Survival

Author Neal Stephenson might very well have titled the novel Survival. From the opening scenes of the Moon's destruction; to Ty, Einstein, and the Pinger Deep sharing a meal 5,000 years in the future, survival clicks like a black clock. The characters present in the story's first years, though, virtually have no awareness of the future, as each moment must be planned and carefully enacted by whichever "shift" happens to be in progress while others sleep and attempt to recover from the rigors of their own labor. The Spacers don't represent survival—they are survival.

Numerous scenes depict characters improvising devices and methods to aid survival, some of which carry over into real life. Papers could be written on this element alone, especially about survival in space, where the smallest error can result in catastrophe. Few other genres can claim to explore existence at such close and...