Sisyphean Read. Review on Seveneves - Neal Stephenson

My friend Bill Gates(the one and only) referred me to read this book, SevenEves. Before you twist and turn on how lousy bugger Thakurman has Bill Gates for a friend, let me make it easy for you. I receive multiple emails from him on a monthly basis and we have been in close touch for over a decade. Sometimes, his alternate career as an underworld boss pimping Viagra X lands in my spam folder, and sometimes, his whereabouts are reported to me in my inbox. I continue to receive a couple of mails regularly and hence I lay ‘claim’ to his being my ‘close’ friend without necessitating a two way communication. On a couple of occasions, I have received the privilege of his signing off on my certificates. I read his article and reference to the book in one of the Sunday newspaper editions on a book review. Now when a friend recommends a book, you try and read it at the nearest available opportunity. Science fiction also being a good topic with nothing to loose, I thought I’d pick this book up.

Amazon India first offered the Hardbound edition at 1791 which deterred me from buying this book. Then I realized a month later that there was a dropdown for the product listing and when I selected it, I got the paperback, kindle and MP3 options. I checked the price for the paperback and at 442 inclusive of shipping presented a value proposition. Kindle editions are a headache as I have to charge the device and ends up in a corner of the house. I still prefer the paperback editions which can be shared among friends easily, multiple times.

What it’s about? It is an alternate scenario science fiction. What happens if the moon broke into pieces? The moon breaks into seven pieces due to an undisclosed reason and this results in a prediction of the destruction of the earth. Due to repeated collision of the seven pieces, the fragments are expected to result in a cloud like dust similar to the rings of Saturn. These rings of stones and dirt are expected to collide with earth and result in its devastation. What are mankind’s choices of survival?

The summary at the back of the book clearly makes you expect that mankind has survived and different challenges arise millenniums later post the occurrence of the event.

In reality, the book is divided into two sections, the events immediately post breakup of the moon leading to the imminent destruction of the earth with the moon rocks a couple of years down the lane. The latter section depicts the scenario 5000 years later.

Now is it a good read? The problem I find with this voluminous book is that more pages are dedicated to the details on the background than the story itself. Rightly so, details are required, but the voluminous focus on the detailed aspect of the surroundings exceeds 400 pages of this book of 800 plus pages. Also, part 1 and 2 of the book are dedicated to the events leading to the destruction of the earth which itself occupies more than 1/3 rd the book. At no point is it that critical to the progress of the story. The story scores due to an innovative story line and a readable pace. However, the build-up to the climax for an expected event is tame and there is no excitement to it as the story progresses. Once the earth is bombarded by the rocks from the moon, you try and speed up the pace to see what happens 5000 years later.

The latter part of the story could have skipped the background details to the bare minimum and focused on life at that point. Instead, the elaborate details even in the second half of the book make it a killer. This makes you think, whether the details were required to build up on the story or the epilogue could have been kept minimal. By the way, there is talk of this book being made into a movie. If that’s the case, I think it makes for an average watch aka passengers, the story does not fit into the interstellar mould. you begin to understand what I mean when you read it.