Anvil of Stars
A Ship of the Law travels the infinite enormity of space, carrying 82 young people: fighters, strategists, scientists; the Children. They work with sophisticated non-human technologies that need new thinking to comprehend them. They are cut off forever from the people they left behind. Denied information, they live within a complex system that is both obedient and beyond their control. They are frightened. And they are making war against entities whose technologies are so advanced, so vast, as to dwarf them. Against something whose psychology is ultimately, unknowably alien.
Stats for nerds
14recommend
24mentions
19people
2010–2024years
75% recommend21% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > It's also worth noting that this hypothesis is not an original idea of Liu's
Yes, Greg Bear explores the concept in Forge of God (1987) and Anvil of Stars (1992), twenty years before Liu. David Brin also covered it.
Anvil of Stars really explores the moral quandary from the perspectives of a civilisation that can take revenge in such an environment.
- Another author who explores stealth in space combat is Greg Bear in 'Anvil of Stars' (the successor to 'Forge of God'). This is nothing like The Expanse, instead the galaxy is a hostile jungle full of predators just waiting for a young techno civilisation (like humanity) to naïvely broadcast its presence.
- Check out Greg Bear’s Forge Of God and Anvil of Stars 2 book series . Not exactly the same plot you mentioned but covers an interesting variant plot including fall out of a situation where Earth is killed by killer probes and remnants of humanity painfully search for the Killer’s system. What they find is different than expected
- Some concepts are hard to grasp because of their scale.
Greg Bear was the first person who really made me understand time slowing down as speed increases in Anvil of Stars.
Also the destruction of earth in “The Forge of God” was so visceral that I was depressed in a dark place for days after finishing it.
Not to mention one of the few authors who very well explained the role of bacteria and viruses in very entertaining and hard sci-fi believable fashion.
RIP.
- Greg Bear is my first serious hard sf author. The Wind From A Burning Woman!! (Not just the story, the whole collection!) (I mean, sure, Forge of God, Anvil of Stars, Blood Music.. But still)
- His book Anvil of Stars is one of the few Sci-Fi books that really gives a sense of truly alien and powerful technology and cultures.
