There Will Be Dragons

By: John Ringo

Narrated by: Tim Fannon

Paradise lost...

In the future there is no want, no war, no disease nor ill-timed death. The world is a paradise - and then, in a moment, it ends. The council that controls the Net falls out and goes to war. Everywhere people who have never known a moment of want or pain are left wondering how to survive.

But scattered across the face of the earth are communities which have returned to the natural life of soil and small farm. 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, bandits are roaming the woods, and his former lover and his only daughter struggle through the Fallen landscape. 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. You cross Edmund Talbot at your peril, for a smith is not all he once was....

©2003 John Ringo (P)2020 Recorded Books

sleeper

I almost gave up on this book during the character introductions. It bored me into Oblivion. Then when they started telling the story the book got damn good.

great book

I loved this story. it is , I think the first book I read by Ringo. highly reccomended.

a future society is cast down over politics. some people want civilization. some only want power.

This is why we can't have nice things.

John Ringo authors an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic story where, with the mastery over nanites, humanity had conquered most of what defined their limitations, short lifespan, restricted physical form choices, starvation, housing, pollution, energy availability, child birth, &c. All they had to due was give up their ultimate control of their destiny to an advanced AI under the aegis ruling council. What could possibly go wrong!? Well, wrong it did go and threw humanity back to the pre-medieval period of existence with humanity completely unprepared and caught between two factions attempting to wrest control of the AI and either bring humanity under a Rousseau/Caligula fascist rule or a return to the more enlightened, less guarded previous rule.

Book one explores in details the cruelty (murder, rape, pillaging, &c) and difficulty of rebooting a society where humans were forced to become self-sufficient. There is also a large portion of the book spent on the negative effects to women, starting with rape and moving to menstrual cycles and physical constraints. While most of this topic of exploration was interesting, considering that those worries had long since being alleviated, I felt that too much focus was placed on it.

I intend to continue the series with the hope that the saga spends more time moving the story forward and less time spent on the day-to-day human interactions.

Props to Tim Fannon for a well done performance.

I like the first book

I found Mr. Ringo from the MHI series. I loved what he wrote and not I've started this series.

Some potential

I had listened to the whole book and didn't gave up.
The book have some potential, but it's not worth the time and effort.
most of the book is a mix of genres and variety of story telling technics, so it's missing the point of writing a good book.

context

if you're going to publish military fiction, get someone to narrate who understands the jargon. please. give loved this series for damn near twenty years and hearing things pronounced wrong or enunciated badly, or inflected limply makes my teeth itch. you can do better. please do.

thank you!

I have been hoping for this book to be released for a couple decades or so. I loved reading it as a young adult and enjoyed the tale once again. I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with the reader but he did a better job than I could have so I can't complain much. He wasn't outstanding as some I've listened to but he was not bad either. hope to see the next few books soon

Weak development

Very weak story about the relationship between omnipotence and the humans who control her. On what basis do they make choices? Omnipotence controls them. That is easy to see because the choices of the "All-Knowing" are beyond the understanding of those who don't know. At the same time, they control omnipotence. This is where things are left completely up to the reader's imagination.

Book 1, where’s the dragons?

There were lots of places where the story was full of fluffy descriptions that added nothing to the world building nor character development. I mostly enjoyed it because it was somewhat unique as a storyline but I’m not likely to buy book 2. Luckily there was no big cliff hanger ending.

dystopia, but way in the future

interesting premise... far, far in a technologically advanced, narcissistic culture, mother allows them to struggle....