Customer Reviews

Anvil of Stars

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was somewhat disappointed with the first book, The Forge of God, in part because it was bound to terra firma, and in part because of the weak political intrigue. Fortunately, Anvil is a different sort of animal; it takes the reader from planet to planet, star system to star system, spinning believable struggle-for-power subplots, with a few red herrings thrown in for good measure.

At times, however, I had a hard time empathizing with some of the characters: the dialogue simply wasn't powerful enough to convey what Bear was trying to get across. There are several of these literary lapses, when a character would break down emotionally, for no apparent reason (i.e., Theresa, while talking to Martin). The effect is there, but not the cause.

These quibbles aside (for Bear can surely write better than this lowly reviewer), Anvil offers believable aliens (David Brinnian, in fact), convincing physics (convincing-sounding, at the very least), cool spaceships, and an appreciation of the grandeur and vastness of space. Some parts remind me of Orson Scott Card's Enders Game.

Very well done and addictive to the end. And oh yes, you don't have to read Forge to follow this book; it's self-contained.

In Anvil, Bear combines speculations on quantum physics with war-story melodrama, immense ethical quandaries with teen romance, exobiology with whodunit. Yet with all this intellectual weight, the novel proceeds at a brisk and exciting pace.

Anvil picks up where Forge of God left off: the earth has been destroyed by alien machines, and aliens from a different civilization have rescued a small population and resettled them on Mars. From the survivors are drawn adolescents to serve as crew on a Ship of the Law, charged with carrying out a death sentence passed by humanity's benefactors on the race which created the planet-killing machines. Fans of SF writer Orson Scott Card will see many parallels to the Battle School milieu from Ender's Game: youths incongruously training for war under the tutelage of inscrutable teachers.

We join Earth's last children some years into the mission, when they are beginning to draw close to a prime suspect civilization. Bear does not shy away from the titanic moral questions raised by Galactic Law and its harsh retribution, as youths who might otherwise be arguing capital punishment or abortion in Philosophy 101 must weigh the evidence against the suspect civilization. Simultaneously, they must stuggle within the constraints of an alien justice system that has no provision for such human notions as mitigating factors, statutes of limitations, or redemption.

Bear's young protagonists (and antagonists) stand out in the often bland universe of SF characters. The crew has established a unique shipboard society of pseudofamilies and shifting allegiances, a kind of co-ed Lord of the Flies. At times they embrace the shortsighted, hedonistic tendencies that would be the invevitable consequence of college-age kids cut off from polite society, parents, and pregnancy. But when they must focus on "the Job," the youths become a cadre of genius mercenaries, armed with - and burdened with - the ability to destroy suns.

Particularly conflicted is the main character, Martin, from whose perspective the story is told. As the crew's leader at the outset, Martin is the focus of all their emotional turmoil as they struggle to balance their quest for justice with their revulsion at the prospect of slaughtering innocents. He must combat his own doubts and dreads while attempting to hold togeher the crew that includes cynical boatrocker Ariel, gung-ho Machiavellian Hans, and serene intellectual Hakim. The interplay becomes even more complex when the crew are joined by the Brothers, aliens that attest to Bear's supreme inventiveness.

Even with all of Martin's introspection, the novel proceeds quickly through an obstacle course of unconventional skirmishes, disheartening setbacks, and mounting evidence against the suspects. The background is a milieu of superadvanced science featuring intelligent biomechanical ships and intriguing speculations on the nature of matter.

The climax is exciting, and its aftermath devastating. The poignant coda serves to add even greater depth to the main characters and the story as a whole.

It's been several years since I first read Anvil, but I pick it up occasionally to relive the enjoyment it originally brought me.

I read two or three science novel a year and am usually disappointed. This book is one of the reasons I keep on looking. This book uses the setting of 80 odd juveniles without parental or moral guidance to explore both the morality of war and the contradictions inherent in any belief system founded on following another's command. It is to the science fiction interstellar war genre what Saving Private Ryan is to conventional war movies. There are no easy answers to the dilemmas posed, and Bear thankfully does not suggest that there are, he merely explores the depths of the problem. Along the way, Bear pushes to their limits two science fiction conventions: interstellar war by advanced civilization and alien intelligence. In this novel, war technology is so advanced that supernovas can be engineered by combatants. And the aliens are so alien that humans are able to communicate with them at all only with help. The implications of both concepts are daunting, but! Bear pushes them through to their natural conclusions. What's even more surprising is that this is a sequel to Forge of God, a novel I found trite by comparison. Characterization is not Bear's strength, but the characters are believable enough to sustain the fascinating story.

ANVIL OF STARS is the sequel to THE FORGE OF GOD but is a much different book. A group of human children volunteer (are coerced?) to board a Ship of the Law created by the alien race that saved humanity. Their mission is to seek out and destroy those beings that created the devices that destroyed the Earth.

To make this commentary short - this is a fairly entertaining novel and wrestles with dilemmas similar to those found in Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card). A group of human children are taken away from their parents and environment in which they have grown-up, with no possibility of return. As result Bear is able to explore interesting ways human beings develop and interact in an enclosed environment with minimal social restraints - as well as grapple with life or death issues. From leadership, sexuality, religion, war, xenocide, xenophobia, ethnicity - it's all here. And we get even get to closely encounter another rather interesting race of alien - which is actually the most inventive and interesting part of the novel. The drawback to this book is it is too long. It could have been much tighter and shorter.

Certainly an above average novel, if at a times a bit tedious.

Look, I'll make it brief. Though I love a good techno-read, this book surpassed that by the same magnitude that the Pacific Ocean surpasses Lake Tahoe. Though there are plenty of geek gadgets and concepts in this book, what makes it memorable are the very real characters, how they react, and how they interact among one another, and their wholly believable responses to events... And finally a word on Greg Bear, stylist. Many persons read for the action, and while I love a good romp across the galaxy as much as the next SF reader, Greg Bear wrote prose so *beautiful* in AOS that there were times in the text that I *had* to stop and re-read the passage! Or simply stop and ponder for a minute the beauty of the prose. Yep, I'm pedantic, and I love words. But I also love good stories, and when I get both in one book, well lets just say that you can't shut me up when I sing the book's praises. Read this book! Be prepared to be startled, uplifted, depressed, and yes even surprised. As an earlier reviewer said, the book has a marvelous ending, but the coda which turns off all the lights took my breath away! Nuff said. Get this book.

I've read hundreds of science fiction books where humans have military conflict with aliens (though not yet the Forge of God). In nearly all of them, there are World-War-II-Naval-like space battles with weapons/ships/shields at near parity. I have always thought this to be highly implausible, and I thought the most interesting aspect of this book was to consider three possible battle situations in space:

1) Your ship encounters a ship at a vastly higher tech level. If they detect you before you detect them, you are dead. Period. Your only possibility to win such a battle is to detect them first and destroy them instantly - and your chances of being able to do that are slim.

2) Your ship encounters a ship at a vastly lower tech level. Using the logic above, all that matters is you being able to detect them before they detect you. The technologies of stealth, electronic counter measures, detection, etc. are therefore all extremely vital in order to never be defeated by aliens with a lower tech level.

3) There is a possibility that you encounter an enemy close enough to your own tech level that the battle could last more than a split second. It is only in these instances that all the other things often written in other science fiction stories might matter - amount and type of shielding, weapons systems, quality of personnel, etc. But such battles are very unlikely, because technological progress is so fast. Consider what it would be like for any of today's industrialized nations with a substantial military to combat the most powerful nation on earth from 200 years ago - there would be no contest at all. The universe has been around for billions of years, so the chance of two races encountering each other that are within a few hundred years of each others' technology level is very low.

The above logic also applies to planetary defense as well, though with even more emphasis on not being detected.

This is the only SF book I've read that envisions future military conflict this way, and for that I give the book 4 stars. In my mind, this clearly deserves a place among the top 10 science fiction books in the military SF genre.

However, I did not care for the characters and character development and dialog which occupied the sluggish first half of the book. It wasn't until they started exploring the killers home system that I had trouble putting the book down. I did enjoy the dialog about ethical considerations of what the human ship was going to do, and the aliens they joined forces with were an interesting twist to the story and well done.

Bottom Line - the key to this book for me was an exploration of military encounters in space that struck me as vastly more plausible than the typical SF novel. Rewrite the book to remove most of the first half - and it would have been 5 stars for me.

Although I liked Forge of God enough that I bought this book as well as Moving Mars, this book was definitely superior to Forge of God. Anvil contains a lot of compelling ethical questions, and they already make it worth reading. Plus I found the main character (Martin, from Forge of God) sympathetic. I disagree with some of the previous readers on a couple of points: (1) I think the ending could actually have been more interesting if it were different (just the last 5 pages) and (2) I'm not sure what the reader who complained about homosexual sex was bothered by, in that my copy only seems to contain allusions to homosexual sex as having happened.

Whatever. I'd definitely recommend this book.

I think the Forge of God is just a prelude to this book, because the juicy ideas are here. This is a wonderful book on ethics, leadership, and sociology disguised as a action packed science fiction thriller. Bear is a great storyteller, and this is the best example of his abilities.

Anvil of Stars opens with the survivors from the destruction of Earth (Forge of God) begining a quest for the beings responsible for the crime. The mysterious galactic Benefactors, who manage to save a tiny fraction of Earth's inhabitants and destroy the self-replicating machines that blasted the planet, provide a "Ship of the Law" for humans to carry out the galactic edict calling for the elimination of civilzations that create destructive devices of this nature. The crew of the ship are children who survived the Earth holocaust.

Anvil of Stars begins slowly. The children seem petty and peevish, and lack the roundness of character that is usually typical of Bear's creations. Character developement and plot take a marked upturn after the humans meet aliens on another "Ship of the Law" seeking to avenge the destruction of their world. Only in the final hundred pages does Bear reach the level of intensity that has made him one of the most successful SF writers today. The plot takes interesting twists at the end, which makes for fun reading. One does not have the legendary "plans within plans", but it is engaging. I only wish the book had gotten up to speed a little more quickly.

As my title suggests, this book started slow and then really picked up. What I didn't like about this book is that there was only one point of view. In most books, the story is written from the perspective of several different characters. The story will typically jump back and forth between characters, with all the subplots converging at the end of the book. The Anvil of Stars is written completely about the children aboard the space ship. It never jumps to other characters, because there is no other characters in the book. So you are constantly with the children. Maybe that was the authors intent to make you feel the longness of the journey that the children had to endure.

Of the positive things, this story has the most interesting and thought-out aliens I have ever read about. Unlike other authors who provide only surface descriptions of the alien species, Bear really delves into the life and nature of these beings (the Brothers) and it is fascinating.

The conclusion of the book was also very satisfying. I hope there is a third in the series.