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The Anvil of Stars / Forge of God

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Anvil of Stars

In this sequel to FORGE OF GOD (in which alien machines that can reproduce themselves annihilate Earth),

Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Greg Bear traces the attempts of some of Earths survivors to carry

out the Law, which states that beings who arbitrarily destroy inhabited planets must themselves be

destroyed.

The eighty-four human Wendys and Lost Boys who engage in this quest are adolescents chosen by

machines they call moms. These machines (which have rescued a portion of Earths inhabitants and

maintain them in a space vessel called the Ark, prior to relocating them on Mars, which they have

re-formed to accommodate them) train and support their charges in the name of the Benefactors, beingswho oversee a galactic amalgam of civilizations dedicated to opposing the Killers, beings who have set

about to destroy civilizations they can neither abide nor ultimately control.

It is the Job of the survivors of these Killers to find and destroy them, less for revenge than in the name of a

kind of biblical justice. In ANVIL OF STARS, however, conflict among the killers foes threatens their

mission. Martin Gordon, the main character, and for a time Pan or leader of the group, having lost his

lovers William and Theresa in an ill-fated attack on a solar system rife with Killer technology, comes to doubt

not only himself but the efficacy of the Job itself. As a result, he finds himself caught in the middle between

Hans, his aggressive and heartless successor as Pan, and Rosa Sequoia, a self-styled religious visionary who

opposes the Job.

With the help of the Brothers, an alien race whose planet, like theirs, has been destroyed, Martin and his

fellows discover what seems to be the Killers homeworld, the Leviathan solar system. Through a complex

series of deceptions on both sides, war is joined; the representatives of the Law win, annihilating their guilty,

as well as innocent, opponents, and alienating the Brothers and those among themselves who are nauseated by

such carnage.

ANVIL OF STARS, beyond its skillful clarification of exotic science and technology and its epic and

suspenseful plot, relies on rich characterization to show that good and evil are not as clear as they seem at

first, and that those who evoke and carry out a justice neither subtle nor forgiving can become as monstrous

and destructive as their adversaries.

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