My son is an extremely advanced reader, and consumes so much reading material that I’m having a hard time keeping up with him. Until now, his interests have been in “young adult” novels, like Harry Potter. Recently he’s started branching out into science nonfiction, and reading progressively more complex books about astronomy and biology in particular.
Now he wants to read science fiction. My wife brought him to a secondhand store a few days ago, where he spent several months of allowance on dozens of books, but one in particular excites him more than the others. The book is called “Anvil of Stars” by Greg Bear, and after a bit of research I discovered it’s a sequel to “Forge of God.” I haven’t read the books, but I have read a synopsis of them, and if he reads these books it will certainly be the most “grown up” thing he’s ever been exposed to in fiction.
I don’t know if I want to let him read this series just yet, but I’d like to solicit opinions from those of you who have read it. How did it affect you when you read it? Would it be too disturbing or complex or adult-themed for a particularly clever ten year old? Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.
It’s got genocide and as I recall, a bunch of sex between members of the teen crew in the second novel. It’s heavy. I don’t know, I’d say ten is a bit young.
[spoiler]The first novel is about the Earth being destroyed. Billions die. The second novel is about the children of a few survivors going off to kill the race that sent the Earth-killer robots. Trillions die by the willful actions of the protagonists. And, as I recall, there is some sex talk. Not graphic, but openly talked about.
The main thrust is the Earth was targeted by a race that sends probes to kill other sentient species. A group of other races send defensive probes to try to stop them. The latter’s probes get there too late to save Earth, but instead save a few thousand humans, and some data/dna samples of flora and fauna. The rule of the defender’s society is a group of young ones of the saved world are sent off on a one-way trip, at near-lightspeed to man a starship to get justice for their world.
The ship gets there, action ensues, and they have to make a choice to kill trillions of innocent people (the descendants and unrelated client races of those who sent the killer probes) to get their justice. It’s not as light as Harry Potter looking to avenge his parent’s death.[/spoiler]
The Forge of God is good, but I think he’d run into things - not that he couldn’t handle but that he doesn’t yet have the life experience to properly appreciate.
I enjoyed “Forge of God” because of it’s somewhat “realistic” depiction of how an encounter with other alien races might occur: we’d have no chance. I did not really enjoy Anvil of Stars in that it seemed like realistic space travel: long and boring.
In fact, I just recently re-read “Forge of God” and it’s a little dated, but yeah, it pretty much deals with the hopelessness of fighting off a superior intelligence and lots of people die. Well, most of the life on earth.
I never realized there was a sequel, but while there’s nothing directly age-inappropriate in Forge of God, it stands to be a major downer for him. And on another note, it’s not actually a very good book. The science is very well-done, but the plotting isn’t.
I’d say go for it. The worst that would happen with these books is that they might be a bit dense or slow-moving in the plot to hold interest at that age. I started reading similar fare at that age, 2001, Dune, Foundation. Sure, a lot went over my head, but it was much more interesting than being stuck with teen-lit and getting bored with books below my level.