Seveneves: The Motion Picture

[Elok]

I would have just bumped my last NS movie thread, but I couldn't find the stupid thing. Feel free to bump it if you have better search-fu and want to show me up. Anyway:

http://deadline.com/2016/06/seveneves-movie-ron-howard-brian-grazer-bill-broyles-apollo-13-skydance-1201769130/

Wow. I'm generally optimistic. This same team did a fine job on Apollo 13, and the good part of Seveneves is basically Apollo 13 with way, way, way higher stakes. And then there's the last third, where a ragtag batch of transhumans dick around aimlessly in a fascinating fantasy world that would have been a great setting for a whole separate book. So basically, if they want to use that world and build an actual plot around it, they'll have a hard time doing worse than the source material.

[Elok]

Okay, for some glitchy reason it posted twice, so threadjack this one to be about whatever, I guess. Or delete it. Or delete the other one if it sinks faster. Whatever.

[Ming]

I deleted the other one

[Guynemer]

Oh wow.

I honestly have no idea how they would do this. Well, if they include the last 25% of the book, anyway; the "modern day" part of it is pretty straightforward, and The Martian showed there is an audience for hard scifi.

[Lorizael]

Haven't read Seveneves yet, but it certainly sounds like the novel doesn't escape Stephenson's primary failure mode: not having an ending. I don't know if that makes doing a movie easier or harder.

[Elok]

Well, the Baroque Cycle had one hell of an ending. And so did Reamde. But yes, for Seveneves, basically the last third of the book is a sort of bloated epilogue that can't admit it's an epilogue. There's a sort of plot, but it's "hey we have to do this thing that involves lots of exposition and loose-thread-tying and there's an important reason for it all which is BLAH okay that wasn't all that important guess we'd better end the book here."

[Bereta_Eder]

The thing that's off putting is scifi novels is their continuity in second and third books etc etc

Leviathan wakes could have ended in the first book but it kept dragging and dragging and they just do that to make more money not because they have something concrete to say.
departure was a mediocre book that was all nicely rouned up.

then silo has 3 continuities and a lot of other books. If i see something with series I try not to buy it any more.

the only recent trilogy that had a reason to keep going was across the universe

[Elok]

Not familiar with any of those; I'm not terribly well-read in terms of sci-fi, I'm afraid.

Re: Stephenson and endings:

Haven't read Zodiac or Big U, not sure they're even in print anymore.
Snow Crash and Diamond Age had solid endings with some flaws. The problem was that they kept going past those endings (motorcycle swordfight in the metaverse/escape from Hong Kong) until they ran out of steam and ended on an awkward note (annoyingly inconclusive knife fight between Mafia boss and Aleut harpooner, evil Texan blown up by robot dog/actress surrogate mom dragged out of group-sex computer cult).
Cryptonomicon's ending just sucked.
Baroque Cycle's was good IMO, albeit much of the epilogue was meh.
Anathem had some clumsily compressed exposition wedged in there, but was still pretty good.
Reamde had a terrorist getting mauled to death by America, which is really rather awesome.
Haven't read the Mongoliad, would like to, understand it was a collaborative exercise anyway.
Seveneves's last third, as said, was a tragic exercise in limpdickery.

I'd say he's improved with time. With Seveneves the real issue wasn't that he didn't know how to end it so much as he had no plot at all for the last bit, only "oh, and the world has this cool thing, and this stuff is there, and the people are like this . . ." He didn't have enough space left to build up a proper plot or characters at that point anyway; it needed to be a second book.

EDIT: I hasten to add that Raven and Hiro's bull**** story about their dads, at the height of the climactic battle, was the single most wince-inducing thing in Snow Crash, including the five chapters of Hiro ralphing expository backstory all over Uncle Enzo and whatsisface.

[pchang]

If we are down to parthenogenesis, why would a woman in menopause not be a viable source? I never understood that one.

Eggs don't ripen and go into the fallopian tubes anymore, but the ovaries are still there and if you go in surgically, you should be able to find a few egg cells still.

[ricketyclik]

From the not linked link in the OP:

Next up for Skydance is the July 22 release Star Trek Beyond and October 21 release Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, with Paramount.

I really enjoyed the first Jack Reacher movie. I look forward to seeing another one, but it's pretty rare for follow ups to be as good as the original of course.