Anvil of Stars, by Greg Bear

Perhaps only for the sake of finding out what happens in the end of the story, I decided to read this sequel to the unimpressive The Forge of God. It turned out that I liked this sequel a lot better. The backdrop of the story is outer space and some of the plot elements reminded me of Orson Scott Card's excellent "Ender's Game". The story unfolds at a good pace and keeps you interested all the way through. It was a nice surprise to discover this one actually was a lot of fun to read (even though the corny line about the child and dog shows up in a slightly different guise). There was a lot about the dynamics of relationships between kids in a confined environment, about moral issues related to blind revenge and first contact between alien and human species. Very enjoyable soft sci-fi.