In Neal Stephenson's new novel, Seveneaves, the moon mysteriously explodes. This conceit drives the rest of the novel, spanning 5000 years and 1100 pages -- first of all with the exodus of some 1500 humans from planet earth into LEO to escape the "hard rain" of the lunar debris, then to the terraforming of the earth after the debris ends.
The book is a fun read, at least the first part near present day. A lot of things are conveniently discarded, like how an even small group of humans could live in space without constant resupply from earth. As is discarded why the moon blew up to begin with.
The future part is pretty meh. Sure, humans have survived and thrived in space, but the massive space "bolos" capable of supporting whole cities and yet not repopulating earth... plus, in five thousand years we won't have exceeded modern computing technology, or propulsion?
A decent, if flawed and finally exhausting read.
