[matthiaswh]

Similarly, I wanted to love Stephenson. I even enjoy the intense technical details in a good sci-fi story (I'm talking to you Red Mars).

I started with Seveneves and could not finish it. After 20 pages I wanted to quit, but I stuck it out for another 150 pages before folding. The premise of the story was fantastic, but the writing was not enjoyable to me, and IMO, not very good.

Where Robinson and authors like Weir and Clarke weave the technical details into the story in a fascinating way and show understanding of the topic, I felt Stephenson was copy-pasting Wikipedia articles into the middle of a book. Furthermore, he treated the reader like an idiot - by the end I couldn't help but laugh painfully when he felt the need to explain to us for the 30th time that A+0.150 means 0 years and 150 days after the agent event.

His characters are vague and annoying. While Robinson's characters were similarly lacking in depth in Red Mars, at least they represented something bigger, were deliberately chosen, and served a storytelling purpose.

Here's an example I pulled out of Seveneves that made me cringe.

"In those days Izzy had been like a kite: all surface area, no mass. Once Amalthea (a comet) had been attached, it was like a kite with a big rock strapped to it."

Weir would have pulled that line off easily as a slightly sarcastic, self-aware remark. I didn't get the impression that Stephenson meant it anything other than a serious statement.