Paperback, 872 pages
English language
Published May 16, 2016 by The Borough Press.
When a catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb, it triggers a feverish race against the inevitable. An ambitious plan is devised to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere...
Five thousand years later, the survivors' progeny embark on another audacious journey into the unknown, to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.
I hated less than I enjoyed. Could have been great if it were under half as long.
All of the positive raving for this book is true! All of the criticisms are also true! Stephenson is his own thing and he breaks all the rules of fiction. He breaks them in a couple different ways in this book. When it's great it's REALLY GREAT. When it's not so great, it kinda sucks. At different moments, I wanted to give this five stars. It's a hell of a book and I absolutely recommend it to any "hard" SF fans. Know that the exposition can really be a brick wall in the storytelling and it's not artfully done at all. But Stephenson has certainly earned himself a place on the hard-core SF shelf with this one (if he hadn't already).
Great start, and enjoyed most of the first 566 pages. The last 300 were another book, with a different style. Together they don't work as well as they would separately. The current ending works, but could also leave room for a third book. Overall rating - liked it.
The first long book is mostly about solving technological problems, and works. A lot of interesting characters, including a Neil deGrasse Tyson role. The pace was good, the challenges realistic, and I really enjoyed the swarming robots. It was refreshing to see humanity reacting to a disaster in a mostly positive way - quite different from most disaster stories.
I enjoyed most of the characters, but didn't really like the added politics towards the end. Reminds me of Battlestar Galactica (and others). In hindsight, a lot of this felt forced - these characters led directly to the "Eves" of the final part …
Great start, and enjoyed most of the first 566 pages. The last 300 were another book, with a different style. Together they don't work as well as they would separately. The current ending works, but could also leave room for a third book. Overall rating - liked it.
The first long book is mostly about solving technological problems, and works. A lot of interesting characters, including a Neil deGrasse Tyson role. The pace was good, the challenges realistic, and I really enjoyed the swarming robots. It was refreshing to see humanity reacting to a disaster in a mostly positive way - quite different from most disaster stories.
I enjoyed most of the characters, but didn't really like the added politics towards the end. Reminds me of Battlestar Galactica (and others). In hindsight, a lot of this felt forced - these characters led directly to the "Eves" of the final part of the book. Some of it felt realistic, but a lot just felt rushed. The final section was its own story, and interesting - I've read plenty of SF like it. It just seems like a different audience than the problem solving of the first 500 pages. If this were a separate book, more could have been brought in about the mythology, and perhaps less infodump about this new world. Finally, Stephenson seems to get a little sloppy on the point of view in the end, jumping mid-paragraph at times.
I understand the first two thirds in an audiobook format are ready by [a:Mary Robinette Kowal|2868678|Mary Robinette Kowal|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1365253716p2/2868678.jpg]. I have listened to her reading, and she does a great job. Unfortunately, she doesn't read all of this one, and I'm not sure I'm ready to invest more than 30 hours in an audiobook anyways. I enjoyed this, but it wasn't better than any of the other Neal Stephenson I have read, and the highest I could go is a little over 3 stars - not enough to round to 4.
