Book Report: SeveNeves by Neal Stephenson.

You know a book is going to be good when one page in you're thinking, "Oh man, I can't wait to see how this turns out!"  I mean, first page of the book and Stephenson blows up the moon!  That first chapter is a perfect balance of the dumbstruck astonishment of an amature astronomer observing the event and scientific exposition of how it would actually look more like a fracturing than an explosion.

The destruction of the moon puts Earth on a very short clock.  Everyone is going to die that can't escape the surface of the planet.  So until that happens, there is a frantic effort to get as many of us as possible into space.  After it happens, there is an epic effort to arrive somewhere safe where human survival is possible until they can a return to the surface.  And finally, the book jumps 5000 years into the future to see what that return might look like.

It is every bit as exciting, as engaging as awesome as that first chapter promised.  The writing makes me wish I was better at writing myself just so I could appreciate more all the writing tools he uses that I remember learning about in my high school English class.  It makes me grateful that I had good teachers.  The prose flows flawlessly.  The characters are well developed engaging people.  The concepts he addresses are fascinating.  I love this book.

Neal Stephenson is one of those authors who I will always grab one of his books from the library and know I'm in for a good read.  This last year I read a book of his called Anathem that is easily the best book I've ever read.  Mind blowing.  If you read sci-fi, read that book.  Read anything by Neal Stephenson!

On the back of SeveNeves jacket there's a comment from the LA Times that perfectly captures what I think of Stephenson.  "For all of his achievements, Neal Stephenson's most impressive may be his ability to attract a following equal parts hacker and literati ... It's not just that his prose is smooth and often witty or that his intelligence is wide-ranging and speculative, but that he wrestles with concepts... in ways that would shame most 'literary' novelists."