Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (2016)

A spectacular natural event becomes Earth’s armageddon, and humanity has approximately two years to prepare before the surface of the world is rendered inhospitable to life. Nations around the globe unite and develop a plan to save the human race and as much knowledge as possible, including genetic information of plants and animals, by sending a selected few hundred into outer space.

In typical Neal Stephenson fashion, Seveneves is epic, with many storylines united over five thousand years. It touches on the unpredictability of human nature, the complexities of technology, and the convolution of politics. But ultimately, it’s a scifi that illustrates the tenacity of our race… in a good way. Seveneves is a book about survival, but not just in a typical dystopian future against other human oppressors; instead, humans struggle to build a better future (sometimes together) in the face of an inhospitable world.

I thoroughly enjoy the tendency of hard science fiction to embody a fictional world in which all elements of the story are a probable extension of known physics and technology. Stephenson does a great job balancing the world building, the technology, and the characters, although I felt a much stronger connection with the characters of the before.

Highly recommended for fans of hopeful and technical scifi! Seveneves is a straightforward introduction into the rabbit hole of baroque speculative fiction that is Neal Stephenson.


“We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”