A long time ago, humans destroyed the earth's environment with their greedy wants and wars. Moving onto other worlds humanity broke into two factions: the Greens, mostly comprised of the brown people's of the world and crazy religious zealots, mostly white people. Trystin, a soldier for the Greens, is an anomaly, though: tall, white, and blonde, he is a dedicated soldier but an outsider because of his looks. Modesitt plays with identity a little with this, but it is mostly a plot device. The religious zealots--think a diabolical cross between Mormons, Muslims, and Manifest Destiny--believe they have the right to take terroitory away from infidels, so they send waves of fighter space baloons across the vastness in attacks that take decades to reach their targets. Eventually, Trystin is chosen to infiltrate the religious nut's home planet and stop them. He does this through manipulating their own faith. All in all, this was fairly interesting, but it was far too long.
