Seven Eves
by Neil Stephenson · first published 2018
50% recommend36% neutral14% critical
Why HN recommends it
Near-future hard science fiction in which a catastrophe forces humanity into space, with realistic spaceflight detail. It suits fans of Stephenson's style and of spaceflight.
Common criticism: Some find the second half strange and the ending abrupt.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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Neal Stephenson has a lot to offer in the Seven Eves
on “Ask HN: Can we ever escape Earth's gravity without using chemical propulsion?” ↗There's also more realistic / near-future sci-fi, see for example Neal Stephenson's excellent 'Seven Eves', which I recommend for anyone interested in spaceflight.
on “ISS Virtual Tour” ↗…things I enjoyed about this book. It helped validate for me many of my instincts in running a creative business. The Martian by Andy Weir I very much enjoyed the story and how it was all approached. Seven Eves by Neil Stephenson Similar to his other books (Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon) I've gifted these a few times. I really enjoy his method of storytelling and his stories appeal to the geek in me as well.
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗I'm not sure how to drop a no-spoilers Seven Eves reference in here, but suffice it to say, I thought it was a pretty good Stephenson sci-fi book & x37b showed up in spectacular fashion.
on “SpaceX will launch the X-37B on a Falcon Heavy rocket Dec. 7” ↗…Remade - massively stretched my suspension of disbelief. Cryptonomicon - pretty bad. Snow Crash - No memory, I might have blocked it out? Anthem - maybe ok? There are two though so that's cheating. Seven Eves - That one might have been ok, but it's possible I also blocked it out. The second half was a bit strange tbh. To be clear, I'd still recommend all of these books. Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite…
on “"A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4” ↗The same with Seven Eves. Absolutely amazing book, but you better enjoy it while you're reading, the end feels like your book has missed the last pages.
on “William Gibson is a literary genius” ↗Read Seven Eves, we dont want a crumbling moon raining down on the earth.
on “New nuclear deflection simulations advance planetary defense against asteroids” ↗Save yourself 17000 hours of tedium and don't read "Fall, or Dodge in Hell". I'm a Stephenson fan from way back and have read everything, and loved a lot of it, but Fall is lukewarm garbage. Seven Eves and D.O.D.O. were not great, but Fall is really 1400ish pages of everything wrong with Stephenson's writing. Dude seriously needs an editor. The first 300 or so pages of Fall are not terrible and there…
on “Dressing for the Surveillance Age” ↗…what The Last Kingdom TV series is based on. Worth a read if you liked the show or like English history.) REAMDE - Niel Stephenson (Very fun! Lots of crazy action while still being almost believable) Seven Eves - Niel Stephenson (Typical Stephenson Sci-Fi. Very interesting take on an Armageddon type scenario) The Hardware Hacker - Andrew Huang (Talks a lot about manufacturing tech in China. Neat to see some…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Neal Stephenson's _Seven Eves_ ends up with several distinct branches of humanity. It was a necessary adaptation to a population bottleneck -- after a global apocalypse there were only 7 living women and no men or sperm, but they…
Something like "The Cradle" from Niel Stephenson's Seven Eves maybe. (It basically just dangles several hundred feet above the ground)
on “Raising a Ladder to the Moon, Under the Sea” ↗I found the second part of Seven Eves to be a surreal experience. I think I might have stopped reading Stephenson after that.
on “Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min” ↗This sounds like Neil Stephenson's Seven Eves scenario.
on “Space Aging” ↗Every time I read an article like this I think about Tavistock Prowse from Seven Eves.
on “Many people in finance, sales and management feel their jobs are pointless” ↗>> Seven Eves - That one might have been ok, but it's possible I also blocked it out. The second half was a bit strange tbh. I found Seveneves both endings (Parts I and II being one book, Part III being another) of…
on “"A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" Simulated by GPT-4” ↗