War in heaven - David Zindell

A triumphant close to The Requiem for Homo Sapiens - an epic tour de force that began with The Broken God and was followed by The Wild.

Danlo wi Soli Ringess, son of Mallory Ringess, the pilot who became a god, now has the greatest mission of his life to complete. With Bertram Jaspari's evil Architects terrorising the universe with their killing star - the morrashar - and Hanuman's Ringists intent on converting the rest of humanity to the Way of Ringess, Danlo must somehow try to prevent War in Heaven. He must return to his home planet of Neverness, there to confront the demons and ghosts of his earlier life.

Behind him travels an army of lightships, commanded by the ever-larger-than-life Bardo, falling from fixed-point to fixed-point throughout the deep, dark spaces of the Vild, ready to do battle, if they must, with the Ringists' fleet, lying in ambush for them beyond the Star of Neverness.

In Icefall, Danlo will face many perils and delights: he will confront once more Hanuman li Tosh, his greatest childhood friend and now his deadliest enemy. He will search for his lover, Tamara ten Ashtoreth, whose memory of their time together was destroyed by Hanuman. He will see for himself how humanity responds to starvation and fear for its very life; and he will take an extraordinay journey - the most remarkable journey ever made by any human being - out into the universe, through deceit and temptation and love, to learn what it is to be a man with a conscience, a heart and a soul; and by taking this most dangerous journey of all, Danlo the Wild, Danlo Peacewise, the Lightbringer, will be true to his name, and his heritage.

War in Heaven brings to a cataclysmic finale the most amazing and awe-inspiring journey in modern science fiction, combining the ultimate in space adventure with philosophy, mathematics, spirituality and superb characterization. It is truly the greatest romantic epic of modern sf.