Synopsis
The age of colonization ended a thousand years ago. Only a few Goldenwings, the huge spaceships which carried humanity from Earth to many colony planets, still remain, still voyaging between the distant colonies carrying the cargoes those societies need to survive.
The Goldenwing Gloria Coelis (known as Glory), with the glittering beauty of a sunrise, its huge space sails spread for hundreds of miles, approaches the planet Voerster with an essential shipment of biological materials, ordered 400 years before in local time.
And on Voerster, settled by South Africans determined to preserve apartheid, revolution and war threaten, while the conservative ruler Ian Voerster and his wife are locked in a struggle over their sick daughter, whose heart condition will kill her without the advanced medicine of Glory.
Filled with action and memorable characters, Glory is a triumph, a far future epic of humanity in space to set beside the works of Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson.
Reviews
YA-On Voerster, the inhabitants have been waiting 400 years for supplies to be delivered. Settled by White South Africans with the purpose of perpetuating apartheid, the planet has stagnated to the point of almost no redemption. Now, the people are about to be visited by a supply ship, which will rip apart the fabric of their lives. As the story opens, Glory is orbiting around Voerster ready to unload her cargo. In the events that follow, an armed rebellion ensues, people are killed, and Voerster starts the long, slow process of being reborn. Coppel creates believable, interesting characters with real motivations. The story is compelling and a real page turner. YAs interested in science fiction-or even those who just like a good story-will enjoy this book.
Susan McFaden, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Nearly 3000 years in the future, much of mankind lives on struggling colony worlds connected by a few Goldenwings, vast ships sailing the tachyon wind. To the planetbound, the technologically superior crews of the Goldenwings appear almost immortal because of their ability to travel through time at near light-speed. Living together uneasily on Planet Voerster, settled thousands of years ago by Afrikaner refugees from South Africa determined to continue their way of life, are the white Voertrekkers, the black Kaffirs and the Planetians, genetically engineered to live at high altitudes. The arrival of the Goldenwing "Glory," bearing livestock ordered generations ago, threatens to disrupt the balance of power established a millennium earlier during the Great Kaffir Rebellion, which led to greater suppression of the blacks. Ian Voerster, Voertrekker-Praesident, plans to marry his only daughter, Broni, to a Planetian despite the opposition of his strong-willed wife Eliana, who fears the frail girl will not survive in the brutal high-altitude Planetian habitat. As the domestic struggle escalates, the hidden cracks of a petrified patriarchal society begin to widen. Coppel's ( The Hastings Conspiracy ) insightful depiction of existence on a physically hostile planet, as well as the almost spiritual life of the Goldenwings' Wired Starmen, bodes well for volumes to come.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Thriller-writer Coppel's only previous sf appearance was Dark December (1960); this one kicks off a far-future story-cycle about ancient, starships that, impelled to relativistic velocities by faster-than-light tachyon particles striking their solar sails, spend hundreds of years wafting cargo between far-flung colonies. Starship Glory approaches planet Voerster with two problems: a dead crewman who needs burying, and another alive but going insane. Voerster's history, meanwhile, has reached a critical juncture. Settled by unreconstructed Boers, the population was decimated during mindless racial wars with the kaffirs, and technology has regressed to a primitive level. To forestall an invasion by barbarian mutants, brutal ruler Ian Voerster promises his ailing daughter, Broni, in marriage, a move opposed by wife Eliana--though both hope that high-tech medical treatment available aboard Glory will save Broni. When Glory's mad crewman, Marq, touches down, Ian takes him hostage. Eliana and Broni, having fled, are attacked by the mutants. Duncan, Glory's captain, lands nearby, only to be wounded and fall in love with the highly empathic Eliana. Abandoning Marq, Duncan takes Eliana and Broni into space; Broni will join the crew, while Eliana must return to Voerster and orchestrate the revolution thus precipitated. Predictable plotting in a slow-motion narrative insufficiently leavened with ideas, along with Boers who are both unpleasant and uninteresting. A bland and ponderous opener. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
The arrival of the starship Gloria Coelis acts as a catalyst for the turbulent population of the apartheid-ridden planet Voerster in this suspenseful series opener by the author of A Land of Mirrors (HBJ, 1988). In a universe where broadly scattered human colonies have limited contact with one another, the clash between insular, planet-bound people and broad-thinking starship crew members is both inevitable and unpredictable. Coppel succeeds admirably in portraying two vastly different human mindsets, avoiding stereotypes in both heroes and villains. A solid addition to sf collections.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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