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ok i finished seveneves. i admire how much work went into thinking through the physics but the technocratic disdain for religion and spirituality throughout was incredibly grating. read olaf stapledon’s last and first men instead which handles similar themes but is from 1930 (!)

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

· May 14

maybe a good time to finally read seveneves

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5:15 PM · May 15, 2022Twitter for iPhone

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

May 15

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@QiaochuYuan

last and first men covers 2 billion years of human history and imo offers a deeper meditation on meaning and the spirit than neal stephenson is capable of, while also being astonishing sf in its own right (the first use of genetic engineering in sf!) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

May 15

i could pretty much talk about stapledon all day. he influenced so many big-name authors of the mid-20th century but nobody’s heard of him. star maker is imo the greatest piece of science fiction ever and it was written in 1937 (!!)

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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

· Oct 20, 2021

i have a specific fun rec for anyone who's curious: olaf stapledon is an old-school SF writer who wrote in the 1930s and his work is really wild. try "last and first men" and then "star maker." nobody's heard of him but he's cited as an influence by some big names twitter.com/visakanv/statu…

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I take exception to "throughout": this part, which has stayed with me the most from the whole book (screenshot from earthli.com/news/view_arti)

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)

@QiaochuYuan

May 15

that’s about as close as he gets though yeah? pretty music is fine as long as no viewpoint character actually admits to *believing in* anything 🙄

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