This is the sequel to _Hammerfall_, and is the book that most of you
wish had been written instead of Hammerfall.  There is a reference
section at the start of the book that would have been helpful to have
in Hammer, since it lays out the basic outline of what's happened up
to now, who's who, and why everyone is concerned about the Ila.  It
even explains why they didn't just use the telephone to call the Ila
and discuss the situation.  Like most of Cherryh's stories, the answer
is largely political.  There is a lot of backstory to Hammerfall that
would have made that book much more enjoyable.

But that's not what this book is about.  Forge starts up several
centuries after the events in Hammerfall.  The ondat and humanity are
observing a cold peace... the ondat are content to shoot human ships
that invade their space, but don't otherwise take aggressive actions
against humans.  The only spot humans and ondat interact (such as it
is) is on Concord Station, orbiting Marak's World.  Here everyone is
settled in to see what happens to a planet with rogue nanotech that
has been reduced to its primordial state by the Hammerfall.  

Meanwhile, life goes on in the rest of the universe.  Humans have
divided up into two political camps based upon their view of nanotech.
Earth and the Inner Worlds distrusts nanotech, with some good reasons,
and carefully controls it in order to preserve the purity of the human
genome.  Outsiders play much faster and looser with nanotech,
culminating in the Stylists.  Stylists are the extreme cutting edge of
fashion, setting the new looks and trends.  The idea is to establish a
Look... something unique that people admire.  And, humans being what
they are, that tends to mean edgy and trendy, and can results in
ceations that are scarcely human.  It's a fine line between Stylist
and grotesque, with the main difference being the artistry of the
person being modified.

Down on the planet, Marak and party are on a trip to watch a new sea
develop when the book starts out.  To be quite honest, not much
happens with them.  Their purpose in the book seems to be to provide a
view of the kinds of changes that are taking place on the planet, and
to temper some of the responses by the government up on Concord
Station, since no one wants to piss off the Old Ones downworld. But
mostly it seems to be to portray the scale of the changes that are
ocurring.  

Up on the station, there's politics in plenty.  An unexpected Earth
ship creates turmoil as everyone tries to figure out why it's shown up
and what it wants.  Teenage rebellion in the governor's household has
some unexpected results.  A young Project worker gets in trouble.
There's family issues to deal with, and people with unknown loyalties.

It's the kind of story that Cherryh does well.  If there is a problem
with this book, it's that the time frame is so short, with the entire
story taking place in around 5 days.  The social descriptions show
that a lot of thought went into the characters and their situations.
And there is a possibility that this is just the set up for a new
series.  But it's not clear... this story is neatly tied up at the end
of the book, and if the story continues it's going to be as a new
adventure.  On the other hand, she may just leave the characters to
live their lives with no further adventures that are worthy of
reporting.

Rebecca