Neil Stephenson’s novel, Seveneves, was one of those books I heard about constantly from numerous “best sci-fi of 2015” lists. I didn’t get around to reading it until recently though, and now that I’ve finished it, I thought I’d mention it here in case any of our readers also have yet to check it out.

The plot begins with the sudden breaking apart of the Moon by a mysterious force that becomes known as the “Agent”. As the resulting chunks slowly begin colliding with one another and disintegrating at an increasing rate, a horrifying truth dawns on scientists that humanity has about two years to prepare before those fragments begin falling to Earth all at once and making the planet completely uninhabitable — not for years, or centuries, but thousands of years.

I don’t want to spoil any of the plot here. All I’ll say is that I found the book gripping from start to finish, even if Stephenson’s technical jargon went on a little too long at times. He sometimes got caught up in showing his work rather than simply telling the story. But, I can get past that since the rest of the story was so intriguing. (I know some people hate that sort of thing. YMMV.)

The book comes in all the usual flavors:

• Hardcover ($21)
• Paperback ($13)
• Audiobook (MP3 CD) ($12)
• Audiobook (Audible) ($21)
• Kindle ($18)
• iBooks ($18)