The forge of God
A vanished moon of Jupiter, a 500-foot -high cinder cone in Death Valley never before seen, and an enormous granite mountain in Australia also never seen before all point the way to an alien invasion of planet Earth.
Stats for nerds
23recommend
45mentions
33people
2011–2026years
60% recommend36% neutral4% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- In my mind his work was the best of the 1980s and that's a decade that produced some pretty powerful stuff like Ender's Game and Forge of God. Vinge coined the term "The Singularity" which is now almost a given to be a future event in some circles. His then wife also wrote some pretty good sci-fi such as The Outcasts of Heaven Belt I liked Vernor's A Fire Upon the Deep a lot but not his later books.
- The Forge of God and its sequel, Anvil of the Stars, are amazing books for anyone interested in the dark forest theory, by the way. A bit slow and contemplative, so you have to be in the right mood, but they're one of my favorite reads of the last few years.
I think there's a passage that even uses an analogy of a forest, though I'm not sure.
- I see overread books like Dune and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Back in the 1980s there were so many "sci-fi fans" who had read Hitchhiker 20 times but never read Asimov or Heinlein or Dick or Smith or LeGunn or Pohl or...
I am a big fan of Frank Herbert's other books, particularly The Santaroga Barrier, Under Pressure, Destination Void, Eyes of Heisenberg, Whipping Star and the Dosadi books. I can't stand Dune but for some reason people read it over and over again and don't get into the rest of Herbert never mind any other authors.
I'd also blame Tor press for the downfall of sci-fi. Some of their books were groundbreaking like Ender's Game and Forge of God but because they represented a counter-reformation to the "new wave" which made Smith look cool again (great!) but really diminished the range of stories people would tell instead of expanding it. There was also the expansion of fantasy megaseries like Xanth (way too squicky for visual adaptation) and Discworld (too bad visual adaptations stopped when Pratchett passed away, but at least I can go to a Hogfather showing on the epiphany and cosplay as Twoflower)
I kinda feel about Vinge the way I feel about Niven, he didn't quite continue the promise he showed in his early career in his late career. Same with Charlie Stross, who became as bad a left wing nut (sees a fascist under every rock) as Niven was a right wing nut and gave up on the promising Eschaton series for just plain tiring series like The Merchant Princes (Xanth envy without the notes at the end about how much the author hates writing them?)
I liked the self-published We are Legion (We are Bob) which I found at the Salvation Army. Also
https://www.amazon.com/Terraformers-Annalee-Newitz/dp/125022...
for a very recent book.
- 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
- If you pick up any book by Greg Bear, there's a good chance it's won an award, just make sure it isn't a sequel of a previous work of his.
Check out: Darwin's Radio, The Forge of God, Queen of Angels, Eon, The Man Who Would Be Kzin, Blood Music, City at the End of Time
- Blood Music is a quick read that escalated even quicker. I loved Forge of God and even more so it’s successor Anvil of the Stars.
