First published 1987. Legend paperback, 1989, pp 473, c.145,000 words.
This is a classic ‘first encounter’ story. Initially one of Jupiter’s moons disappears, then strange features appear in the landscape in the USA and Australia. The former turns up in Death Valley and is accidentally discovered by some geologists who notice a hill that isn’t on their maps. They also encounter a rather sick alien who seems to be bearing bad news. It is a well done, exciting introduction. The story moves into bleak territory: the aliens are far ahead of humans technically and are bent on eliminating them from the planet. Their means are subtle.
This presents one interpretation of the Fermi Paradox, and is laid out by one of the characters: ‘Drinkwater, and others like him, have maintained for years that there is no intelligent life in our galaxy. He claims that the lack of radio signals from distant stars is the proof… We’ve been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that’s why.’ [p315].
There are a lot of important characters in the story, and I’m glad I wrote down who they were as they appeared. Not only do we get the geologist’s point-of-view but also various other scientists, politicians, soldiers, and journalists, as well as family members and friends.
As this was written in the 1980s, women are allowed to have decent careers but they are still expected to make a bed for an unexpected visiting man. [p154].
Sometimes Bear delves deep into humanity, which is rather unusual in this type of action-oriented sci-fi. On one occasion, a man is cleaning up in his parents’ house after his mother has died. He is vacuuming the floor, but the machine is working poorly and on investigation he finds it is tangled with his mother’s hair. It is a beautifully written little episode (but irrelevant to the story). Another fine passage concerns a man who misses his wife [p185].
There are a few rather nice phrases, such as the cynical: ‘Altruism is masked self-interest.’ [p352]
There was one little oddity that I noticed: at a meeting held in the office of the Chief of Staff [p143] at the White House, two seats were kept for visiting Australians [p144], but then we are told that ‘The Australians will be in the Oval Office in fifteen minutes’ [p145]. There was also rather a lot of unnecessary tourist-brochure stuff about Yosemite national park. There are chapter titles given in Latin which seemed rather pretentious (and my Latin is not up to translating most of them.)
Bear’s writing style is very accessible; it is unflashy and clear. He is good at atmosphere and characterisation. While the roles may be cliched, the people occupying them do have sparks of humanity. This is a fine piece of sci-fi entertainment, and the science is sort-of plausible which is a great plus.
Wikipedia biography of Bear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Bear
Wikipedia summary of the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God
Others’ reviews of the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64732.The_Forge_of_God?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16
© William John Graham, January 2024