From Amazon.co.uk
A Forest of Stars is book two of Kevin J Anderson's widescreen space opera "The Saga of Seven Suns", which began with
Hidden Empire. The story so far is given in some detail for new readers. Briefly, unwise human tampering has roused the wrath of the near-invincible alien "hydrogues" who live within gas-giant planets, to the delight of the more humanlike Ildiran Empire who would love to see those bumptious Terrans taken down a peg. But soon the hydrogue clampdown on mining starship fuel from those gas giants threatens to bring ruin to the whole galactic economy, not just to humanity's corporate "Hanseatic League" and its breakaway factions.
Now it emerges that the hydrogue problem is a very old one, and that humans and Ildirans are minor players--"like field mice on a giant battleground"--in an ancient war of elementals. The awakened hydrogues (Air) are determined to finish the job of wiping out the helpless-seeming forest group-mind (Earth) already introduced in book one, and in this volume the representatives of Fire and Water begin to stir...
The slam-bang action follows many characters in many story strands. Independent human Roamers, mining fuel at frightful risk, come into conflict with the desperate League, which also feels forced into brutal oppression of its own colonies. A cruel, illicit Ildiran/human breeding experiment continues in secret. Sinister robots created by a vanished race plot their own enormities, while a matter-transmitter network built by that same race could be the answer to the fuel shortage. Dirty politics and unwilling marriages of convenience abound. Space fleets face impossible odds, whole planets are wrecked, and even suns are now at risk of oblivion.
It's all rip-roaring interstellar adventure with megadeaths aplenty, lashings of pyrotechnics, the occasional touch of romance and doom-laden forebodings of worse to come. Stay tuned for more of "The Saga of Seven Suns". --David Langford
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The interstellar conflict between hydrogues (aliens that live at the core of gas-giant planets) and faeros (fire entities that dwell within stars) and its impact on a dazzling array of alien and human species propel bestseller Anderson's third thrilling installment in his Seven Suns saga (after 2003's
Hidden Empire and 2002's
A Forest of Stars). In the third wave of this SF tsunami, an important Earth Defense Force asset, ekti star fuel, is compromised when rebels refuse to donate all ekti to the defense effort, leading Terran Hanseatic League Chairman Basil Wenceslas (the power behind semi-puppet monarchs King Peter and Queen Estarra) to declare war on the rebels. Adding to the fireworks are human-hating Klikiss robots who break an old Ildiran peace pact, a brewing Ildiran civil war and Ildiran secret experiments that impinge on Mage-Imperator Jora'h's relationship with green priest Nira Khali. Crackling with energy and buzzing with action, this hot summer read bodes well for future nail-biting episodes.
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