Moonbound

Eleven thousand years from now, Ariel is a boy living in a remote village ruled by a wizard. Much has changed since our era, and yet plenty of it would still look familiar. His quiet life ends when he is drawn out into a wider world.

Ahead of him lie unknown enemies, a mission to rescue the world, and a girl. There are also dragons. Ariel follows the path of many adventurers before him, through a place full of strange discoveries and sharp challenges.

Before any of that begins, Ariel meets an entity left over from an earlier civilization. It is a sentient, sensitive artificial intelligence with a particular view of the whole of human history. It becomes his greatest ally, and it also narrates the book, so the story reaches the reader in its voice.

This is far-future fantasy adventure with a rollicking, energetic tone, and it is epic in scale across time and space. It extends the Penumbraverse, the setting of Robin Sloan's earlier work, and it is billed as the start of something larger. The book is also interested in the nature of storytelling itself.