The first page of the book says "seveneves", but I've already seen it out there as Seveneves, Seven Eves, etc. I got it from the library over a month ago, and read a few pages, then some real life got in the way, now I'm back and not sure whether to start over. This is another phonebook sized volume from Stephenson, and I wonder if I'll be able to keep track of all the names and places. Maybe I should take notes as I go along?
Too many things to remember is the author's problem, not mine. If I can get through all the Tolkien books without needing notes, then I don't think notes are needed. I think what I really want to do is make notations and review as I go along. That's what I've been doing with my video game blog, and I much prefer writing as I go, than a big wrap up at the end. I kind of don't believe in the final review anyway, a good book (or game) resonates with you over time, bouncing off other ideas, and so on down the road. I don't think reviews are honest. I would rather take notes of what I think and feel at the time, and then maybe add notes on later reflections. This is an experiment in that.
Also, I'm not writing a review so much as a time capsule. This writing isn't for non-existent you, its for me to read again later, to remind myself what I read, so that I might be able to re-experience it again quickly without needing to re-read it.
*spoilers from here on*
Starting over from the beginning, my first impression from the title is that I once heard that all European genetics can be traced to seven mothers who lived in Spain many millennia ago. I've also received the spoilers that this is a disaster story where the Earth and most of its population is doomed. So its really hard not to go into this thinking that at some point the human population of females must get down to seven before it builds back up again.
Part One,
page 3 (the actual story text starts here)
The first line of the book is so good, it reminds me of that one sentence short story 'the last man on earth heard a knock at the door'.
If that wasn't momentous enough, there's an immediate mention that the calendar will start over here, A+0.0.0, Zero. With just these few facts and impressions of the title, I can already imagine a sweeping story of humanity's struggles over many generations. You know Stephenson is good, and this is going to be good, but its still amazing how fast he can build a world and a situation.
p4, The Agent, I really like how quickly you, the reader, are told don't waste any time thinking about the cause, nobody else will, so let's just explore the consequences.
"seven large pieces"
5, agent, patient
6, The Seven Sisters
Rufus MacQuarie, mine (quarry, ha ha), northern Alaska, telescope
International Space Station
7, Morse code
asteroid Amalthea, Arjuna asteroids, Arjuna Expeditions
geocentric orbit
8, Amalthea at one end of ISS, other end a torus, simulated gravity, Izzy
Dinah MacQuarie, Ivy Xiao
9, robot mining
10, Silicon Valley investors, Morse code transceiver, speakers, 4 species of robots
This is a joyless way to read a book. Any sense of imagination or wonder that might be building keeps getting interrupted by note-taking. I need to separate the reading and note-taking parts, or save the note-taking for a second read, which kind of defeats the purpose of not needing to read it again. This reminds me of the dissection of animals, where the thing you are picking apart on the table is no longer that animal, so what are you even doing? I think I'll skim my way back to where I left off, and maybe come back for notes later.
2016.01.15
Skipped yesterday, have a cold or something.
Got to page 163 "Consolidation". Very moving, very rich in detail and characterization. This is like a good wine that you savor, but you can't set down the glass. I finally went to bed because I didn't want to read any further at anything less than high attention level.
Now, should I try the note taking again? Is there any point? Will it be of some value to me when I read this a year or ten from now? Sometimes the right note or photo can do that for you, and it seems like a valuable bridge to something you thought lost. I should at least try, and maybe it will even have some refresh value up to the point I stopped. One thing I now know, the first time is to be the pure experience of just reading, no soul-sapping notes.
page 11,
What was I thinking. Back to page 163.
I can still comment though. What about the notion of living underground or under the water - has that been thoroughly dismissed? Yes, the surface world will be too hot for 10,000 years, but how far down does that go? If it was dismissed already, it was done really briefly. If they had mentioned the depth of the uninhabitability, I would think I'd remember that. If submarines would work at some depth, isn't that still a better 'spacecraft' than actual space? At least you have gravity, oxygen, water, some access to minerals, maybe even some deep sea life you could eat. I would think that Earth could crank out a lot more deep sea submarines than spacecraft. Especially with the cost savings of not having to launch it all into space.
I can see how living underground won't work, because you have none of the advantages of even living in the sea, and all the cost. But if there was some known melt depth, at least some time capsule vaults could be constructed at great depth within two years, that could take a lot of the long term storage burden off the space (or sea) effort.
Other than this I have only great praise for the book so far.
And another comment, I've been thinking for some time that this book is the adult version of The Martian. Compared to this, The Martian is a Disney princess story, and this is Graveyard of the Fireflies. In the Martian, NASA is spoken of in reverent terms, whereas here they are a moribund beauracracy, handily shown up by a Silicon Valley billionaire who gets things done.
Putting these two things together, maybe that's why NASA (and the governments) are making it seem like the space ark is viable, to distract humanity from where the real ark will be, under the surface of the Earth?
Sometimes I feel like I'm reading something that's almost movie script ready. The only person you could possibly cast as Doob is Morgan Freeman. And that whole scene in the wilderness, the impromptu Burning Man private space launch felt very visual, very trailer ready. I know Doc Dubois isn't as old as Morgan, but for something like this a little rewriting is forgivable, and to be expected. I'm not familiar enough with current Hollywood to even guess who would play Dinah.
Cool, living in a submarine is mentioned as soon as page 177. It would be foolish to second-guess Neal, he thinks of everything.
OK, there's not a lot of detail, but at least it was mentioned. A few bones were tossed to the ravenous nit-pickers in the audience to keep them busy.
p181 Casting of Lots
p215 so cinematic, i can see this scene in the movie already. Doob gives his hope for the future speech for the first time on his last camping trip, much as he is going to deliver that same speech many more times to many more audiences. I can see Morgan Freeman starting that speech, sitting on the tailgate with his family, saying the first few lines. And then each line, he is standing in front of a different audience, around the world, each line uttered with increasing grandiosity, until finally the last line is delivered from space, looking at the Earth. If they want to temper the triumphant moment it could stop with Dubois, new to space, reading the zero-g toilet instructions, echoing the moment in 2001. Not that they need to go there.
p216 Cloud Ark
p222 The population of black footed ferrets got down to seven before real efforts could be made to restore it. I think I used to know that, back when we had ferrets. The number seven has been hit again, like an odd sound or note that has occurred often enough that you just can't dismiss it anymore. I'm more certain than ever about my theory that humanity will be reduced to just seven mothers, like that segment of humanity in Spain. Considering the hundreds if not thousands of humans that will start this colony, that means some serious disasters and tragedies are coming down the road. The fact that the first paragraph of this book starts with the calendar starting over first warned of this disaster, but it also offered the hope that in time, no matter how many centuries or millennia, humanity would still be here, to mark the time.
I think this is how I will take notes. When I get worked up by what I'm reading, and I have to share it with somebody before I can continue, I'll just keep sharing it with you. It will have to do.
As cool as it would be to see this story through, for ten thousand years or more until Earth can be rebuilt, I would really miss all the characters we've built up until now. Maybe we follow our characters for most of the book, and have a little coda at the end from the restored Earth.
p227 Part Two
p229 Day 700
When I saw Part Two, I was a little surprised and pleased to see it followed by Day 700, I was almost expecting to see Year 5000, halfway through humanity's exile. I should very much should be in bed right now, but with morbid curiosity I can't wait to see what happens during White Sky. The story time really shouldn't skip ahead anyway, as all the most interesting parts of this story should be in the beginning. Humanity will settle into life in orbit, or it won't, and then there should be some kind of stability while waiting for their homeworld to be available again. Except by that point, humanity won't need its homeworld anymore. It can't need its homeworld anymore, or it would have never have survived that long. This makes me think of the Quarians from the game Mass Effect, who lost their homeworld to some other disaster. The survivors found a home in their fleet, which traveled the galaxy. Their homeworld became myth and legend, and when regained, it was something they approached cautiously. Of course there was politics, there were factions. If I recall, some didn't see any point to going home, and opposed it. I expect nothing less of Seveneves, if anything, I expect the issue to be explored even more.
There was mention of the Singularity. There was talk of modifying genes to remove unwanted traits. Why not adapt humans for life without gravity. Why stop there? Future humanity might look at Earth like a crib to discard.
p249 preserving relics at the bottom of the sea or deep shafts, noted.
p260 the mysterious extraterrestrial ham spammer that they are ignoring - Silicon Valley comet guy?
p265 another cinematic thought, the Silicon Valley guy, giving a rousing speech to his employees, to support him in this long endeavor, to lasso a comet and bring it to Earth, so that long after they are all forgotten, their legacy will be the survival of the human race. Nah, maybe not. I have to stop trying to make the movie of this in my head, but something about this is really cinematic or maybe I've watched too many movies lately.
2016.01.18
Is this the pattern, read a day, skip a day or two?
I need to go back 3-4 pages to get back into the flow, but once I'm mentally back in, I feel like there was no break.
I was wondering how long before somebody got nuked. I'm still nervous someone will try to lob one at the ark, but then this story would be over before it began.
Spacebook. Sprice. Sprew. A little extra levity counteract the nuking, and the open hint that the current leader of the ark is already creating a security force, before there is even a society or a government?
p303 White Sky
Been waiting for this for about half the book.
p309 Hard Rain
p333 I was not expecting that, but I should have. Everyone has been so well behaved during the tragedy, that I was starting to think we were going to get through this together, as a species. And then the past crashes the party. Her only excuse was that she was knocked out and stuffed into the escape pod without her knowledge.
p336 This is just like when Commander Cain showed up in the Battlestar Galactica reboot. You know she needs to be put down as quick as possible, the only question is how many of us are going to die first.
I'm starting to get sick of this cliche already. If you are a good person, and you are rescuing an obviously evil person, don't expect them to be good in return. And don't throw them the idol, because they are not going to throw you the whip.
And then, just to make the moment even more tense, we go into the discussion of orbits. Is this a good way to build tension, put the only obvious hero of the book in jeopardy, then switch to a science lecture? Should I be duly tense, or can I just throw the book against the wall now?
p342 OK, that was brief but satisfying. What I really want to see can't really be done, though, which is to push Julia right back out the airlock. I know Dinah and Ivy are the good guys, but can't they see how much trouble this party crasher will cause? Markus should have sent Tekla to do the dirty work, but I guess nobody saw this coming. Couldn't they have pointed a telescope at it? Then they would have seen the capsule, could have guessed. Oh well. I'm sure there's more trouble that can be squeezed out of this situation. Or maybe a redemption story.
p364 Wow, things are really moving. I was actually hoping Probst would come back, maybe be a foil for Markus' new government, and then all of sudden both of them are going out of the picture, along with Dinah. Which leaves Ivy to deal with Julia. Chess pieces re-arranged on the board.
p372 And before you know it we've got a plan to move the ark to high orbit just as soon we lasso this comet chunk that was tossed our way.
p379 "flying robotic anthill", hilarious for some reason.
I hope Sean left some last words. He was a character you start out almost naturally hating, but over time you realize he's one of the good guys, and you want to know more. And he seemed like such a significant character early on.
p394 "everyone pushed back their food"
p411 that toxic asshole is at it again. Julia. whispering poison into ears. characters like this are a flavor packet of drama you can add and stir in with great result. I say character, because I haven't really though of any of these names as people so much as characters. Is it because they are badly written? No. Its just that there is so much technical info to surf through, the people are kind of muted sometimes. But maybe that is somewhat on purpose. Dinah even notes to herself that her capability of reacting has been significantly dulled to most everything. Most of our characters are emotionally shell shocked.
p427 I like how the crew working the comet build themselves a bridge by all meeting in one room, at a table, and put up a few monitors to use with their tablets. They each control various functions, like propulsion, navigation, the robots that move the fuel. Something about this feels right, in a way that makes Star Trek seem like something from the days of wooden ships. Its basically Star Trek in the wireless tablet age (just like the video game Artemis). It is also the age of text messages, and a lot of commands are quietly issued in quick bursts of text. This has been a quiet subtext to the book all long, but it really strikes me now that this is perhaps the most new and interesting thing in this story. Of course we'll take our smart phones and tablets and social media and text messaging with us into the future, and this book has an interesting view of what that will work like.
If you are any kind of geek or nerd (whatever that means, or whatever it means to you), of course you hate Julia. She represents the ultimate in management and marketing, the permanent enemies of those of us who just want to get shit done. But these are just roles, these aren't actually who we are. There's an interesting angle forming, that Julia might be trying to speak up for a the suppressed class of Arkies. Of course, all she wants is to take power over Arkies and General Population, but it would be nice if the story gives her a point, that makes her seem more than just a selfish caricature. I'm guessing Neal won't disappoint.
2016.01.22
p434
Back to it, where did we leave off, oh that piece of shit Julia is talking. Not sure about what, go back a few pages, oh yeah, Dinah and company are riding a piece of comet back to the ark, and still have the job of syncing it up.
2016.01.23
False start, distracted by the weather. Page 426. Slow down the comet or burn up in Earth's atmosphere, let's go.
p460
I buy it that the ex-President of the USA outsmarted them all. She was one of the top snakes in the biggest den, so outmaneuvering a few engineers and astronauts should be no trouble for her. She's so good at it, I think she deserves the top spot, no one can touch her. And I love the comparison to Ivy's grand-matriarch grandmother, who created her own private attention/revenge power structure. Some people just desperately need the most attention, and if they are strong enough, will bend all of society to their will.
p476
Something extremely dangerous to human life is introduced, and within one page you are told which character it is going to kill. Usually this book is not so blunt.
I hope when Julia initiates her rebellion, putting all humanity in jeopardy just so she can be the center of attention forever, that someone in charge of Perambulator picks out her ark and sends her back to Earth, where she belongs.
p485
Finally, something's happening. I don't know who's going to live or die anymore and I don't even care now, I just want it to be over.
p498
I hope Camilla makes good on that promise. Even better if it happens sooner.
p499 Endurance
p522
I can't believe they're letting the last of JBF's group join them. I'm really looking to Camilla here to make good on her promise. How did Julia not get cannibalized? They should make her head a condition of merging the fleets. She is quite literally the greatest genocidist in human history, being responsible for killing well over half the (much reduced) human race.
I'm expecting a big time skip, humanity arises from the ashes of the moon colony, and then the faction that went to Mars comes back like an invasion.
At this point, I hope JBF's faction comes into Izzy with weapons and kills some of the remaining crew before they finally get things under control and land on the moon. The crew of Endurance deserve it. They allowed Julia on board, and they just keep on underestimating her. At this point, I'm turning against the good guys, and thinking they are too dumb to live. They deserve whatever Julia's zombie cannibal army does to them.
p533
Well, that's one of the good guys dead already. You fucking deserve it, Endurance.
p542 "Which they never would." I love a nice hard prophetic exclamation, especially right before a chapter or even the end of the book.
p543 Cleft
p549
It pains me to no end that Julia is one of the last remnants of the human race.
"Council of the Seven Eves". I have been waiting for this moment since before I opened the book.
Wow, how quickly talk turns to how we will genetically modify the future human race. Humanity has the option to go all-female. Like the Asari (Mass Effect). Something like this could be their origin story.
I wonder if we'll ever really find out about the Mars faction. Its too big of a story thread to just leave hanging. But even if they make it to Mars alive, where would they ever get the propellant to actually land safely? Not to mention its mostly Ark kids, not the brains of the General Population.
p566
That's a lot of prophetic stuff to drop on one page.
"I'm going to breed a race of heroes"
"We're unanimous."
"For the first and last time."
p567 Part Three
p569
"FIVE THOUSAND YEARS LATER"
I've been waiting for this ball to drop for a long time, but it still feels like a punch in the gut.
"Here on the surface of New Earth..." Well, shit, you could just make this the last page of the book and totally get away with it. Humanity has deserved its happy ending and then some. But there's a hundred or so more pages to this. Where do we go from here? The seven bloodlines? Seven types of humanity?
p571
"the human races" - yep, sounds like Aida's seven humanities theory might have won
"And then, because she was a Moiran..." yep. Like the Asari, but with seven strains. I wonder if each strain looks like their ancient parent.
p582
Perambulator lives!
I am still absorbing the notion that Kath Two carries a small portable suit with her that is not only a space suit, but is also a vehicle that can take her to orbit. And once there, there are super long bolos in orbit that can scoop you up even higher. And oh yeah, Dinah's robots, or rather their descendants, are just everywhere in the background, maybe even like nanotechnology.
p585
"This man... a Teklan" So they did eventually create males.
ring of habitats (like a Halo ring?), 3 billion people. awesome.
p593
The cool races and the warm races are at war. Of course they are.
Imagine how this story had turned out if they had just spaced Julia, Aida, and Camila, for good measure. What did they ever do to deserve to be 3/7 of the human race, other than try to destroy it? This is what knocks me out of the story, makes me realize I'm reading a book. Time to adjourn.
2016.01.27
Been not reading for days. Its like I don't even care where the story goes next, I read and enjoyed a complete story, and this new story is like someone went for the unnecessary sequel. It is also a bother that it is really obvious that we had to end up with seven people to reboot humanity, which makes me wonder what parts of the previous story were shoved into place to make that happen.
Thinking about the almost certainly doomed Mars colony, what happened to the almost certainly doomed Alaska colony? Either colony would consist of pre Seven human genetics, and maybe add an interesting new wrinkle to Humanity 2.0.
Indigen - has this term been introduced already? It sounds just like what I was wondering.
p601
Not expecting a color picture of the ringworld, but there it is, "The Habitat Ring circa A+5000". Which reminds me I've been avoiding the picture of Izzy and Amalthea on the inside cover, because spoilers. I can look at it now that its gone from the story. Amalthea is much smaller than I imagined. The back cover has some spaceship looking thing on Earth, skipping that.
2016.01.28
This infodump is not working for me. There is five millennia of history creating this ringworld and all the technologies and cultures in it, then more recently centuries of politics and war. And its not linear, its being backfilled as some new characters are going about their business. Its a lot of new world and characters to absorb, after you're two-thirds through the book already and not expecting it.
p611
Amistics, from the Amish, I like it.
"the Reds were enthusiastic about personal technological enhancement". Yep, the Blue races will be fighting a race of cyber-Julias and terminator Aidas. Should have spaced them, and Camilla just for good measure.
Great, another faction, the Sooners/Indigens.
There is one continuity I do like, in that the first 2/3 of the book was like training wheels to understand all the issues with humans trying to exist in space, and how gravity and velocity and propellant and mass affect everything. This new world does seem to be a logical extension of all the hard lessons learned.
I also like that handshakes have been replaced with salutes, and salutes are race specific.
Interesting that they can still understand 5,000 year old speech, and it just sounds like funny accents. But this parallels our own world, where language seems to be accreting around shared video history. We can understand century old radio and video just fine, and maybe it will stabilize language change. I also like the little language and culture influences that you can hear in people's names, and the political or cultural significance it has in the present.
The conversation with the Julia model interrogator in the cafe is getting me back into the story. But what does it mean for Kath Two to go Kath Three?
p641
This is the second time this book I've had to look up a word, obloquy. The first was dissimulating. Its not that the meaning of the word wasn't obvious in context, but it bothers me to see a word I don't know in a mainstream location, like I was supposed to know it.
I like that the author takes the time to explain how they have all this heavy space engineering around them, and they live in it, but their microchip manufacturing still hasn't caught up to Old Earth standards. And that is is partially the result of cultural decisions.
p703
I'm not even struggling in the constant stream of new technology and cultures and politics and histories being introduced, just letting it wash over me and hope it makes sense later. The several pages about weapons, military, and past conflicts stand out.
The current plot of a group of seven going on a trip is so far removed from the first book now that it I would forget that story if not for the constant reminders of the seven race names.
Sometimes I feel like I've been dropped into an anime. The story is taking place on Earth, or someplace like Earth, but in an alternate timeline, with schizo tech, and an enormous backstory that is probably coherent but since there's not enough time we have to blaze on through it, and there's a war between people from different compass directions, and there's something screwy with the environment, but nobody can make clear what's going on, and there's a team of specialists, and someone always has an interesting scar, and its all kind of confusing and exhausting.
I'm blazing through these last few pages partially because of the need for closure, but partially because I'm already gone. That was a great story, how man survived the apocalypse and rebuilt, but I just don't know why this second book is attached to the first. There were seven eves, and that's cool, but what does it mean to the author? I just want to know why already.
p719
Back to the anime comparison - now they have a flying boat.
Another word: bight.
I'm so busy assimilating new world building info I keep forgetting about the mission of this group of seven. They're getting near Alaska. All I can think of is Dinah's father tried to start a colony there, deep underground. Thankfully, the Mars expedition hasn't come up, and in 5,000 years they should have heard or seen something by now, so I think that's done with. The Alaska colony probably didn't survive, but maybe their stuff did?
p737
Having your semi-sentient ammo robots crawling around on your body, sometimes doing cute things? Chalk up another one for the anime comparison.
p747
Ah shit, he's playing the long lost Alaskan colony card. Now we're definitely in an anime.
p776
the sea people - the Pingers - I forgot about the small group of survivors in the atomic sub. Now this is starting to get silly, and even more like anime.
The constant mention of Kath Two, and sleep, and the approaching end of the book means she's going to transform soon, I guess.
Another word: peroration. My dictionary lookups have paid off, in that it the word does not match the context it was used in. Either that slipped by the editor, or maybe was slipped in by the editor.
p778
Another word: eleemosynary. I can no longer consider myself well read (since I don't read), but I have an OK vocabulary, and I've never heard this synonym for charity in my life. I suspect the editor is just playing fast and loose with the thesaurus here at the end of the book.
p782
the crow says "We are coming". Awesome, hilarious, like something out of mythology.
p811
Shit keeps happening, faster and faster. This is the culmination of the book? How the factions of survivors decide to divide the Earth amongst themselves?
Finally Kath Three.
p861
A reasonably happy ending, I like that all the big doings have been mostly resolved, and the main characters are just sitting around eating, and talking about heading home.
An author is good when you can trust them. I was getting increasingly nervous that the Diggers and the Pingers were going to make a mockery of all the science and suffering that the first part of the book was about. Fortunately, there was enough technobabble, just believable enough, to grease it through. I always thought that there would have been other plans than just going to space, that there had to be alternates, and there were a lot of humans just sitting around waiting with nothing else to do to act on them. I like the hint that there were other Epics, but I am a little surprised the book didn't go all kitchen sink and end with a hint of a signal coming from the Mars colony.
This kind of book is why I read science-fiction. At the moment I feel a little overwhelmed, as any good art should do to you, and I don't have some pat conclusion to record before I move on. This is why I don't like reviews. This book will likely reverberate through my conscious for the rest of my life, and I will enjoy the little echoes in many small and private moments at somewhat random times. A good story becomes part of you.
There are some acknowledgements to read, and the podcast that inspired me to read this (and the tvtropes page, etc.), but I'll save that for later, I just want to let it sink in, for now.
2016.01.29
I don't want to have to say one part of the book is better than another part, but the two parts are so different I have no choice. And once you accept that you did read two different books, you know which one you liked better. The epic struggle for humanity to survive versus a political dispute over native reservations makes it not even a fair fight. At the end of the book I know I've read something good, but I'm trying to remember that great book I read previous to this good one.
The cute conceit of the first book, that we're going to narrow humanity down to a bottleneck just seven mothers wide, like what happened in Europe some tens of millennia ago, is then stretched thin into an extra book. And while it is masterfully written, taking one little factor from one book and stretching it into another whole book feels like fanfic. The thing that is supposed to provide continuity from one world to the next just feels forced, and constantly mentioning the character names from the first story keeps reminding you about them, and inviting unwelcome comparisons between the two.
As far as criticism goes, its not as bad as that sounds, but its not nothing.This reminds me of Half-Life (spoilers for a ~20 year old game start here). At the time, it was a brilliant take on first-person-shooters, mixed with conspiracy and government intrigue. For the first two thirds of the game you learn the world and get good at working in it, then suddenly you find yourself in a whole another world with new enemies. And that last third was a good game too, but not the great game that the first two thirds were. By the end, you don't hate the big shift, but you can't help but feel you were dropped into another story.
I'm starting to repeat myself, but I can't get past this point. Maybe in a month or two of letting this bubble through the subconscious it will burst to the surface how brilliant it was to end it this way.
Time to read the acknowledgements. Ah, the author himself calls it "Seveneves". TerReForm as a game? "While the first two parts... third part of it as an opportunity to showcase...". He knows what he did, of course. The book took seven years, from inspiration to publishing. While there is much mention of all the space physics and engineering inspiration, there is no mention of the genetics inspiration.
I look up seven eves and quickly find the book "Seven Daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes. Trusting the review, its about mitochondrial DNA, and what it can tell us about our past. Its all there mostly like I thought, 95% of Europeans can trace their lineage back to seven maternal lines, there's even mention of Neanderthals, and the richer genetic diversity of Africa. The author even made a fictional account of the seven mothers. This book came out in 2002. While getting that date, I notice another book by Sykes, "Adam's Curse: A Future without Men" (2005), which reminds me of the seven eves meeting, raising questions about the Y chromosome as it did in the story. I was kind of hoping that Stephenson went more in this direction, showing us a world where the women decide to stop making men. But that would have been a whole different story.
