Three hundred people, isolated on a raw new planet in the hope that their psi powers will become the foundation of a culture that can someday shape the future of humankind. If they don’t starve first. If they don’t lose heart in the face of hardships beyond any they imagined. And if their kids can be reared to believe in the dream and keep it alive from one generation to the next.

Starship captain Jesse Sanders hasn’t expected to be responsible for the settlement. Peter is the leader, the visionary on whose inspiration they all depend. But Peter has his hands full, not only with maintaining morale but with grueling ordeals of his own. So the job of ensuring the colony’s survival falls on Jesse. And in the end, he must stake his life in a desperate attempt to prevent the loss of all they have gained.

This novel is a sequel to Stewards of the Flame. It is completely independent and can be read alone, but reading it first will spoil some of the suspense of the earlier book.  Although set in the distant future on another world, it’s not just for science fiction fans and will appeal to anyone interested in the future development of the human mind or the question of how high a price should be paid for freedom of choice.

What others are saying...

I started reading Promise of the Flame as soon as it arrived and I was hooked from the first page. I picked the book up every chance I got and finally the second day finished it by staying up late. Sylvia Engdahl knows how to pace a novel and get her message across while telling an engaging and suspenseful story.

I think I actually like Promise of the Flame even more than Stewards of the Flame. In the first book, the idealist philosophy was created in opposition to the bounds of their society. However, in the sequel, the characters have to balance survival (short and long term) with these ideals. Definitely not an easy task.