Glory - Softcover

Coppel, Alfred

3.49

55 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812523938 ISBN 13: 9780812523935

Publisher: Tor Books, 1994

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Glory, a spaceship that once transported humans to colony planets, approaches Voerster carrying essential supplies, but discord among the crew and revolution on the planet jeopardize the mission

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From Kirkus Reviews:

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.

From Publishers Weekly:

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.

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