From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Mon Jun 17 2002 - 11:55:22 MDT
This article at sci-fi wire,
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2002-06/17/10.00.film,
reports that Warner Brothers plans to make a movie based on Greg Bear's
science fiction novel The Forge of God and its sequel(s).
This is one of my favorite books, exciting and emotionally moving. When
Bear is good he is very good, and this is one of his best. It describes
the attempted destruction of Earth by evil alien von Neumann machines,
who have homed in on our twittering radio transmissions. Not content with
destroying the planet, the sadistic aliens toy with human civilization
by constructing beings which offer contradictory stories about the nature
of life in the universe. Meanwhile, opposing machines arrive who hope
to stop the destruction or at least save humans and their culture. The
climactic scenes are truly gripping as the seconds tick down.
Bear is a hard science fiction writer and his technology is convincing.
How exactly do you destroy an entire planet? What would it be like to
be there, to see and feel it happen? It's all very well done.
The one quibble I have is with the back story of galactic conflict which
manifests in this battle on Earth. Why would the evil aliens wait to
destroy planets that are on the verge of developing mature technology?
Wouldn't it be safer to destroy every planet they could find that
had life? And isn't it an extreme coincidence that the cavalry arrives
(almost) just in time?
We never really find out the answers to these, even in the sequel, Anvil
of Stars, where humans, aided by the "good" aliens, take the battle
to the enemy. The one point that comes through is the importance of
stealth and keeping a low profile. The galaxy is not a particularly
friendly place; most civilizations keep to themselves and distrust others.
So maybe the bad guys are afraid to call too much attention to themselves
with over-aggressive vN machines.
Anvil of Stars is a good sequel, although I didn't think that it had
as much emotional impact as Forge of God. It has plenty of tension and
excitement though as the humans go up against super-intelligent aliens
who can create and destroy matter at will.
According to the url above, Bear will be writing a third book in the
series, and all three of them are planned for movies. Of course Hollywood
has a pretty spotty record when it comes to adapting science fiction,
but maybe the strength of these Greg Bear stories will come through.
And it would be great to see some of the scenes he describes brought to
life on the screen.
Hal
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:52 MST