And all the stars a stage
From back cover of Avon paperback May 1974:

WHEN THE SUN EXPLODES

All life will end.  No one will survive the blow-up; except the men and women who crowd into a few starships and fly away into space while there is still time, to look for a new home in the infinite void, a new planet on which to settle.

Jorn, unskilled, unemployed, seemingly a reject from society, finds that he has what it takes to become one of the brave survivors, blasting off in hastily built ships that have never flown before.  Jorn and his companions begin a long search, threatened by repeated disasters and despair, but ultimately leading through to an expected climax for which no one is prepared.
Fiction, New Stars, Interstellar travel, Matriarchy, Engineers
James Blish
Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer. He married literary agent Virginia Kidd in 1947. He worked for the Tobacco Institute from 1962-1968.  In 1968, he emigrated to England. Between 1967 and his death in 1975, he became the first author to write short story collections based on the TV series Star Trek. In total, he wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970. He died midway through writing Star Trek 12; his second wife, J. A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.