(Drivebycuriosity) - If the earth would get hit by a catastrophe that makes it suddenly uninhabitable some people might try to escape into space and seek to survive there. How would this be possible? Neil Stephenson gives the answer in his book "Seveneves: A Novel" (published 2015 amazon ). Over more than 800 pages he elaborates how some humans start to settle in space stations and similar habitats in close orbits around the world.
"Seveneves" belongs to the most scientific scifi novels I ever read. About 2/3 of plot are set in contemporary times and the author uses already known sciences and technologies. He describes painstakingly how the refugees from earth create habitable places in space, endangered by vacuum, hard radiation, extreme temperatures, meteors and many other perils.
Stephenson immersed deep into space flight technology, orbital mechanics, chemistry, genetics and many more branches of knowledge. But there is the problem, after a while I got overwhelmed and exhausted by his overload of information. To make things worse: After two thirds the plot jumps suddenly 5,000 years into the future and introduces the readers into very advanced technologies.
I understand that Stephenson invested years of his life into this project and accomplished an amazing amount of research but presenting this material to a general readership would have needed more discipline. "Seveneves" is a tutorial, not a novel.
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