Teaser Tuesday 9/13/2016: (Still) “Seveneves”

See?  I told you it was going to take a few weeks to get through this one …

So at this point I’m about three-quarters of the way through Seveneves, which puts us somewhere around 5,000 years in the future.  The Earth now has a nice set of rings around it formed by the rubble of what used to be the moon, as predicted by one of the main characters way back in the beginning of the book.  And now, a handful of humans are on some sort of mission.  What is it, exactly?  They’re not telling us yet, because most of them don’t even know.

Ariane sat back in her chair and pretended to look at her fingernails. She was not the least bit satisfied. Trying for a minute to think like a Julian, Kath Two imagined how it must look to her: a creature selectively bred by crazy people to be capable of killing with his bare hands, who at the same time was extraordinarily crafty in his social interactions.

Hmm … somebody should hire that crazy, crafty, bare-handed killing machine a campaign manager!

Meanwhile, editing continues on Television Man.  I keep saying that, don’t I?  But I really am closing in on the end of this round — the dialog snippet below is on page 233 of 299 printed pages.  (The whole thing is about 116,000 words; the two parts of Strings, by contrast, add up to about 200,000 words.  Seveneves is probably at least 300,000 …)

Robin backed off a step and looked around, trying to figure out her next move.
Patrick said:  “Leaving?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, can you just sit down then?  I’m trying to watch TV.”
“Yeah?  What are you watching, anyway?”
“Just stuff.”
“Sounds riveting,” she said.

One word, Robin:  Netflix.