For centuries, the world of Safehold, last redoubt of the human race, lay under the unchallenged rule of the Church of God Awaiting. The Church permitted nothing new--no new inventions, no new understandings of the world.What no one knew was that the Church was an elaborate fraud--a high-tech system established by a rebel faction of Safehold's founders, meant to keep humanity hidden from the powerful alien race that had destroyed old Earth.Then awoke Merlyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of a warrior a thousand years dead, felled in the war in which Earth was lost. Monk, warrior, counselor to princes and kings, Merlyn has one purpose: to restart the history of the too-long-hidden human race.And now the fight is thoroughly underway. The island empire of Charis has declared its independence from the Church, and with Merlyn's help has vaulted forward into a new age of steam-powered efficiency.
