The Forge of God
Overview
1987 in literature
The year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.-Fiction:...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by American writer Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
. Earth faces destruction when an inscrutable and overwhelming alien form of life attacks.
The Forge of God was nominated for the Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
for Best Novel
Nebula Award for Best Novel
Winners of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.- Winners and other nominees :...
in 1987, and was also nominated for the Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Locus
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
Awards in 1988.
The novel features scenes and events including the discovery of a near-dead alien in the desert, who clearly says in English, "I'm sorry, but there is bad news," and this alien's subsequent interrogation and autopsy; the discovery of an artificial geological formation and its subsequent nuclear destruction by a desperate military; and the Earth's eventual destruction by the mutual annihilation of a piece of neutronium
Neutronium
Neutronium is a proposed name for a substance composed purely of neutrons. The word was coined by scientist Andreas von Antropoff in 1926 for the conjectured "element of atomic number zero" that he placed at the head of the periodic table...
and a piece of antineutronium
Antimatter
In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles...
dropped into Earth's core.
There is another alien faction at work, however, represented on Earth by small spider-like robots that recruit human agents through some form of mind control.