A review by dcunning11235
Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear
2.0
I found this to be a disappointing sequel. It's combinations of Peter Pan (overtly)/Lord of the Flies/...Wrath of Khan??? ultimately didn't pay off. There are perhaps too many loose ends (who are the mom's creators, what did become of the solar system's humans, what happens with the Brothers, who/what/why the Killers, etc.)
Worse, the great moral dilemmas/plots that the entire last third of the book hinges around are not satisfactorily addressed. I.e., "Collateral damage on the scale of multiple-genocide just happened... anyway, moving on." I.e., "We've got a religious movement developing... oh, its leader is murdered... oh, its vice-leader is now vice-president. Ok, no worries, now its over." I.e., the entire pacifism versus... not so much violence, as revenge. (There is even a passage that comes tantalizingly close to, in my ears, an "obvious" debate about the efficacy -not even the morals- of the death penalty.) Which is subsumed in the larger WTF of committing genocide on a planetary-system-wide scale...
Uggh, frustrating. I feel like this is a case of over-ambitious storytelling. If this was a 900-1000 page book maybe... or treated in two separate books... or re-editted to... ugh.
Worse, the great moral dilemmas/plots that the entire last third of the book hinges around are not satisfactorily addressed. I.e., "Collateral damage on the scale of multiple-genocide just happened... anyway, moving on." I.e., "We've got a religious movement developing... oh, its leader is murdered... oh, its vice-leader is now vice-president. Ok, no worries, now its over." I.e., the entire pacifism versus... not so much violence, as revenge. (There is even a passage that comes tantalizingly close to, in my ears, an "obvious" debate about the efficacy -not even the morals- of the death penalty.) Which is subsumed in the larger WTF of committing genocide on a planetary-system-wide scale...
Uggh, frustrating. I feel like this is a case of over-ambitious storytelling. If this was a 900-1000 page book maybe... or treated in two separate books... or re-editted to... ugh.