Glory's War

Glory's War, Alfred Coppel, Tor Books, 1995

This far-future novel is about the descendants of two groups of colonists from Russia on Old Earth. The first group, looking for religious freedom, spent ten years in cold sleep before arriving on one of two planets orbiting around each other in the Ross 248 star system. They liked what they saw on Nineveh, and sent word home for another group of colonists. The ship carrying them was destroyed in a meteor storm in the Ross system, and the sleep capsules were launched into space, mostly landing on Nimrud, the second planet.

They built a society, of sorts, on the desolate, barren hunk of rock, and after some years, asked to take over some unoccupied land on Nineveh. The Ninevites said No; eventually Nimrud went to war over moving to Nineveh. Recurring every few years, it has gone on for over a century.

That is the situation facing Goldenwing Glory, the last of the great interstellar sailing ships. Sister to the ships that brought both sets of colonists from Earth, it is delivering an equipment order placed 200 years previously. Glory is asked to be the venue for peace talks; of course, both sides have other plans for the ship.

Coppel does an excellent job with the society building in this novel which is also a very good space opera. It's not a very fast-moving story, but it is very much worth the read.