(This book is known in the UK as Heritage of the Star) Noren can see that his world is not as it should be--it is wrong that only the Scholars, and their representatives the Technicians, can use metal tools and Machines. It's wrong that only those few have access to the impenetrable City, which he has always longed to enter. Above all, it is wrong for the Scholars to have sole power over the distribution of knowledge. Unable to believe in the Prophecy that promises these restrictions will someday end, he declares it to be a fraud and defies the High Lew under which they are enforced. His family and the girl to whom he is betrothed reject him. Yet he cannot turn back from the path that leads him to the mysterious fate awaiting heretics. This classic science fiction novel is enjoyed by readers age 12 and up as well as by teens and adults who go on to read the other two books in the Children of the Star trilogy. Originally published in hardcover by Atheneum in the US and by Gollancz in the UK under the title Heritage of the Star, it was the winner of a Christopher Award given for "affirmation of the highest values of the human spirit."

The lead essay in this cellection by the author of Newbery honor book Enchantress from the Stars deals with issues that she wants readers of the novel to be aware of. Too often misinterpretations arise when the story is thought to be an allegory about relations between different cultures of our own world, when it is literally about possible relations between different "human" species of other worlds that have evolved for vastly different lengths of time. The two situations are not comparable, and assuming that they are leads some readers to think the book endorses a view of cultural relations that was rejected by anthropologists long ago. Though much in the story does apply to relationships between individual people of our world, as far as culture is concerned its aim is to counter the all-too-common science fiction view of extraterrestrial aliens either as hostile or as benevolent beings who will step in to solve Earth's problems. Whether or not there really are any aliens, how young people think of them affects how rhey feel about the future of humankind. The rest of the essays in this book are about the author's other Young Adult novels and about subjects relevant to them such as the importance of space exploration and the reality of psi powers. They have been selected from her collections Reflections on Enchantress from the Stars and Other Essays, the Future of Being Human and Other Essays, and From This Green Earth: Essays on Looking Outward, two of which are available only as ebooks. Because of their length these collections cannot be issued as paperbacks at reasonable prices, so this short sampler has been produced for the benefit of readers who have a strong preference for print books and/or audioboox. The following essays are included. Reflections on Enchantress from the Stars Perspective on the Future: The Quest of Space Age Young People Faith as the Focus of Children of the Star Update on the Critical Stage: The Far Side of Evil's Relevance Today A Response to Some Reactions to Journey Between Worlds Breaking Out from Earth's Shell The Role of Psi in Human Affairs The Roots of Disbelief in Human Mind Powers Transhumanism Is a Dead End The Worship of Medical Authority Why I Don‟t Read Much Science Fiction

Here are the author's collected essays about her Newbery Honor book Enchantress from the Stars and other Young Adult and adult science fiction novels, plus two autobiographical essays. Her comments on Enchantress deal with issues she would like all its readers to be aware of. This is one of three books of essays that replace Reflections on the Future: Collected Essays, which has grown too long and covers too many topics. Most of the essays included appeared there, so if you already have that book you don't need this one. The other two replacement books, including a number of new essays, are focused on space and on the human mind.

With genetic engineering promising salvation for the people on their hostile planet, the Scholar Noren finds he faces more problems than overcoming the taboo on genetic research.

Children of the Star trilogy, Book Two. Once Noren gained admission to the City where technology was hidden, he thought he had discovered how to make metal and Machines available to everyone and end the rule of the Scholars. But he soon learned it was not as simple as he had believed. Was it right to let people go on believing in the promises of a Prophecy that might not come true after all?

Sylvia Engdahl became fascinated by the idea of space travel in 1946, and has believed since the early 1950s that expansion of our species to other worlds is vital to the preservation of Earth and the future survival of humankind. Many of the essays in this book express her conviction that we should not be discouraged by the public's reluctance to support space activity, since all past human progress has been brought about by visionaries who did not have the backing of their contemporaries. The shock of realizing during the moon landings that contact with the vast and perhaps peril-fraught universe is no longer mere fiction dampened the enthusiasm of the majority, but this was a natural reaction comparable seventeenth century people's resistance to the idea that Earth is not, as formerly thought, safely enclosed within crystal spheres that hold up the celestial bodies. It will pass, and we need have no doubt that generations who come after us will venture forth from this green Earth and find their way to the stars. The following essays are included. The Once and Future Dream (new) Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landing Breaking Out from Earth's Shell Why Does the History of Outlook Toward Space Matter? Confronting the Universe in the Twenty-First Century Space and Human Survival The Only Sensible Way to Deal with Climate Change Update on the Critical Stage: The Far Side of Evil’s Relevance Today Space Colonization, Faith, and Pascal’s Wager Why There Will Never Be an Interplanetary War Humankind's Future in the Cosmos

When starship captain Jesse Sanders is detained by a dictatorial medical regime on the colony planet Undine, he is plunged into a life involving ordeals and joys unlike anything he has ever imagined.