Cave of Stars

From the flaps of the HarperPrism first edition: "Old Earth is gone. Destroyed. The remnants of humanity live scattered among the stars. Some abandoned the dying planet in starship arks, bound for new worlds. Others, nanoengineered for near immortality, live in macrolife mobiles, one-hundred-kilometer-long habitats that explore interstellar space. On the planet Tau Ceti IV, the emigrants have fashioned an Earthlike society dedicated to conservatism and God, a theocratic regime where change is a crime and rebels are severely punished. The macrolife habitats have their own rebels. Some seek a planet on which to start over. Others have retreated into the virtuals, where they will live as long as the cosmos itself, conveniently forgetting that nothing they experience, including themselves, is real. George Zebrowski, the bestselling author of Macrolife and Stranger Suns, has created a suspense-charged science fiction adventure in the grand tradition of Dune and Childhood's End. It is an epic story of what happens when worlds collide - both figuratively and literally. A story that tells of the shattering conflict between a rebellious daughter and her fundamentalist father; between a man from the stars and the backward woman whose love endangers his immortality; between a world seeking redemption and man seeking revenge. Ondro is a rebel sentenced to be swept away by Tau Ceti's monster storms. Josepha is the favored by unacknowledged daughter of New Vatican's most powerful man. Voss is a visionary, seeding the universe with man-made worlds. And the Link is the artificial intelligence that binds them together as they embark on humankinds most enduring adventure: the jump - into the darkness of an unknown future, out of the cave of stars."