There Will be Dragons (Council Wars Book 1)

I love the premise. The survivalist method of taking a society that had it all and making them come to terms with needing to learn how to survive. The folks who did survival as a hobby ended up being the ones to lead the masses to safety, etc.

I am nearing the end of this novel and find it a great work.

I initially chose this book because of the author. As expected, John Ringo is a phenomenal story teller. However, the story and characters could have been set up better. You struggle with the plot and characters until the middle of the book. That's is when the characters Herzer and Edmund (Charles) pretty much save the entire project from becoming a total.disaster...

Gave up on book about halfway through. Great ideas, adequate writing, but it was like reading a textbook with dialogue. I felt no emotional involvement with either the story or the characters. Maybe actual dragons would have helped!

There's a good story here and some likeable characters, in this tale of a high tech civilization suddenly reduced to manual labor. But Ringo lets his conservative Second Amendment fantasies take over and it is so full of End Days ideology that I couldn't finish it. Made me barf. Just tell the story, for chrissakes. The wingnut ideological rants make this story stink.

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 experience in several key areas, including military skills. Since the Net is still prohibiting explosives, such skills are with various forms of clubs and edged weapons.

This story is a post-utopian tale, similar to Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon. The discontented want to change society to suit their own taste and are willing to kill others to get their way. One of the first problems created by the shutdown is the formation of bandit gangs. However, the long term problem is feudalism.

The story also has some of the flavor of Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky. Individuals from a highly advanced technological society are suddenly left to their own devices and whatever primitive devices that they can build. But this story has a nucleus of hobbyists who play at living in technologically primitive societies, some of whom are smiths with their own forges and other tools. On the other hand, the majority of the populace in this story has not had survival training prior to the shutdown.

The survivors include Daneh Ghorbani, ex-wife of Talbot, and their daughter Rachel as well as Herzer Hertrick, a friend of Rachel and ex-patient of Daneh. For the most part, the Elves are neutral in this conflict, but Bast the Wood Elf insists on being involved. Angus Peterka the Dwarf is also supporting the people of Raven's Mill with refined metals from his reclaimed mine.

This story depicts the expansion and defense of the town of Raven's Mill. The greater struggle is continuing and could go either way. Thus, there is plenty of opportunities for sequels; Emerald Sea will be released in July and Against the Tide has been written.

Highly recommended for Ringo (and Heinlein) fans and for anyone else who enjoys tale of primitive combat and local politics in a fantastic (but possible) setting.

-Arthur W. Jordin

For a thousand years, Earth has been almost paradise. A computer artificial intelligence, 'Mother,' keeps track of everything, prevents explosions, and supplies enough energy and nanite technology for everyone to live in plenty. A few recreators dream about the romance of medieval life, but for the most part, they enjoy the long lives that nanite technology allows. There is one problem in paradise. Despite the long lives, humanity is under-reproducing itself. According to some calculations, it will die out entirely if trends don't change. And a faction of the ruling council has come up with a scheme to change everything. That faction is essentially fascism. When the council splits, war breaks out and all of the energy produced by 'Mother' is suddenly drawn into the conflict.
Edmund, a smith and medieval recreator, gathers an increasing group of refugees into a town. Since Mother doesn't allow steam engines, let alone internal combustion, they need to recreate medieval technology. But not everyone is content to live in peace--bandits are becoming increasingly organized--and supported by the fascist council members. Former recreator and recently healed Herzer joins the town, gets to work in timber cutting, then joins Edmund's brain-child. A Roman legion. Legions, Edmond reasons, stayed a Republic as long as it did because of the legion. Peasant levies and heavy cavalry, in contrast, lead to feudal serf/noble societies--something that Edmund wants to avoid but that he can only prevent in his own section of the world.
THERE WILL BE DRAGONS starts a bit slowly, although the world-building is interesting and convincing. The background, AI wars, Mother, and energy currenty all make for a well-conceived future (I'm not sure that a world where reenactors stop around the beginning of the 20th century really makes sense for the 50th century, nor that 50th century citizens would be more aware of the evils of Pol Pot than we are of the evils of particular old kingdom Egyptian phaeros, but hey, we have to give authors a bit of leeway on the cultural things. Parts of Herzer's life also read like an adolescent male's fantasy--how about that bikini-clad elf-warrior on the cover, anyway.
I found myself getting angry at author John Ringo's strange belief that arming the people does much good (it certainly didn't keep Iraq or Afghanistan from totalitarian evils), but in the end, his story convinced me. The Roman legion training and the battle sequences which make up the final third of the book were a great payoff for the reading investment. Naturally, DRAGONS leaves a lot of loose ends hanging--plenty of material for sequels, but I'm looking forward to reading more.

So you are an author in love with military history, reenactors, renn-fests, the second amendment, and the stock fantasy world elf-dwarf-orc-dragon types. Hmmm - hwo to get them all in one book??? The setup is this: Thousands of years in the future MOTHER is a huge AI-computer that provides nearly unlimited energy and computing power to a much-reduced population. Humans live about 400 years and do not have to do much of anything if they don't want to. There are no longer roads or rails or airlines or any other modern transportation because MOTHER will teleport you from A to B. It is no problem to eat lunch in Syndey and shop in Moscow and live in the wilds of Alaska and make it home for dinner. MOTHER allows one to bio-engineer themselves into an elf or a dragon if one so wishes, thus the Tolkein types. Apparently some people, bored with such an easy life, have resurected 20th/21st century reenactor/renn-fest culture and make swords and other medeival pursuits. Why THIS type of nostalgia beats out say year 2250 flying car races is not explained. One faction of the Council, which controls MOTHER, correctly IMHO decides that humanity is becoming lazy and useless. I think this would happen in about 5 years instead of hundreds, but YMMV. They wish to make people work for their luxuries and start a civil war with council members who like the status quo. MOTHER now cannot do anything because the warring factions prevent it or hog all the energy themselves. This causes an instant regression to a 12th century lifestyle. One early casualty is someone on a jet-ski a thousand miles from the nearest land who now has a dead machine and no way to teleport home. IMHO this is where the book starts to really go off the rails. People that have NEVER worked for their survival and have no way to even get to a town would just die. 99% of humanity would be gone in a period of a few weeks. They would be VASTLY worse off than a typical 12th century village. Farms might be 2,000 miles away, but thanks to teleportation the food can move just as easily as moving 2 miles. There ARE NO ROADS. No way to get anyplace but walk through wild forest that hasn't seen a road crew in centuries. The consequences would be VASTLY worse than depicted. Of course in the book the RennFesters now get to be medeival knights and lead troops into battle and otherwise live out 21st century geek fantasy life. I never saw a dragon and I got most of the way through too.

. . .with the usual for John Ringo: expect the unexpected. The ultra-high tech civilization of the 42nd Century is forced back to the middle ages by a split and attempted coup de main of the council that rules Earth... and the aftermath and re-building that follows. Most of the story centers around the village of Raven's Faire, what USED to be a site for a Renaissance Faire, and with the Fall, is now one of the centers civilization is re-forming around.
This is the first of several volumes covering both the war at the high level, and at the level of the people stranded in the New Dark Ages. Science AND pseudo-sorcery via nanotechnology: unlikely heroes and a classic villain. Oh, yes, and a 2,000-year-old nymphomaniac elf. I couldn't put it down, and doubt you can either. . .

This is a nice, entertaining piece of fluff. (Previous reviewers have outlined the plot, so I won't go deeply into it here.) I enjoyed the read much more when I stopped trying to take it seriously. The premise--"What happens when your super-advanced society gets busted back to Pre-Industrial Times?" is interesting--though I found it hard to believe that enough Ren-Faire enthusiasts would be around in the year 5 zillion to save everybody's bacon by growing food, hunting wild boar and hammering up weapons.

But the author combines Monty Python's 'Spanish Inquisition' skit with Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance, *in the same paragraph*...so it's all good.

With this book, John Ringo has graduated to becoming one of my top 10 favorite writers. The characters in this book are real and realistic, which is not something that automatically happens. He has taken a disaster scenario and played it out with likeable as well as hateable characters and some scary types on the sidelines. If you like SCA or other re-enacting groups, if you like fantasy or hard Science Fiction, this book gives you a satisfying experience right to the end. The only problem is that the next book isn't ready yet!

I am very impressed. While I have enjoyed all of Mr. Ringo's previous offerings, this is his best yet. In the areas of story concept, structure, character development and sheer reading enjoyment, this book is comparable to works by such greats as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Author C. Clarke. My wife did comment on the obligatory partially clad female in the cover art and I must agree while well drawn it is superfluous (but then, I prefer it over rampaging robots and killer aliens). I don't like telling much about a story's plot line; just know that it is about utopia gone wrong, humankind's continued failure to advance socially as fast as our technology, and our continued failure to learn from past mistakes.
My sincere thanks to Mr. Ringo and his publishers for a very excellent read. Bravo

It begins with a fascinating concept: Technology has advanced to the point that people can have their DNA manipulated to suit their wants and needs, much like walking into a clothing store to pick out a new outfit. Nannites (microscopic machines) can resculpt minor details of a person's body, or give them a full make-over into another species, such as a unicorn, dolphin, or giant bear. Those who go for the full make-over are known as "Changes". Gone are the issues of transportation, work, and disease. The human life-span has even increased to hundreds of years.

However, antagonist Paul Bowman of the Council sees the human population decreasing, and wants to give humanity incentive to start breeding again. He sabotages the Keys (Council members' claim to power) of the four on the council who oppose him, and diverts large portions of the Net's power to fighting them, thus heralding in "the Fall", which robs everyone of their nannites. The common folk are now unable to teleport, heal themselves, or summon food and resources at a whim (unless assisted directly by someone on the council). Humanity must now revert to the methods of ancient times, and who better to lead a fraction of them than the Renaissance Faire buff and history expert Edmund Talbot, first mayor and then baron of the village Raven's Mill.

Many of the characters are fleshed out; Edmund was my favorite, Herzer was OK when he wasn't bordering on being a Mary Sue, and Bast was fun to read. Daneh, first a genegineer and then the head doctor of Raven's Mill, experiences sexual assault in the first half of the story and spends the rest of it wrestling the resultant trauma. You come to respect her as a character.

Also, John Ringo knows how to write a riveting fight scene. Herzer versus the orcs in the training simulation had my eyes glued to the page. Other action scenes of note include when Herzer fights the bandits in the defile while out scouting, and then later when the Blood Lords and archers face off with Dionys' forces near the climax of the novel.

That's all good. But the problems here rest in the overly technical writing style and the political rants. Sheida embodied anything that was wrong with this novel. That character was a know-it-all who loved to hear herself ramble, leaving me as the reader both annoyed and at times, confounded. You could argue that politics was one of the main points in all of this, but it didn't work for me. The story would have been better had it focused more on the emotional and psychological effects of the Fall. Instead, when Ringo isn't writing politics, he's delving too deeply into the physical aspects of farming, construction, and military formation.

It had potential to be excellent, but ultimately I can say that, in my opinion, it was "fine".

The premise, while lacking originality, could have been intriguing: A future where humanity has no wants - where force fields and nanobots have essentially turned the whole world into a giant Holodeck from Star Trek. When the machines running everything lose power, only the few who had avoided technology know how to survive.

But the execution is terrible. The humanity addicted to technology does not feel particularly different than the humanity today. There is nothing about the people themselves that make me feel like I'm reading about people in the future. I've read novels that really examine what humans in the future may become, how society may change and evolve - this is not one of them.

And when people do show up at the doorsteps of the few who had been living without technology, they learn the 'old ways' far too quickly. These were people completely dependent on technology for even the most basic needs. But there is very little complaining, very little time spent on how difficult and different their lives are now. Changing your lives completely like that isn't something you pick up overnight!

The final nail in the coffin that lead me to call this 'Renaissance Faire fan fiction' is when, later in the book, there is a huge party and everyone participates 'in garb'. That means, they were all wearing Renaissance Faire clothes. Working in Ren Faire clothes... the whole day. I've worked at the Faire myself for a couple decades, and I know from experience that NO ONE (especially women) in their right mind wears and works in garb the whole day if they don't have to!

The whole book is filled with little things that just don't make sense. The characters are bland, I have trouble remembering any of them beyond basic descriptions of 'leader of the Ren Faire people' 'hero of the book', etc. The villains come out of the generic bad-guy factory. In more masterful hands, this could have been a compelling book. But as it is the first book by John Ringo I've read, it is also the last.

for a book that certainly goes in a different direction than John Ringo's previous books and series. To paraphrase, Arthur C. Clarke, when technology is far beyond what you're used to, it's magic. Ringo's society has that type of technology.
But then, the magic dies, and people are forced to rely on technologies from several thousand years before.
This is the first of a series, and it's only flaw is that, like all series, it has to establish who's who and what's what. Because of this, the first 1/8 of the book seems slow. After that first 1/8, though, the story takes off and you need to hang on.
There are some great characters (some of whom have names I found familiar) and there are some great in-jokes for fans of Ringo's books and SF in general.
There are dragons, by the way. Just not as main characters, and you can understand the title if remember that old maps had parts of them unmarked, except for the words, "Here Be Dragons." The characters are going into "Dragon" territory in this book.

We have everything else in this book, but no dragons. A first-rate, fast paced story with characters you care about, a fantasy world totally based on science, humor, action villains(except for one) who have understandable motives, and told in a way that you can't put it down. What's not to like?
There may be dragons in the following books, but they don't show up here. This is a minor nit, but I heartily recommend the book to those who like science fiction, fantasy, military science fiction, and history.

The book is an interesting beginning to a series that bridges the gap between Science Fiction and Fantasy. The future of the Series would seem to be predictable but the way the author attacks the situations will be the telling part.
I to have enjoyed the "Posleen" series and the "March To" series and also found that they ran out of steam towards the end. I hope that this does not happen in this series.
The series seems to be developing on two tracks, one track with the people displaced by the war (read the Mortals) and the other track with those causing the war (read the Gods), with people who talk with the "Gods" being the leaders of the "Mortals" possible future "Wizards".
If the author can keep the action going without being bogged down in detail, like "The March to the Stars" this could be a great series, but I have been burned by the author before.

I must admit that I* really love the survival type stories. This is one such series that is started here. The beginning is a touch slow but it really picks up steam after first 100 pages or so. Boy are the bad guys bad too!!!