There Will Be Dragons

In an incredible change of pace from his signature Posleen Carnography series, John Ringo has written the first of a series that will make you think, rail against his points, and maybe even change your point of view about some of the trends in modern society. For thousands of years, Mother has taken care of us. The giant artificial intelligence, with the help of her bazillions of nanobots, has provided instantaneous transportation, food, lodging, education (if you want it), heat, light, health care, and just about anything you could wish for, including the ability to change shape to any natural or mythological being your little heart desires. Alas, she hasn't been able to rid the world of psychopaths, and several of them have amassed great power. Power enough to turn much of Mother's safety net off, and turn humanity back to having to do for itself. This may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing, but the fact remains that billions died. This makes it pretty clear who the bad guys are. The good guys, like all the true heroes, have to discover who they are, and what their duty is, and what the limits of what they can do really are. The classic example of this is Herzer Herrick, who starts out as a helpless cripple shortly before the Crash, and winds up as the world's Second Greatest Soldier. (Maybe third, you'll have to read the book to find out what I'm talking about). Read this book. It might help you understand a lot about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Walt Boyes The Bananaslug. at Baen's Bar

There Will Be Dragons (2003) is the first SF novel in The Council Wars series. The Earth has been at peace for a thousand years since the AI Wars and the population is down to a billion people and shrinking. The ecological recovery project is ongoing under the supervision of Mother, the distributed operating system of the Net. The energy demands for ordinary usage are down, only requiring fourteen of the terawatt generators, although a surplus is being stored for future use in the Wolf 359 terraforming project. The population has engaged in all sorts of manipulations of body form, including body sculpting, genetic modification, Change via teleportation, or Transfer to a nanite cloud. Such manipulations have also been applied to plants and animals. One such genetic mod created the Elves long ago. In this novel, the only remaining governmental body, the Terrestrial Council for Information Strategy and Management, is called into special session by Paul Bowman, who proposes rationing of energy to force humanity to have to work (on what is unclear). Work is, in itself, liberating and should lead to an increase in population, thereby saving humanity from decline and extinction. A majority of those present rejects his agenda. Sheida Ghorbani recognizes the fascist nature of Bowman's approach and suspects something underhanded is likely to happen to the Council members who oppose him. She solicits advice from Edmund Talbot, a reenactor and student of military history, and takes the advised precautions. Unfortunately, they are only partial successful and one of her supporters is killed at the next Council meeting. Yet Sheida's group manages to recover all their Keys, talismans allowing them to vote on the Council, in the retreat from the Council chamber. Bowman's group starts attacking their sanctuary with energy bolts, so Sheida has her supporters shut down the energy web and then physically occupy the power plants to deny them to Bowman's group. Then they start locking out subprograms in the Net. When the populace is denied access to the energy web and the Net, people begin to die. Scientists in the photosphere of the Sun are vaporized in an instant. Those investigating the magma underlying the continents are crushed almost as fast. Vessels and people fall out of the sky or are suddenly without power in the middle of an ocean. Those individuals who survive the initial shutdown are still faced with starvation. Food was grown in the central plains and distributed via the Net. Now the distribution system is gone and the available food supply is minimal in most locations. People lucky enough to be within a reasonable distance of a primitive living area, reenactors or anarchia, gather whatever supplies and equipment are on hand and start walking. In this story, the reenactors within Raven's Mill gather together under the leadership of Edmund Talbot and start preparing for an influx on refugees. They create a familiarization program that will provide e

Humanity lives in a veritable Garden of Eden with disease and death conquered. Mankind lives almost like Gods in a Utopian Olympus controlled by the computer "Mother", who monitors and calculates probable outcomes. Mother realizes that there is a 99.9999915% chance that the humans will go to war as the council, who oversees her, is squabbling and there is a 17.347% probability they will wipe out the species. However, Mother is not programmed to warn humanity or any other intelligent speices (machine or animal).The war causes massive destruction with no corner of the globe immune. In isolated Raven's Mill, smith and self proclaimed historian Edmund Talbot sees refugees seeking asylum while warlords assault anyone. Elves visit him to help save mankind, but it may be too late. Enemies from Edmund's past and new foes realize that to conquer, they must eliminate Edmund first. He is the key for the 82.653% survival of the species; that is if he is not distracted by the fact that his daughter is out there as a perfect pawn to destroy him. Mother knows that without Edmund the survival odds are reversed.THERE WILL BE DRAGONS is an exciting blending of future science fiction with some fantasy elements into a delightful action-packed tale. The story line never slows down from the moment Mother computes the odds in a mundane ho hum manner. The cast seems genuine whether they are "perfect" human, elf, other mythological creature, or man working the land. Still it is John Ringo's world that makes Paradise obtained and Paradise Lost seem credible that makes this fab tale so much fun. Fans will anxiously await sequels to ascertain whether humanity finds Paradise Regained.Harriet Klausner

My idea of Television is reading multiple books at the same time. Its just like being a regular viewer of television. You read a few chapters, put that book down and pick up the next. I was planning to do this yesterday. I had the whole day to myself and looked forward to the books I was enjoying. Until I picked up There Will Be Dragons.I couldn't put it down. Of course I finished it yesterday and now I'm upset because I can't have more. By the way; that only happened one other time this year. The name of that book was "A hymn before battle."John Ringo is one hell of an author.The cover of There Will Be Dragons would make one believe that it was a fantasy story. That is not the case. It is purely Sci-Fi in its finest form. The story is set in the 40th century(?) where people have advanced to the point in which they can change their form to be anything from the most beautiful human imaginable to a unicorn. The book begins with society being nearly euphoric. Then because of political infighting, control of the energy which sustains that euphoria is subverted and all of society reverts to a preindustrialized level.The plot builds quickly and the momentum never stops. I dare you to pick this book up. You can't put it down.

It's not often I read a book where the author mixes low-tech fantasy with high-tech science fiction and makes it interesting. But John Ringo does a darn good job of it in this book. He takes a future Utopia, where all the work anyone has to do is say "Genie, another beer", and asks the age old question, "What is the worst thing I can do to these characters short of killing them?"The result is a high-tech war between feuding Council members using Clarkian level technology (indistinquishable from magic), while the rest of the world is suddenly denied the energy net that provides just about everything in their lives, and has to fight a low-tech war with nothing more advanced than cold steel, just to survive.I highly recommend this book to any fans of sword-and-sorcery fantasy, as well as anyone else who likes Baen's style of books.