Glory: Book #01 of the Goldenwing Cycle

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. (May)