Hope Reborn

Contains Raj Whitehall series opening novels The Forge and The Hammer together in one volume. A young hero overcomes implacable foes to lead a planet fallen into a dark age back to the high point of its lost technological civilization. Series relaunches in April 2012 with The Heretic [Baen hardcover, 9781451638813]

Contains Raj Whitehall series opening novels The Forge and The Hammer together in one volume.

Raj Whitehall was a young noble of the Civil Government, the last remnant of galactic civilization on the planet Bellevue, when he came across an ancient but still functioning Fleet Battle Computer named Center. With Center's vast fund of knowledge and strategic calculating abilities, Raj could defeat the barbarians threatening to engulf the Civil Government, and start Bellevue on the road back to the stars. But the Governor, to whom Raj has sworn absolute loyalty, nourishes a paranoid envy and mistrust that grows with every victory. Can even a battle computer of the Galactic Age be enough to counter the fury of Raj's enemies . . . and the treachery of his "friends"?

A young hero overcomes implacable foes to lead a planet fallen into a dark age back to the high point of its lost technological civilization.

About the Author

The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn't run fast enough to get away. Dave returned to become Chapel Hill's Assistant Town Attorney and to try to put his life back together through fiction making sense of his Army experiences. Dave describes war from where he saw it: the loader's hatch of a tank in Cambodia. His military experience, combined with his formal education in history and Latin, has made him one of the foremost writers of realistic action SF and fantasy. His books include the genre-defining and bestselling Hammer’s Slammers series, the RCN series including What Distant Deeps, In the Stormy Red Sky, The Way to Glory, and many more. His bestselling Hammer's Slammers series is credited with creating the genre of modern Military SF. He often wishes he had a less interesting background. Dave lives with his family in rural North Carolina.

S.M. Stirling is a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, and living in New Mexico at present. His hobbies are mostly related to the craft, with a love of history, anthropology and archaeology, and an interest in the sciences. His books include Drakas! and The Reformer.