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A review by lordofthemoon
Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear
3.0
After the destruction of Earth, only a tiny proportion of her population was saved by the mysterious Benefactors. They equip a number of her children with a ship and training and send them to enact the Law: that any civilisation that creates self-replicating killer robots to destroy another must be killed by those it sought to destroy. This is the story of the Dawn Treader and her voyage to seek and destroy the Killers of Earth.
Although this book is a sequel to Bear's earlier [b:The Forge of God|64732|The Forge of God|Greg Bear|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316131538s/64732.jpg|2235106], you don't need to have read the earlier volume to follow this (and, indeed, I haven't). The premise is fairly simple and the story is one of revenge and redemption. Apart from one brief segment, the entire story is set aboard the Dawn Treader, giving the book a somewhat claustrophobic feel, which is interesting and did help to set the scene. None of the characters other than our protagonist and PoV character, Martin, made much of an emotional impact, and even though you're never entirely sure who's going to live and die, it didn't make as much of an impact as it should have done when some did die.
I picked this up because I remember reading it many years ago, probably picked up from the local library and I wanted to see how it fared on a re-read, without remembering many of the details. In the event, it was okay but I don't think I'll be reading it again.
Although this book is a sequel to Bear's earlier [b:The Forge of God|64732|The Forge of God|Greg Bear|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316131538s/64732.jpg|2235106], you don't need to have read the earlier volume to follow this (and, indeed, I haven't). The premise is fairly simple and the story is one of revenge and redemption. Apart from one brief segment, the entire story is set aboard the Dawn Treader, giving the book a somewhat claustrophobic feel, which is interesting and did help to set the scene. None of the characters other than our protagonist and PoV character, Martin, made much of an emotional impact, and even though you're never entirely sure who's going to live and die, it didn't make as much of an impact as it should have done when some did die.
I picked this up because I remember reading it many years ago, probably picked up from the local library and I wanted to see how it fared on a re-read, without remembering many of the details. In the event, it was okay but I don't think I'll be reading it again.