The Heretic Hardback

David Drake's legendary Raj Whitehall series, stunninglyreborn!

Humanity settled the stars, only to fall into a catastrophic collapse.

Onone planet, a single artificial intelligence, a computer program known asCenter, found a military genius of grit and daring in Raj Whitehall, and theGalactic Republic rose again.

But many dark planets remain - planets suchas Duisenberg.

Here, a single river cuts through a vast continental desert and aculture not unlike that of New Kingdom Egypt has developed.

But, when a capsulecontaining the forbidden metal, plastic, and circuit boards that Zentrum hatesfalls from the sky - circuits with secretly stowed away, uploaded versionsof Raj and Center - everything changes!

What Raj and Center need now is ahero to break the Land's stasis and lead Duisberg back from the galacticdark ages.

Enter Abel Dashian. The son of a local military commander, he is abrilliant and courageous young man who has lost his mother to a simple bacterialinfection.

He is a young man who will dare anything to avenge his mother'sdeath and bring about change.

He is the Heretic.