Anvil of Stars
by Greg Bear · first published 1992
74% recommend21% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Big-picture hard sci-fi sequel to The Forge of God: survivors of Earth's destruction hunt its killers in a hostile galaxy. Praised for conveying alien tech and vast scale, plus stealth space combat.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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.
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If you want some first contact stories that are better (IMO) than The Three Body Problem, try: - Blindsight by Peter Watts (cannot recommend this strongly enough) - The Forge of God and sequel Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear - Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds - Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky I appreciated getting a non-Western take on one of the most durable SF tropes in the Three Body Problem,…
on “China's Race to Find Aliens First” ↗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…
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗Anvil of Stars is my favorite Greg Bear book. It's the sequel to Forge of God which is also a great read: http://www.amazon.com/Anvil-of-Stars-ebook/dp/B003XRERB0
on “The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)” ↗Fred Saberhagen got there decades earlier with his _Berserker_ novels. AFAIK every "alien machines that wipe out intelligent life" story is descended from them. Greg Bear's _The Forge of God_ / _Anvil of Stars_ (which are both excellent, IMO) followed similar lines in the late 80s.
on “Evidence for nuclear explosions on Mars [pdf]” ↗Greg Bear's novels Forge of God (1987) and Anvil of Stars (1993) explore the same idea. They feel a little dated now but the first one in particular is still well worth a read imo.
on “Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?” ↗Also, Greg Bear has hacked out some dreadful stuff but "Moving Mars" and "The Anvil of Stars" (the Forge of God is a bit of a pot boiler tbh, but it is the prequel, so...). Both are really big picture sci-fi; about what humans will do with toys that are beyond them, and are doing. Amazing.
on “Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read” ↗…right now. (Possible mild spoiler ahead) [1] Basically: "the forest is full of hunters of unknown strength, so either stay quiet or kill all the hunters." I thought that Greg Bear's Forge of God and Anvil of Stars did a much better job on this aspect of Fermi.
on “Greetings, E.T. (Please Don’t Murder Us.)” ↗…some works I'm fond of from authors who deal in technology and whose works have also taken the top science fiction awards. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. Greg Bear's Moving Mars, Anvil of Stars, and Eon. John Barnes' A Million Open Doors, and Mother of Storms.
on “Earliest images of the moon were better than people realised” ↗Forge of God and Anvil of Stars are 2 of my favourite books, as is Eon. He really helped me soar among the stars. Thank you Greg Bear, rest easy now.
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗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…
on “A deep-learning search for technosignatures from 820 nearby stars” ↗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…
on “Naev – open-source game about space exploration, trade and combat” ↗> 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.
on “The Dark Forest hypothesis is absurd” ↗Anvil of Stars also my favorite Greg Bear book. Nobody read my review of this book on Amazon, so perhaps this is a better place for it: I've read hundreds of science fiction books where humans have military conflict…
on “The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)” ↗Anvil of Stars is my favorite book in this genre. It can be read without reading the prequel. Gateway by Frederic Pohl is also a great brush-with-aliens book although technically not first contact.
on “China's Race to Find Aliens First” ↗Greg Bear wrote an excellent pair of books based on this premise : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anvil_of_Stars Anvil of Stars is often said to be the weaker of the pair, but it haunted me for several reasons, not least the extremely spooky ending!
on “Broadcasting from Deep Space, a Mysterious Series of Radio Signals” ↗