Teaser Tuesday 9/6/2016: “Seveneves”

So this week, and given its size, probably for a few more weeks, I’ve been reading Seveneves, an apocalyptic doorstopper of a novel by Neal Stephenson.  Of course, “doorstopper of a novel” and “Neal Stephenson” do tend to go together; this particular one, if I shook it out of my eReader onto a stack of paper, would add up to about 900 pages, or about the same length of the original Shards before I split it into two parts, which I did because nobody is going to cough up $17.99 $11.99 (the current price of Seveneves) for an eBook by me …

The premise of Seveneves is that, following the expoision of the moon, humankind is forced to deploy an Ark in Space  to try to survive the impending apocalyptic destruction of life on earth by sustained bolide bombardment.  (This is not a spoiler.)  Needless to say, things do not go smoothly.

“Well,” she finally said, “as Hu said, the thermal protection system—”
“Was bad,” Markus said. “We know.”
“There was no backup system.”
Markus said, “Of course not. The cooling system was the rest of the universe. We do not expect to have a backup system for the rest of the universe. We can rely upon it to be cold most of the time.”

You always need a backup system, Markus!  Why didn’t you have an alternate universe lined up?  We know there is one!

Speaking of alternate universes, our old friend Robin from Television Man seems to have ended up in one, in the scene I’m currently editing:

Artwork-Collins was studying her with great interest.  “I don’t know you,” he said.  “Are you a new employee?”
“No.”
“Are you a patient?”
“No.”
He approached her.  She circled the table to avoid him.  He stopped a quarter of the way around.  “Are you running away from me?”
“I’d call it edging away,” she said.  “If you really start chasing me, then I’ll run.”
“What makes you think I might chase you?”
“My friend Bob says you’re a vampire,” Robin said.  “Or used to be.  He says he killed you, but here you are, pulling people into paintings.”
“Your friend Bob sounds a little off.  Is he a patient?”
“No,” she said, “but maybe he should be.”

You know what, Robin? Maybe he should, at that …