Traynor's World: From Steam to Stars

Traynor’s World is a young adult science fiction series set on the planet Colony, settled some 500 years earlier by an ark ship fleeing mankind’s obliteration. The major nations of Earth may have made a grave mistake by each sending quotas of their citizens: They emerged from stasis to create a new world with their old quarrels unresolved, losing or destroying most of the advanced knowledge they brought with them. Now they are on the verge of world war again, even though their technology has only recovered to the level of steam and electricity. All the while, the ark ship that they know only as the “Sphere” continues to orbit silently above them.

The boy named Jon Traynor is an unlikely agent of change. A foreign student from a backwoods farm, he dreams of the stars while mopping floors at the University in Nuvo Pari and struggling with the mysteries of mathematics, languages, politics, and girls. And then, one night, he inadvertently wakes the artificial intelligence aboard the Sphere and learns that the world as he knows it may be facing extinction. Jon holds the key to a treasure trove of knowledge, but he has more questions than answers. He may be a gifted amateur as an underage spy, but can he keep a step ahead of the powerful forces that would use ancient technology to dominate Colony? Will his people unknowingly repeat the disasters of the past? Is humanity itself a blight, or can Jon help Colony learn better ways in time?

These are the challenges that Jon faces in war and peace, in love and friendship, conflict and betrayal, as he struggles to help his friends, his country, his allies, and even his enemies cope with changes for which they are unprepared and a destiny that is bigger than they imagine. In Book 1, Jon Traynor, a farm boy headed to college in a foreign city, discovers a key to unlocking the mysteries that brought his ancestors to Colony from long-lost Earth. But others are racing to recreate ancient tech for their own purposes, and the lands of Colony are on the brink of war. Is the new world doomed to repeat the mistakes of the old? Jon just wanted to leave home and get an education. Now he finds himself in the middle of a struggle for the future of his world.