To Open the Sky

To Open the Sky quite elegantly combines religion, psychic powers, terraforming, immortality, and political conflict into an engaging whole. This is a particularly interesting treatment of the theme of religion in SF. The plot hinges on the emergence of powerful new religious movements, albeit ones nominally rooted in scientific thought. It is a religion, not a conventional scientific or civil authority, which pioneers technological development in this novel, up to and including functional immortality and interstellar travel.