Took 2 yeras to write, but 2 days to read!!
936027
Geoffrey Neil id never heard of but stumbled on this book on my kindle in the E store. I was looking for a new book to read at night before I went to bed. Wow ive got to say The first night I ended up staying up till 4 in the morning reading and realized I had to be to work in a few hours and went to bed. I finished the book the next evening. I am really sad its over already. Neil does an excellent job of describing the characters they just jump off the page and the plot has many twists and turns that was a true pleasure to read through. I really look forward to seeing more from Geoffrey Neil however based on his about the author section sounds like he is holding down a full time day job so I will be forced to wait for some time till his next creation. I am looking forward to reading his other book though.

My only complaint and I am not sure if this was just a problem with the e book or the print version has it as well. There were several small grammatical errors throughout the book that I found a little annoying while reading along. However don't get me wrong I am by no means the best writer myself and make tons of errors as can be seen in this review. I think that its probably just the e book that has this problem I would be surprised a publisher with editors would miss such simple errors before publishing. So its probably something that happend in the OCR software when the book was scanned to the e reader. That being said don't let this keep you from reading it great story great author really looking forward to the next book and am going to read his last book.
2545904
What happens when you cross an uneventful plot with a page count of 424 pages?  A lot of stupid filler.  Repetitive paragraphs of neurotic-inner-dialogue is quality writing.  I'm at 89% complete and I'm not totally clear on what the hero or heroine's hang-ups are.. and I stopped caring about 3 chapters ago.
4208588
Whenever I begin a book, I take a deep breath and dive right in because, as my son and husband know, I will then disappear for hours at a time. My husband hit the nail on the head when he said, "Slow going?" I just could not get into this one. I was lucky to read more than one page at a time before setting it back down. If you're going to write fantasy then it has to be full-on mystical, fun, demented, whatever. I found this book EXTREMELY slow to read. A lot of vague explanations and not a lot of interesting dialogue. The pages just seemed to drag.
I did, however, discover a new author, Rod Surratt, with an amazing book called SHARDS. The cover intrigued me and I feel like I hit the jackpot! This book is also fantasy (minotaurs, shape shifters,"gods", kingdoms.) Super cool. It's a bit gruesome but it's definitely more of an adult novel. Check it out!!
390623
I tried really hard to keep reading, hoping that the flow would get better but it was too much work.

To the author:
Please have someone proof read your work, the most glaring omission that finally forced me to close the kindle app was the lack of 'the' and 'a' when describing something. I am not a grammar fiend, I actually did rather badly in school when it came to English Literature, but when I have to constantly re-read whole lines and paragraphs and place in missing words and punctuation then I am not enjoying the book.

The basis of the story was good, but if half of your characters are using a separate measuring system then you need to give a primer at the start of the book. I presume they were using base-8 but there was no idea as to how 1 of their cycles relates to 1 of our years/months/days.
4096285
I am sorry but I have to step in and say that this book did not work for me at all ! I wanted to put it down several times but I kept on reading, like a good schoolboy, up to the end. What a drag to have invested time (a lot of it in order to go through 861 pages !) and money and end up feeling really, really disappointed. It felt like a long first date dinner that did not work out !

I am 60 and I grew up with science-fiction. That was way before the days of Thrones, Trolls, Lords, Big b**** and Fantasy ! I don't read much S-F anymore - except "The Martian" recently - so I was looking forward to a dip in the genre again. Disappointing dip indeed !

I had read "Cryptonomicon" a few year ago and I had kind of enjoyed it even though it was quite a DEMANDING read. The story was strong enough to survive the numerous, long and educated digressions that accompanied it. In "Seveneves", the story is not strong enough to survive the NASA-instruction-manual type of digressions that bore you and drag the story into a painful and fiery atmospheric re-entry ! The first long, long, long 400 pages are suppose to prepare you for the last concluding section where the story jumps 5000 years in the future ! You hope, no... you really PRAY that you will be blessed with a stunning futuristic grande finale but no... your wish is not granted !

Yes, Neil Stephenson is a talented writer and a well educated fellow in numerous interesting subjects but, this time, he blew it IMHO. While reading this book, I was asking myself "Are we back in the days of Balzac where good writers were paid by the page or even by the line ?"

It could have been a wonderful S-F epic, spanning space, time and generations but it was not even close. A. C. Clarke was quite successful in similar stories in half the pages. Finally, just imagine if Asimov had written in that style, then the Foundation series would certainly stand at 100 volumes and 1 million pages :-) !

Prospective readers beware !

CG (Montral)
1222003
This came out last night around 9pm and I finished around 1230. (250+ pages)
We got some verbal satisfaction from our ever self sacrificing Blaire. She grew some teeth there in the beginning. This one was a sticky mess.

Drunken bad boy pining for his lost virginal love - check
Keeping secrets in order to "save" the other - check
Lots o begging and pleading - check
Lots of makeup sex - check
Back to being a door mat - check

*********SPOILER*********************

[I was pissed.....PISSED at the events in the end of this one. Grow the hell up. This isn't the love of a real man. A young selfish man child, maybe. So she takes him back and forgives him.... Sure cause that's what her character does. But come on! Rush screams at his pregnant girlfriend, wait no, FIANCEE to get out of his car. He left her outside a locked dark house. AT NIGHT. ON HER OWN. Forcing her to walk MILES. Because that's what a man does right? A man that loves you? WTF!?!?! After eight days, EIGHT days of no contact she welcomes him back with open arms and they live happily ever after? BULLS*** I call BULLS***. I don't care what the circumstances are and yes they were some heavy circumstances. No one does that. And if they do....... I have no words.

I really liked this book until the phone call about Nan. After that point you totally lost me. This is why girls think it's ok for guys to treat them like s***. It is romanticized. Ok, ok, I know FICTION I get it. But come on
3929651
Ok, this one was.... how do I say this nicely? It was... not too good.
Ok, I admit, it was kinda awful.
And just when I thought it ended, (view spoiler), it didn't! It still had about 70 more pages! How is that possible?! Ok, maybe it wouldn't have been that bad if the author didn't feel the need to write a story that would take max 200 pages in 330 or so. Never mind the cliches, the annoying characters and the (veery very) stupid people, I get that some readers like that. But making it long and boring? What's the reason behind that action?
I'm probably being too mean cuz' I just finished a great series. But still! I have no idea why I wasted 3 hours of my life to skim this book.
2089911
Very good writing. Not sure how I feel about it. It dragged forever until I skipped, big time! So the last bit didn't have much until the last couple of pages. I was annoyed because there was no need to drag it for so long. I'm not sure if I want to read the next one.
2671863
I found the writing so off putting that I couldn't get past the 20% mark, despite really trying. Up to that point at least, it read like a 3rd grade primer: Jane loved booze. Jane really loved booze! She loved booze because of how it made her feel. She loved the way it made her forget. (and on and on...)

There is virtually no description or any attempt at creative writing and have to wonder if it is a problem with the translation or just the author's style, but I pictured the manuscript being covered in red ink with "Show don't tell!!!" scrawled all over the pages. It consisted entirely of declarative statements, many of which also just seemed unbelievable and incoherent, like her response to finding her child dead, especially.

I was intrigued by the story and really wanted to finish it but finally had to give up. I would be curious to hear how the Spanish text reads, but would warn anybody who actually appreciates good writing, to stay away from the English version.
2353187
The pages are just flying by it took just a couple of days to finish. She has to hurry to write a new one
3433637
Writing is stilted and I didn't read more than 2 chapters.
1065827
Obviously there is a second book coming and I hate that the authors do that all the time.  I really liked the story but it went pretty fast and I think the author missed alot of opportunity for some good storytelling in this book.  For instance...they get to L.A.and the first day is explained and then all of a sudden it's 2 weeks later...Obviously the characters bonded tons in those weeks and I wish it would have been written so I could have gotten more involved with the characters. Don't get me wrong I did fall in love w the characters w how it's written now but I still think it was a major missed opportunity.
1061049
This was a difficult read! It took me two months to read. I read a book in 1 or2 days! I love Vincent's work and some information is new but to much scholarly bulls---! I would not suggest this book. Just like the book about Grant Wood, author kept referring to the thought that he may have been gay! Just want to know about their heinous not guesses. I read a book of letters by the brothers and learned  more.
493473
I found I was skipping page after page only to still be reading how the person felt.  It would take sometimes 10 pages or more describing in very, very long detail how they feel or should have said something.  By the third chapter, it got worse and worse.
3343817
The main character thinks and overthinks and then thinks some more!!!!!! There was an entire 30 page chapter dedicated to a conversation that in real life couldn't have taken longer than 7 minutes. I mean there was a lot of background information in all her thinking but it was just too much. Besides, from the little I read, the main character had some serious self esteem and trust issues. The writing is solid and Im sure that the story is actually a good one, just not my type.
271245
Enough with the dates back and forth!!! It's too hard to follow, especially when one cannot sit for a couple hours at a time to read. In the end, as a friend said, it doesn't really matter, just ignore it and get to the ending. Somehow, that's now how I want to enjoy a book.
3658147
Been pas more than couple months no probl,I bought from other store last time , last only couple days , that's why I delay to write .