• Anvil of Stars

  • A Sequel to The Forge of God
  • By: Greg Bear
  • Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
  • Length: 20 hrs and 50 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (327 ratings)

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Anvil of Stars  By  cover art

Anvil of Stars

By: Greg Bear
Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
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Publisher's summary

The Forge of God described the destruction of Earth itself by self-replicating robots, Von Neumann machines designed to use the planet's mass to create more robotic creatures and spread throughout the Galaxy. Only a few humans have survived, aided by a mysterious alien race known only as “The Benefactors”, who arrived at Earth too late.

Now the small group of human survivors is determined to track down the criminal race who launched the planet killers. Humanity is given a starship by The Benefactors, and driven only by revenge they set out to find the unknown beings who are responsible for the destruction of Earth, and many other worlds.

©1992 Greg Bear (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Anvil of Stars

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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great story

Where does Anvil of Stars rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This book has some interesting ideas about technology and how advanced alien races would defend themselves. It ranks amongst the top ten SciFi books I've read so far.

What did you like best about this story?

The action parts where stuff is happening and techno babble is on rapid-fire.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Starts off ssssllllloooowwww.

The Forge of God was a page-turner. It's hard to believe Anvil of Stars is by the same author. The first six hours of the book is agonizing. It is virtually all angst and neurosis of the main character, Martin. What do his lovers mean to him? How is his affair with the boy different from his affair with the girl? What does it mean to be a leader of young adults on a mission to avenge mankind? In terms of plot, very, very little happens in the first six hours. I could literally say it in a sentence, so I will: In the fifth year of their mission, the children think they have discovered the killers of mankind, and launch the attack. You might think I'm leaving out a ton of plot turns and twists, but I'm not. You could say I've left out a training exercise (boring) and apparitions seen by a few of the crew (even more boring). And of course the ship divides as planned, but that's it. I'm not going to bother with the last two installments. In fact, I've already read the Wiki summary. The narrator is good, and even though I found his "voice" for at least one of the characters irritating (an uptalker? you know, when everything they say rises in inflection like a question?), I would have to say his narration kept the otherwise moribund story on life-support. Sadly, when nothing of consequence had occurred by the end of the first six hours, my interest expired, and the plug had to be pulled.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Long winded, but worth it

Very long and winding story. Very different than Forge of God. If I didn't know better, I'd think this was written by a different author. Took me several months to get through, because finding my place again was difficult each time, do to very long chapters. Great dialogue and character development. Hard to track at times. Conclusion well worth the wait. 👍

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

R-rated Enders Game

What disappointed you about Anvil of Stars?

Barely related to first book. More intent on interjecting sex into the story than Sci-Fi content.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No book 3

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Somewhat less pointless than the first book

What happens if you mix Forever War with Lord of the Flies? This thing, apparently. While it carries over many of the weaknesses of Forge of God - most notably terribly annoying characters - Greg Bear remembered that a novel ought to have an actual plot, and so included one this time. Even if it is more than a little contrived. There is also somewhat more character development this time around. I'll also have to add that the "society" depicted on the ship is pretty cringe, including the whole Peter Pan motif and the religious subplot. On the plus side, I felt it evoked a decent "space exploration" feel, and the aliens depicted were interesting. Unfortunately, the narration tends towards the overly dramatic and theatrical at times, and is way too quiet at others - the narrator sometimes yells at the audience, and sometimes is a barely audible whisper. If I have to fast-forward because you're annoying me, or rewind because I couldn't understand what you said, you're not doing a very good job. It's a pity, too, because otherwise the narration could have been quite good. The book works well enough as a stand-alone, so if this series interests you at all, skip the wholly forgettable Forge of God and just get this one instead.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The best sci-fi book i've ever read!

Truly this is an underrated masterpiece- and I don't use that term lightly or often.
Two aspects of the novel keep me returning to it in both audiobook and print form: the insights into the realistic applications of warfare between civilizations and the murky morality in revenge over the span of lightyears and centuries.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story, but the underage sex is VERY akward

Any additional comments?

Loved the first book int he series. Same reader, he does a stellar job in this one too. But holy cow, the steady stream of sex between the underaged characters is super akward and uncomfortable, not to mention totally not needed. I felt myself cringing listening to the description of a couple 15 year olds getting busy.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good

This story left me with much pause for thought. It is great story . I would recommend it as an important Science Fiction work.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

such a dramatic change of pace from forge of God.

the first 12 or so hours of this book were so slow. I was not expecting such a focus on characters sexual relationships and social problems. the climax of the novel is fun if you can sit through the first 75% of the novel. the ending felt rushed and incomplete being the last book of the series.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

a little slow getting started and never picks up

I was hoping that this novel would be more like slant where a slow start builds to an interesting and more dramatic finish however the story meanders and I found the characters less engaging than the ones from Queen of Angels, slant, or blood music. It was interesting to see what happened with the crew after the destruction of Earth, but it felt like Michael Moore did the sequel to a Roland Emmerich movie.

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