Book description
Old Earth is gone. Humanity has been scattered to the stars. Some left
their dying planet in spaceship arks, in search of new worlds to
inhabit. Others, nanoengineered for near-immortality, explore the far
reaches of interstellar space in gargantuan macrolife mobiles. An
earth-like human society endures on the environmentally volatile planet
of Tau Ceti IV--a rigid community of the faithful that has declared evil
the science that caused the homeworld's destruction. The Church is the
absolute power here; obedience and belief the rule. But His Holiness
Peter III, the New Vatican's most powerful figure, himself harbors
doubts, engendered by his love for his unacknowledged and illegitimate
rebel daughter Josepha. And suddenly there is another assault on his
tottering faith--and on the sacred traditions he has devoted his life to
uphold. For an emissary, Voss Rhazes, has arrived from one of old
Earth's journeying mobiles--the first off-planet human visitor ever to
Tau Ceti--bearing remarkable hated technology that could shred the
fragile emotional fabric of a family...and bring devastating chaos to
their world. George Zebrowskis nearly forty books include novels,
short fiction collections, anthologies, and a book of essays. Science
fiction writer Greg Bear calls him one of those rare speculators who
bases his dreams on science as well as inspiration, and the late Terry
Carr, one of the most influential science fiction editors of recent
years, described him as an authority in the SF field. Zebrowski has
published more than seventy works of short fiction and more than a
hundred and forty articles and essays, and has written about science for
Omni Magazine. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Amazing
Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction
Age, Nature, the Bertrand Russell Society News, and many other
publications.
