- Mass Market Paperback: 221 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (11 Nov 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1857989031
- ISBN-13: 978-1857989038
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 12.2 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,856,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
Vintage 'hard SF' from one of it's most important writers, the author of BLOOD MUSIC
Product Description
In the deserts of God-Does-Battle the Cities stand alone, as beleaguered as the aspirations of mankind. Those still alive are silent -- like stars in a dying universe they await dust and decay. Yet within the living plasm of their fragmented structures an ancient programme still works, implanted by the human creators cast out a thousand years ago. Before long, it is clear, some of the Cities will be fighting extinction. And many of them will do battle in a quite unexpected way . . .
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Religion and science fiction powerfully combined,
By A Customer
This review is from: Strength Of Stones (Mass Market Paperback)
Bear seems to be an erratic writer, but this is certainly one of his best efforts. A strange tale which manages to mix ultra-futuristic technology with religion in a story of a people driven into exile by the moral standards of their own machines. One of those books you will still be thinking about months or even years after you have finished it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Ideas; Implausible Premise,
By Rod Williams (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Strength of Stones (Paperback)
Bear's early work shows much of the promise he was later to show in more accomplished work, and certainly in some of the themes.
Religion is a thread which runs through much of Bear's work either as a minor theme or right upfront as in `Strength of Stones' The planet God-Does-Battle was set up as a world where fundamentalist members of various faiths could exist apart from the sinners of the rest of the galaxy. Pearson, the founder, commissioned architect Robert Khan to design `living' cities in which the colonists could pursue their individual religious callings. Khan, it appears, designed too well and the cities, sentient and programmed with the religious rules of their inhabitants, came to the conclusion that all their inhabitants were sinners and exiled them to the cruel surface of the world. The novel comprises of three sections, set in three different time periods. From a modern perspective it seems a little naive that fundamentalist Muslims and Jews would willingly choose to share the same planet with each other, let alone the Baptists, Gnostics and whatever else. However, it is a measure of Bear's strength as a writer that he makes this rather far-fetched notion seem perfectly plausible. It would appear that two sections of the novel were published separately as short stories and certainly the 1988 version has been revised. It does, sadly, still have the disjointed feel of a fix-up.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A discussion of sin against a backdrop of Sentient cities,
By Semioticghost "Semioticghost" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Strength Of Stones (Mass Market Paperback)
Greg Bear's "Strength of Stones" focuses on the development of planet God-Does-Battle, the self-elected exile of Christians, Muslims and Jews from a secularised earth. The planet's habitats are living, sentient, mobile cities designed as a paradise of coalition between the world religions, but they slowly grow disgusted by human sin and cast out all their inhabitants to fend for themselves on a more primitive level. The novel charts what follows as the plot develops, on both philosophical and individual levels, with the backdrop of the cities supporting a spare, but engaging set of characters. In some ways, this is just another planetary-development novel, but it is written and structured well and provides enough surprises to lift it clearly above the throng.To me, Bear's "Blood Music" remains the most enjoyable, original and unusual of his novels, but "Strength of Stones" is well worth a read nonetheless.
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