some of those living within the safe areas are growing restless; they wish to retake lost territory and rediscover hidden treasures from the outside world. A small band of explorers, too young to know any better, or with too many bad marks on their records to find less suicidal work, are sent out into the “silent world” to explore and loot. Drawn from the five nations of the Scandinavian alliance (with no one member speaking the native languages of all their comrades) this ragtag crew travels through a landscape which is one part modern apocalypse, populated with crumbled buildings and overturned cars, and one part primeval forest, infested with monsters and spirits.

With an inviting, painterly style, Sundberg draws upon her Swedish and Finnish upbringing to enthrall the reader with a world rooted in Scandinavian geography and mythology. The beautiful but stark landscapes, gut-churning monsters, wonders of ancient shamanism, and warmth of a community huddling against the cold and dark all come to life with her lush artwork. Writing for an English-speaking audience, Sundberg provides plenty of helpful footnotes and visual cues to make this very Nordic world accessible to readers from outside the region. She provides tabbed links to character profiles, world maps, and other key information in case a reader feels the need to revisit exposition from earlier episodes (Wait—which flag is Denmark and which is Norway? What areas are safely occupied? What role do cats play in anti-troll warfare?). Initially, the pacing is a slow burn as the earliest chapters undertake world building and the horrors of the silent world are only hinted at. However, when the time for action comes (an impressive sequence in which a monster attacks an armored locomotive), Sundberg knows how to crank up the tension before unleashing a wave of other-worldly horror.

I highly recommend giving this a look, whether you are an old hand at post-apocalyptic fiction, a newbie who would like to explore it more deeply than The Walking Dead does, or someone who has grown weary of the same old post-apocalyptic tropes and iconography (desert wastelands, ruined national monuments, a regression to America’s frontier days, or the adoption of outlandish Mad Max-style punk costumes) and is looking for an original take. Stand Still, Stay Silent is a breath of fresh arctic air. It is available free online at sssscomic.com, with three updates a week, or for purchase in collected e-book or print formats from the site’s webstore.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham, Massachusetts on May 7, 2016. Learn more at www.watchcityfestival.com.ke.

Don't Tread on Me

The Sons of Liberty, Volume 1. Written by Alexander & Joseph Lagos with Art by Steve Walker and Oren Kramek
Graphic Novel Review by Kerey McKenna

This is the third in a series of Nerds who Read Graphic Novel Reviews dedicated to Black History Month.

Living most of my life in Massachusetts, I count myself lucky to have visited many locations crucial to the Revolutionary War and the founding of the United States. As a fan of science fiction and fantasy, I have always been slightly disappointed by the lack of fantastical spins on our nation’s founding era. In American alternate history stories, the War of Independence trails a distant third to World War II and the Civil War for novels created out of “what if” scenarios and war gaming. A fascination with the historical old west has produced plenty or weird west tales and cowboy ghost stories. The demand for more steampunk is currently mining every buried lump of story potential from America’s industrial years. But it seems like fantastical takes on our founding are few and far between. Perhaps as other historical periods become overdone though, more creators will find fertile ground in this era of rebellion. The Assassin’s Creed 3 video game and several of its spinoffs were set against the backdrop of the American Revolution, and Fox’s supernatural action show Sleepy Hollow re-imagines Washington Irving’s hapless schoolteacher as a swashbuckling spy charged with preventing the British from winning the war through dark magic.

I was hoping that The Sons of Liberty would offer something new to the historical fantasy and comic superhero genre by setting its action in the years leading up to the American Revolution, but I found the execution somewhat lacking.

The story begins promisingly enough in 1776 with a raid on a loyalist compound by two mysterious figures. Their faces are obscured by tri-corn hats and black masks but their eyes crackle with electric sparks and they demonstrate agility and strength far beyond those of mortal men. However before we can begin what the narrator assures will be an epic battle…the rest of the book is a flashback/origin story for our mysterious heroes. Winding the narrative back several years the story takes us to the plight of Graham and Brody, run-away slaves in colonial-era Pennsylvania who fall into the clutches of William Franklin, evil bastard son of Benjamin Franklin. For the story the bastard William (yes he was actually a bastard, but Benjamin ‘recognized him’ as a son and helped advance his career in the British colonial civil service) has been upgraded to a mustache-twirling villain. Perverting the studies of electricity performed by his father, William not only electrocutes every barnyard animal he can get his hands on, but also snatches up the fugitive boys to use in his in-human experiments. Electrocuted and left for dead, the boys are discovered by Benjamin Franklin and the abolitionist dwarf Benjamin Lay. They hide with the hermit Lay, who instructs them in the African martial art of Dambe (Lay having been upgraded to abolitionist Yoda). They also discover that the Bastard Franklin’s experiments have granted them extraordinary powers, the implication being that Graham and Brody will one day become the dynamic duo we saw in the action cold open. Despite using their powers to get revenge on their former master and his slave hunter, the boys are shunned and feared by their peers due to their unnatural powers and the very real concern that they will all be killed in the ensuing retaliation to any perceived slave rebellion.

There is a lot of promise in this book, but I felt like it was hampered by pacing issues and peculiarities in the artwork. This first volume carries a heavy burden of world building, introducing the audience to pre-revolution America, the horrors of the slave trade, the early abolitionist movement, and Benjamin Franklin’s relationship with his evil bastard son.

The narrative foot-dragging in getting to the supernatural and alternate history elements isn’t aided by the uneven art. Steve Walker’s drawings work well in creating coherent action scenes (such as the boys escaping vicious hunting dogs that have been sent to track them down), but sometimes his work on faces and anatomy doesn’t quite pull together. Often enough when the faces slip into the uncanny valley this may be because the colorization used by Oren Kramek suggests that the whole art team is learning as they go; sometimes the colors work and in other panels they clash in such a way that it is hard for the eye to follow.

All that being said, the book never falls completely flat and superhero franchises have been launched on much shakier first installments than this one. As I said, it appears that the art team may be learning on the job, but they do appear to be improving. While not my top recommendation, it may be something to throw the way of a reader (particularly a young adult or tween) that needs a little nudge from action and science fiction to get more interested in history. If I come across it, I may pick up the second volume, Death & Taxes, to see if the rough edges have smoothed out.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham, Massachusetts on May 7, 2016. Learn more at www.watchcityfestival.com.

Rhythm & Blues meets Law & Order

Stagger Lee. Written by Derek McCulloch. Illustrated by Shepherd Hendrix
Graphic Novel Review by Kerey McKenna

Keen-eared aficionados of American Jazz, Rock, and R&B might recognize the name Stagger Lee (or Stagolee) as a legendary outlaw. He entered the American mythology when he shot down card sharp Billy Lyons in an old west Texas saloon. Or was it because Billy Lyons was sleeping with Stagolee’s woman and it wasn’t Texas but the gold mines of California? And was it because Billy messed with Stag’s wife or Stag’s Stetson hat? Or was it an act of self-defense in a bar brawl in Mississippi? Or was it Georgia? Were Lyons and Lee not figures of the 1890’s but rival pimps in 1970’s Detroit? Over the years Lloyd Price, Fats Domino, Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike and Tina Turner, and the Grateful Dead have been just a few of the musicians to sing Stagger Lee’s song of murder and revenge.

In the graphic novel Stagger Lee, author Derek McCulloch and illustrator Shepherd Hendrix seek to untangle the story of Stagger Lee from the garbled and contradictory tales that have been springing up since the 1890’s when “Stag” Lee Shelton shot Billy Lyons in a St. Louis, Missouri saloon. The manhunt for Shelton and his trial became quite the local sensation as white St. Louis authorities rarely took interest in black-on-black crime. If the actual prosecution of the murder was odd then it was even stranger when some prominent whites arranged for a vigorous defense of Lee by gifted lawyer Nathen Dryden. McCulloch and Hendrix dig into the context of the shooting and trial, local politics, race relations, and growing class and wealth disparities within the black community itself. It is also explores the creation of mythology by examining how the tale of Stagg Lee changed as it was passed from musician to musician, down through the years, crossing over from “black music” into the “white mainstream” and back again.

McCulloch and Hendrix present their version of the famous killing (and despite a great deal of research they freely admit in their notes they used a great deal of supposition, interpretation, and artistic license to create their version). They also provide fictional subplots around the trial, chiefly a love triangle between one of Lee’s defense attorneys, a saloon musician who is the first to put Lee’s tale down to music, and the mysterious woman they both love. This historical (or historical fiction) narrative is interspersed with segments exploring the musical mythology that grew from the murder and trial. In these segments Hendrix’s art adopts more cartoonish sensibilities as Lee and Lyons morph and change with each telling of the tale, from thugs to cowboys to gangsters, from black to white, from 1800’s desperados to 70’s pimps. In a visual medium it is hard to provide a musical score but the creators attempt to incorporate the lyrics of many of the Stagger Lee songs and for the most part give a good sense of each interpretation. At the very least, providing the lyrics demonstrates clearly how the story changes in each telling. But comics are a visual medium so I often found myself finishing a chapter and then going over to YouTube to listen to a version of the song referenced in the text.

Illustrated in black and white (although my edition actually looks like a deep chocolate brown; I’m not sure if they deliberately used an off black ink to give the whole thing a sepia tone or if that’s just how my copy aged), Hendrix’s art handles both the narrative and comic strip style segments very well. Reading as many superhero comics as I do, and being inundated with their overpopulation of hyper-muscled strong men and pin-up babes with painted on costumes, it can actually be hard sometimes to find comics artists who illustrate normally proportioned people. The writers allow many moments of the book to hang on subtle visual tableau without superfluous purple prose from the writer (sometimes a problem in comics when a writer doesn’t trust their illustrator to accurately display what is going on). McCulloch does a fine job in weaving their version of the story and in examining how the Lee legend has changed through constant re-interpretation.

I would certainly recommend this to anyone who can appreciate some Rhythm & Blues mixed in with Law & Order. And to learn how a bit about how a tall tale grows in the telling.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham, Massachusetts on May 7, 2016. Learn more at www.watchcityfestival.com.

Of Bandits and Bigots

Tales of the Talented Tenth, Volume 1: Bass Reeves. Written and Illustrated by Joel Christian Gill
Graphic Novel Review by Kerey McKenna

For Black History Month, I thought I’d post some reviews of books and graphic novels featuring and/or created by African Americans. First up is the graphic novel Tales of the Talented Tenth, Vol. 1: Bass Reeves. This biography covers the formative years and career highlights of the title character, an escaped black slave who went on to have a prolific career as a lawman in the Wild West. Reeves is often cited as having captured over 3,000 fugitives from justice, the highest rate of the era. Frequently overlooked in earlier whitewashed narratives of the Old West, Reeves’s amazing story is beginning to gain more recognition in both history and fiction.

Mr. Gill does his part in spreading the tale of this legendary lawman to a new generation by telling his story of adventure in the face of racism with art, narrative, and language that is approachable to younger audiences. In a stylistic choice also used in his earlier, non-fiction graphic novel Strange Fruit, racist antagonists are portrayed as anthropomorphic crows (i.e., Jim Crows) giving the stories the feel of fables (similar to Art Spiegelman’s famous use of animal symbolism to illustrate his father’s survival of the Holocaust). Another device that struck me was that, when a character utters a racial slur (against Native or African Americans), the slur is replaced by a caricature of that group. On my first read-through it struck me as odd, but on reflection I think it is rather effective at two things: first, it helps keep a difficult narrative appropriate for children (of a certain age), and second, it illustrates how the use of such language reduces real individuals to abstract, negative stereotypes.

I first came across the story of Bass Reeves some time ago when I was doing research into the Old West as it applied to my interest in steampunk and I am always pleased when I come across some new iteration of Reeves’s story. For a tale of adventure in the West, where bandits and bigots must be overcome, this would be my recommendation for children (and some adults) who aren’t ready for the irreverent Blazing Saddles or the brutal Django Unchained.

Kerey McKenna is a contributing reviewer to Nerds who Read and SMOF for the annual Watch City Steampunk Festival, coming to Waltham, Massachusetts on May 7, 2016. Learn more at www.watchcityfestival.com.

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.