The Wreck of the River of Stars

Winner of the Robert A. Heinlein award, "a far-future, spacefaring universe packed with action. . . . is good challenging reading" (Booklist).

In the days of the great sailing ships, in the mid-twenty-first century, when magnetic sails drew cargo and passengers alike to every corner of the solar system, sailors had the highest status of all spacemen, and the crew of the luxury liner the River of Stars, the highest among all sailors.

But development of the Farnsworth fusion drive doomed the sa...