Defender of the Flame

Sylvia Engdahl

Apr 2013 · Sylvia Engdahl

About this ebook

Starship pilot Terry Radnor is puzzled and outraged when he is suddenly recalled from interstellar exploration and then, just when he has become involved in a secret project offering him extraordinary physical and psychic capabilities, he is transferred to a cruiser for a tour of duty he expects to hate. But the cruiser's mission proves to be unlike anything he could have imagined. Advancing rapidly in his career, Terry finds fulfillment in love and in commitment to a cause—until an ironic twist of fate tears him away from everything he cares about. He is forced to build a whole new life, far from all that has previously mattered to him. Is there any hope that he can fulfill his pledge to protect the world whose safety is crucial--more crucial than anyone else knows--to the future of humankind?

While this novel follows Stewards of the Flame and Promise of the Flame, it begins a separate series that doesn't depend on having read them. Unlike Sylvia Engdahl's other previous novels, it is not a Young Adult book and is not appropriate for middle-school readers.

About the author

Sylvia Engdahl is the author of ten science fiction novels. Six of them are Young Adult books that are also enjoyed by adults, all of which were originally published by Atheneum and have been republished, in both hardcover and paperback, by different publishers in the twenty-first century. The one for which she is best known, Enchantress from the Stars, was a Newbery Honor book, winner of the 1990 Phoenix Award of the Children's Literature Association, and a finalist for the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Rediscovery category. Her four most recent novels, the Hidden Flame series and the Rising Flame series, are not YA books and are not appropriate for middle-school readers, but will be enjoyed by the many adult fans of her work.