jacket summary from the back cover of the February 1993 Warner Books paperback edition cover illustration by Bob Eggleton The Ship of the Law was made of the fragments of Earth's corpse, a world in itself, cruising massively close to the speed of light, hundreds of years from the dust and rubble of home...
And aboard were 82 mortal exiles sworn to find and punish the Killers who murdered our world.
They were more than children sent on a time-bent crusade; they were avenging angels, soldiers trained but not yet tested, given access to incredible powers they did not completely understand. Eventually they would use that power if they were to fulfill their mission, and some of them would not survive.
Starts dull, ends good "The Forge of God" was a 5 star book and this was a bit of a let down compared to that. In particular, the first hundred pages or so are dull and somewhat silly. I don't mind the slow build-up so much as all the discussion on bisexuality and "slicking" between the "Wendy"s and the "Lost Boys"s? I suppose they are liberated from the dead planet Earth and its morals, but I signed up to read a "hard sci-fi" book and not a space harlequin. Likewise, the regular "momerath" discussions are unnecessary and dull too. Anyways, after the first battle these two topics drop to the background and the rest of the book is good.Humanity's Revenge After Earth's death and rescue by the mysterious Benefactors of a few thousand humans at the end of The Forge of God...Anvil of Stars centers around a crew of young adults who set out to seek a redress for the sins committed against the peoples of Earth. Their goal is to seek out and annihilate the Killers...those who sent the killer machines to Earth. But keeping the crew focused on the task at hand while on the hunt for the Killers proves to be rather difficult. Ultimately, those on the hunt for the Killers must make some very difficult decisions, decisions that will either lead to the avenging of Earth's death, or the committing of crimes far worse than those the Killers committed.
Anvil of Stars had a fairly strong premise...that of seeking out the killers of Earth and avenging its death. In application, the story lacked strong development and the characterization was mediocre at best. The moral implications of avenging Earth's death are considered, but they are nearly drowned out by irritating characters that you never really get to know too well. On the positive side, Anvil of Stars does do a good job of describing unusual alien beings and how they interact with humans; but the descriptions of the aliens' societies is lackluster. In the end, I was left wanting more than Bear offered...characters I got to know better would have been the best addition to this story. On the whole, Anvil of Stars is probably only worth reading if you want the conclusion of Bear's story to The Forge of God.
