There Will Be Dragons

In the future there is no want, no war, no disease nor ill-timed death. Nannites heal the sick, replicators make the food and teleportation whisks anyone to any spot on the globe. Children are born in force-bubbles, play with mountains and grow up to power-surf across the face of the sea. Bodies are shaped like clay into whimsical fantasies of mer-people, dwarves, dragons and rays designed to plumb the depths of the oceans. Creatures are twisted into fantasy as well with giant house-cats as pets and flying feathered serpents. To wish is to have. Population has fallen, the world is a paradise and humans are gods.
And then, in a moment, it ends. The council that controls the Net goes to war. With itself. Everywhere people who have never known a moment of want or pain are left wondering how to survive. And after long ages of being pent up by forces it could not match, weather is proving once again that it's a mother. However, scattered across the face of the earth there are communities for whom the Fall is survivable. With infinite luxury comes infinite boredom and some have returned to the natural life of soil and small farm. "Reenactors" create fantasies of a time when, and the time turns out to be now. In the village of Raven's Mill, Edmund Talbot, master smith and unassuming historian, finds that all the problems of the world are falling in his lap. Refugees are flooding in, fields are sogged, bandits are roaming the woods and, worst of all, Bast the Wood-Elf has turned up to "help." All this while his former lover and only daughter struggle through the Fallen landscape and enemies, new and old, gather like jackals around a wounded lion. But what the jackals do not know is that while old he may be, this lion is far from death. And hidden in the past is a mystery that has waited until this time to be revealed. All that is gold does not glitter. All that is fell does not show. And disguises are temporary things. You cross Edmund Talbot at your peril.

John Ringo brings fighting to life. He is the creator of the Posleen Wars series, which has become a New York Times best-selling series with over one million copies in print. The series contains A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, Hell’s Faire, andEye of the Storm. In addition, Ringo has penned the Council War series. Adding another dimension to his skills, Ringo created nationally best-selling techno-thriller novels about Mike Harmon (Ghost, Kildar, Choosers of the Slain, Unto the Breach, A Deeper Blue, and, with Ryan Sear, Tiger by the Tail). His techno-thriller The Last Centurion was also a national bestseller. A more playful twist on the future is found in novels of the Looking-Glass series: Into the Looking Glass, Vorpal Blade, Manxome Foe, and Claws That Catch, the last three in collaboration with Travis S. Taylor. His audience was further enhanced with four collaborations with fellow New York Times best-selling author David Weber: March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars and We Few. There are an additional seven collaborations from the Posleen series: The Hero, written with Michael Z. Williamson, Watch on the Rhine, Yellow Eyes and The Tuloriad, all written with Tom Kratman, and the New York Times best seller Cally’s War and its sequels Sister Time and Honor of the Clan, all with Julie Cochrane. His science-based zombie apocalypse Black Tide Rising series includes Under a Graveyard Sky, To Sail a Darkling Sea, Islands of Rage and Hope and Strands of Sorrow. A veteran of the 82nd Airborne, Ringo brings first-hand knowledge of military operations to his fiction.