05/22/2015

Neal Stephenson Versus the Moon

17:44 minutes

Sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson’s new novel Seveneves starts with a BANG. The moon explodes “without warning and for no apparent reason” into seven orbiting chunks, kicking off 800 pages of love, death, and heavy-duty engineering as humankind races to save itself from an oncoming storm of fiery moon rock. Stephenson explains how he orchestrated the apocalypse, and tells Ira why he wouldn’t be surprised to find paper-and-ink books five thousand years in the future. Read an excerpt here.

Segment Guests

Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is a science fiction writer and author of Seveneves (William Morrow, 2015) based in Seattle, Washington.

Meet the Producer

About Annie Minoff

Annie Minoff is a producer for The Journal from Gimlet Media and the Wall Street Journal, and a former co-host and producer of Undiscovered. She also plays the banjo.

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The Day the Moon Blew Up

An excerpt from the sci-fi book "Seveneves."

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