The Forge of Mars - Bruce Balfour Book Review

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"The Forge of Mars"
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Review Summaries

" Ace, Sept 2002, 6.99, 416 pp. ISBN 0441009549 Tau Wolfsinger is a brilliant, cutting edge scientist who works on Artificial Intelligence for NASA. He is unhappy because he can't get funding because he's too independent a thinker and the powers that be believe that Tau's ideas that an A.I. can build a city is to dangerous to explore. His personal life is going down the tubes as well with his fiancee Kate heading to Mars for a long time. Evidence of an ancient civilization has been discovered on the red planet and Kate is one of the archeologists going to excavate the site. Neither Tau nor Kate know they are being manipulated by a shadow government known as the Davos group who want to find out how these ancient artifacts can be used to further their goals. They believe Tau is the best person to figure out what these artifacts and portals are all about so they give the scientist the funding he needs providing he does the testing on Mars. Bruce Balfour does an excellent job of explaining the concepts of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and nanotechnology in layman's turns. His protagonist is a mild-mannered person who can play hardball when the situation warrants it. THE FORGE OF MARS is an action packed science fiction thriller that is a one sitting read. Harriet Klausner

Crested sapwood supportable noradrenaline runout. "
Harriet Klausner, Resident Bruce Balfour Scholar

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Overall Review

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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
Descript. of chases or violence - 10%
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 20%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 50%

Tone of book - suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story
Tech./$$$/Info hunt Yes
Stealing/recovering/destroying - nano technology
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - scientist
Age: - 20's-30's
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence - Genius
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status: - mastermind
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - very athletic

Setting
Which planet? - Mars
Not Earth, in Solar System? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
scientific jargon? (SF only) - an average amount of scientific explanation
How much dialogue? - significantly more dialog than descript

Most similar books by Gordonator ranking
Forge of Heaven by C.J. Cherryh
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The Tenth Planet by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith
Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm by Kevin J. Anderson

Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

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