Stephenson and Seveneves

 The apocalypse is coming — is the human race even worth saving? Neal Stephenson ponders the big questions in “Seveneves” 
 
 In the SF master's new post-post-apocalyptic epic, humanity is reduced to eight women after the moon explodes 
 Laura Miller     Follow   Neal Stephenson (Credit: HarperCollins)
 Every post-apocalyptic tale is a utopian dream in disguise, which makes our current cultural obsession with the theme — from TV series like “The Walking Dead” to literary fiction like “Station Eleven” — a little less mystifying. Or does it? Humanity could really make something of itself, these stories suggest, if only we could first clear all these people out of the way.Neal Stephenson’s sweeping new science-fiction novel, “Seveneves,” is a post-post-apocalyptic yarn. Its first part recounts the desperate attempt to save humankind from an unimaginable catastrophe and the second is a knowing interrogation of just how difficult it is to leave our species’ past behind. In the book’s pivotal scene, eight women sit around a battered conference table in a former space station fastened to a clump of rock hurtling through space. They’re all that’s left of the human race; will they be able to keep it going? Is it even worth the try?“Seveneves” begins with panache: “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason,” goes its first sentence. Yet this is a matter-of-fact bravado, with all the hysteria scrubbed out of it. The usual fictional apocalypse these days is viewed from the perspective of Joe or Jane Average, some poor slob who barely understands what’s going on and who just wants to get back to his or her family. “Seveneves” is about the sort of people who, when the moon blows up, have to figure out what to do about it.Stephenson’s main characters for this first section include Dubois “Doob” Harris, a black astrophysicist and media personality who bears no small resemblance to Neil deGrasse Tyson. (If the real moon actually did explode into seven large pieces, Tyson would surely be the man tasked with explaining it to us.) The other is Dinah MacQuarie, a punningly named miner’s daughter who runs a hoard of robots working on an asteroid attached to the International Space Station. In “Seveneves,” Doob goes on TV to inform the public that, since the lunar mass is still more or less the same, people needn’t fret so much about the tides. He also supplies the bigger fragments with kid-friendly nicknames like “Kidney Bean” and “Mr. Spinny.” (“It wouldn’t do to call them Nemesis or Thor or Grond.”)