Goodnight Moon: A Long View of the Apocalypse in Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves

In an unspecified near future, the mysterious destruction of the moon leaves a whole lot of nasty rocks in orbit, rocks that will fall to Earth in two years, killing all life and rendering the entire planet uninhabitable for millennia. Humanity rallies in the face of destruction and begins a crash program to put people and genetic samples into orbit by expanding the International Space Station. Things don’t go quite according to plan, and the ramifications are felt 5,000 years later, when our descendants begin to reclaim the world.
Stephenson’s sympathetic characters tend to be intelligent pragmatists, unafraid to get their hands dirty. That’s evident in the first two-thirds of his latest, which focuses on a scramble to save the human race involving cobbled-together scientific and technological solutions, even as the end nears and the political and social climate on Earth gradually worsens. The cast includes Dinah, an astronaut and robot expert, who is on the ISS when the moon goes to pieces, and Doc Dubois, a Neal deGrasse Tyson-esque figure who finds that his role as a champion of science has become critical to keeping people calm. They’re relatable characters, and critical to making the story work, propelling the narrative alongside in-depth, if fascinating, discussions of the finer points of orbital mechanics, genetics, and mining asteroids. The level of thought that Stephenson has put into his science give the novel a vivid authenticity, but it’s the characters that make the drama come to life.
This is particularly true in scenes of conflict between political players and those solely focused on the science of saving humanity. There aren’t any mustache-twirling villains here—everyone wants to save the world. It’s just that some people think they’d be better at it than others, and they’re willing to fight dirty. This is where Stephenson engages in a bit of stealth commentary about a culture that frequently allows its perceptions to be altered by people better at shaping messages than dealing with reality.
After building a solid character and scientific foundation, Stephenson wildly extrapolates on it with a leap five millennia into the future, providing a satisfying pay-off to the nightmare scenario laid out in that opening sentence. Without spoiling too much, decisions made by a handful of people in the opening sections turn out to have profound, intriguing effects on the future of humanity.
If there’s a problem with the book, it’s that it left me wanting more. The future section is too long to be an epilogue, but the world it sketches out is so fascinating, I wanted to spend more time there. It’s easy to imagine Stephenson doubling down and making the end into a second book.  (While this is a self-contained story, there are some hints that there may be more to come.)
Wishing an already long book was even longer isn’t a bad thing. Stephenson has a knack for thinking big while not ignoring the detail work.  The end of the world and the effort build a new one is the kind of epic story where his talents work best.