First off there are two things you should know:
I like the writings of Neal Stephenson
This is a really long book
There is no way to give a truly detailed plot summary.
Seven “Eves”
•
Dinah MacQuarie - Roboticist working
for Arjuna expeditions (a private asteroid mining company). Her robots
specialize in asteroid iron mining. Her father is the leader of an effort to
weather the hard rain underground.
•
Ivy Xiao - Born in Los Angeles, California, Xiao graduated from the United States Naval
Academy before obtaining a PhD in applied physics from Princeton University. At
the start of Seveneves, Xiao is the Commander of the International Space
Station. She is demoted after allowing Sean Probst to utilize ISS resources,
but becomes commander again after the death of her successor, Markus Leuker.
•
Julia Bliss Flaherty - Frequently referred
to as "JBF", Flaherty is President of the United
States during the events of Part 1. In violation of an international accord,
Flaherty saves herself by fleeing to the ISS aboard a Boeing X-37, along with Pete Sterling, her science advisor. Flaherty
attempts to re-assert her leadership and persuades a large number of cloud ark
inhabitants to abandon the ISS. Disaster and internal dissent lead to her being
replaced by Aïda Ferrari. Her descendants are more attuned to and adept at
social and psychological manipulation.
•
Moira Crewe - A geneticist sent
aboard to ensure humanity's heterozygosity, Crewe was raised in London and obtained degrees
from Oxford and Harvard, and had previously
worked on the de-extinction of the woolly mammoth. Due to the loss of
the physical Human Genetic Archive, Crewe's talents make her extremely
valuable. Being the only person understanding the changes Aïda requests for her
descendants, she responds, through seven failures, by giving her only surviving
child the ability to undergo epigenetic shifts in order to
counter all the changes Aïda makes in her offspring.
•
Tekla Alekseyevna Ilushina - A Russian cosmonaut, Tekla was
a former Olympic heptathalete, and was sent in the
initial wave of suicide workers to retrofit the ISS for its role as the cloud
ark hub. Rescued by Dinah when her suit life support system malfunctions, Tekla
became the head of security aboard ISS. Her descendants have increased
discipline and physical ability.
•
Camila - Student and activist
(implied to be from Afghanistan or Pakistan). Earlier in her life
Camila survived an assassination attempt that necessitated extensive reconstructive
surgery, and she was granted asylum in the Netherlands. Camila was chosen as
an arklet as a rebuke to conservative Muslim countries that refused to nominate
women in the Casting of Lots. While initially a close friend of former
President Flaherty, Camila grows disillusioned with her during the events of
the novel, ultimately preventing Flaherty from murdering Tekla. Camila has
Moira imbue her descendants with non-aggressive traits, in order to be better
suited to living in the close confines of space for generations.
•
Aïda Ferrari - An Italian "Arkie",
Aïda first appears after having lead a revolt against Julia's control of the
arklets that rebelled against the ISS. Deciding that future humans will look
down upon her descendants due to the cannibalism she participated in
while cut-off from the ISS, she gives each of her children markedly different
qualities, to best counter the attributes selected by the other Eves.
This
book attempts to answer that age-old SF question: What would you do if the world were going to
end? The answer for most people
(according to Stephenson) is to help give a small group of people a chance to
survive and possibly continue humanity.
If
you wake up tomorrow and the moon is in 7 (soon to be 8) pieces you had better
get ready. Those pieces are going to
rattle together and chip off so many little pieces then in a couple of years
they will start to fall to Earth (Hard Rain) creating an unlivable environment
for thousands of years. You must either
find a way to survive way under the surface or get out into space above the
turmoil.
This
book focuses on the process of trying to build a sustainable space station in a
short time. All of the political and
technological barriers as well as the personalities and approaches to problem
solving. One would think that
cooperation and compromise might be the best approach but not according to
Stephenson. For instance, the actions of
Sean Probst to bring a comet to the party (dying in the process) had nothing to
do with a committee but was essential for the success of the mission. On the other hand, poor leadership decisions
by the former President of the US almost results in loss of everyone.
Most
people will (like me) admire Dinah’s guts and bold actions which saved the
whole effort. The others Eves each have
qualities that are key but Dinah was heart and soul of the group.
I
am not sure that Stephenson needed to add the Earth-based efforts to round
things out. It makes the Eves solution
seem less important and less dramatic.
Also it is hard to understand how either of those gambles would have
been successful. I do not think that
they would have been. In any event, it
is a thought provoking book - another
one from Neal Stephenson who is quickly becoming one of my favorites – Try
Cryptonomicon.
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