The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear
"The Forge of God" and its sequel "Anvil of Stars" are science fiction novels that explore themes of alien life, ethical dilemmas, and the consequences of advanced technology. The first book centers around Arthur Gordon, a sensitive astrophysicist, and his son Marty, as they uncover a threat to Earth posed by planet-eating machines known as Von Neumann machines. After an alien seeks refuge on Earth, the narrative unfolds with the U.S. government taking drastic measures, leading to a series of events that culminate in the destruction of Earth. The story touches on global cultural reactions to impending doom and the personal struggles of characters like Edward Shaw and Stella Morgan.
In "Anvil of Stars," set eight years later, Marty leads a group of teenagers on a mission to confront the enemy civilization responsible for Earth's destruction. As they travel on a Benefactor warship, the crew faces moral dilemmas and the harsh realities of leadership amidst a backdrop of interstellar conflict. Marty's journey is marked by love, sacrifice, and the weight of ethical considerations as they confront both external threats and the internal challenges of their mission. Together, both novels delve into complex questions about morality, survival, and what it means to be human in the face of cosmic threats.
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Subject Terms
The Forge of God/Anvil of Stars
First published:The Forge of God (1987) and Anvil of Stars (1992)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—invasion story
Time of work: 1996-1997 and 2005-2010
Locale: Earth and Leviathan, a distant planet system
The Plot
In The Forge of God, sensitive astrophysicist Arthur Gordon and his eight-year-old son, Marty, learn that Jupiters sixth moon has disappeared. Meanwhile, introspective young geologist Edward Shaw discovers a spaceship in Death Valley, California, and finds a miter-snouted, three-eyed alien collapsed in the sand nearby. With the help of young Stella Morgan, Shaw contacts the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force secretly incarcerates the sick alien and everyone who has seen it. Shaw and Morgan begin to fall in love.
Trevor Hicks, a British science-fiction writer and devotee of the search for extraterrestrial life, sniffs out the secret, and the Air Force captures him as well. The president asks Gordon and his friend, Harry Feinman, to study the alien. The alien tells them that the spaceship in Death Valley is a self-replicating, planet-eating machine that destroyed his home planet before he stowed away on it to warn others. Gordon explains that the alien is describing a concept called Von Neumann machines (popularized by Fred Saberhagen in Berserker, 1967)” mindless viruslike machines that seek signs of life, eat any life-bearing planet, and use the material to produce copies of themselves that fly off in different directions to eat more life-bearing planets. An advanced civilization starts the process in order to eliminate potential competitors preemptively.
The alien dies, and an autopsy reveals that it is no more than a robot. Other countries report spaceships with robots who bear peaceful tidings. Confounded, the U.S. government destroys the Death Valley spaceship, but Gordon believes that the enemy is extremely cautious, clever, and cruel. He believes that all the known spaceships are strategic ploys sent to toy with, study, evaluate, and confuse humans while the real planet-eating machines land elsewhere.
World cultures react differently as news of impending doom leaks out. Overwhelmed, the president slips into a paralyzed religious resignation. Feinman dies of cancer. Edward Shaw and Stella Morgan cannot crystallize their love and go separate ways. Strings of matter and antimatter zoom in from space and burrow into the earth, circling the earths core. When they meet, Earth will explode.
As everything seems darkest, robot spiders bite Gordon and Hicks, transferring information about a friendly group of civilizations—called Benefactors—who have been fighting the planet-eating machines. The Benefactors cannot save Earth, but they are building secret spaceships to save a few of Earths inhabitants. The planet-eaters discover one Benefactor spaceship and explode it, killing Hicks. Gordon and his son Marty board another Benefactor spaceship. Edward Shaw and Stella Morgan try one more time to crystallize their love but fail again. Shaw goes to Yosemite National Park alone. Atop solid rock, he watches, thinks, and dies as the earth bursts at its seams. In space, the Benefactors instruct Arthur and Marty Gordon to watch Earth explode so that they will be ready to join the Benefactors in revenge.
Eight years later, in Anvil of Stars, Marty serves as Pan (leader) to eighty-five other teenagers, called Lost Boys and Wendys, on the spaceship Dawn Treader, a Benefactor warship composed largely of fake matter. Assisted by robot Moms, the Children travel five years at near the speed of light to search for the enemy civilization. On the way, Marty falls in love with crewmate Theresa.
Marty finds himself leading an extremely diverse group, many of them highly individualistic and anti-authoritarian. Marty finds a suspect solar system, called Wormwood. Despite some doubts about Wormwood’s possible innocence that torture his conscience, Marty orders a strike against it. Perhaps because of his ethical preoccupations, Marty fails to see that Wormwood is only a clever decoy and trap created by the enemy.
Marty’s forces fall into the trap, and Theresa must sacrifice her life to save the crew. Distraught, Marty turns leadership over to Hans, a more ruthless individual. Hans locates another suspect solar system called Leviathan. Meanwhile, the crew teams up with aliens called Brothers. Each Brother is an aggregate life-form made of many cooperating, interwoven, snakelike cables. The Brothers, however, prove even more conscience-ridden than Marty, and as the likable inhabitants of Leviathan protest their innocence and plead for peace, Marty again tortures himself about the morality of the teams mission. He even visits Leviathan to befriend its inhabitants.
Hans ruthlessly uses the occasion of Marty’s visit to launch a sneak attack that incites the final battle. Forgetting questions of morality, Marty fights to save his teammates. He discovers how to use thought to disintegrate Leviathan’s defenses, thus allowing Hans to destroy the planets. Inside the system, the team discovers and destroys thousands of hatchling planet-eaters, positive proof of Leviathan’s guilt. They also discover that the likable inhabitants of the planets were innocent: They were life-forms designed by the hidden enemy as unknowing decoys.