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Greg Bear: Forge of God

Darren

Active Member
Just started this one. I'm sure I've read it before, but I can't remember it if I have :rolleyes:

Looks like it'll be an interesting one...
 
I may have to shop around, myself. I saw a single copy a couple of weeks ago, but when I went back to buy it the other day it was gone. Should have gotten it when I had the chance.
 
Is it the one about an alien who comes to Earth and says "There is bad news and I'm sorry" before dying? If it is I have read it. As always Bear has a brilliant basic idea. However I found that the character interaction was a bit feeble and uninteresting. In my opinion the book could easily have been shorter. Having said all that I must confess that I always read Greg Bears books to the end, so he must interest me somehow. To me "Eon" was probably his best.
 
Its much worse that that, gre. Very sinister, that dying alien.

Ell and others:

Good prices here: Half.com
on Forge of God, if you don't mind a few nicks and scratches.
This is an Ebay website and probably just about like a library sale.

And, BarnesandNoble.com is having a free shipping sale (two or more items). Don't know about overseas shipping but if you're in the states its great.
 
Okay, finally found a used copy for $2.75 Cdn and will try to get to it - but not 'til after the Canucks game tonight :)
 
I think Greg Bear did an excellent job of creating a sense of anticipation. If you've never read it before you'd never know what it was leading up to. Volcanoes appear in strange places with aliens at their base as decoys. Perfect. All the while the real damage is being done elsewhere.
 
Finally finished ....

.... yesterday. Anyone else read it?

Very entertaining and suspenseful.

I still haven't decided whether the Bosses/Moms were entirely altruistic in their reason for helping the humans. Kind of disturbing that they could exert their will on the 'possessed' humans at any time.

Prolixic, are there any sequels to Forge of God? (i.e. that explain more about The Law and what becomes of Martin on the Ship of The Law?) I felt there were lots of unanswered questions that could be explored successfully in sequels.

As an aside, for anyone who saw the movie, Independence Day - it seemed like whole scenes were stolen from Forge of God. e.g. The 'Guest' being examined in a secret facility, the bogeys found in the desert, the bogeys embraced as being friendly, . . .
 
Yes. One sequel, Anvil of the Stars.

Forge kind of leaves you guessing as to their altruism. The Guests as decoys were a master-stroke of deception. These predators had been listening for years and found that we were hoping for a nice first contact--so they give it to us. Misguidance, misinformation and a whole lot of unanswered questions.

I thought it was refreshing in a morbid sort of a way because it was the first book I'd read in a while where contact with aliens wasn't all rosy and peaceful.
 
I finally got it...and read it! I liked the fact that the rescuers aren't obviously the black-and-white hero types. They want to save us, but with a price. You must play nice and conform to The Law or be punished. (Whatever that punishment is, I'm sure it's not so nice.) It reminded me of Sherri Tepper's Fresco, where we're invited to join a galactic community only if we play by certain rules, not necessarily rules we'd choose for ourselves. I don't want to give too much away there, but I remommend checking it out.

Prolixic, I wasn't sure if the Guest was from the predators or from the Moms.
 
I wasn't sure if the Guest was from the predators or from the Moms
I thought the Guest was another species altogether. Didn't he say something about hitching a ride on one of the planet-eaters' ships - the one that ended up in the desert -and that was how he got to earth?

My take is that the Guest was from another planet that had been destroyed by the planet-eaters and he truly wanted to warn earth. But maybe, the planet-eaters only "let" him do it in order to create more misdirection. In other words, I think the predators misled him as much as they did the humans. What do you think?
 
I wonder if we're supposed to wonder.

I'm curious if this detail was explained in the sequel. Anyone know? I may have to get it just to find out.
 
I will say that the sequel is a little different from the first book. It explains a number of things from the first book, but leaves it wide open for further exploration. Anvil of the Stars isn't his best work IMHO, but its pretty good.
 
I've read the book jacket of Anvil of the Stars and it didn't "call out to me". So, I thought I'd wait a while before giving it a shot.
 
Probably a good idea. I liked it but I am a habitual SF reader, as in I'll reread an SF book before picking up something else thats new.
 
One thing I did not get, was why they bothered with the misdirection. "We" could not have stopped the bullets, no matter what, so why bother.
 
Overkill, IMHO. It's possible that they had come across some planets who could defend against that sort of attack. Probably they were sitting up there thinking: man, this is a cakewalk. Could have thought we were disguising our true technology level?
 
I thought there were some threads in the plot that went nowhere, or at least were unexplained. I guess I'll have to read the sequel to see if any of them were resolved.
 
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