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We are introduced to this world a few hundred years after the Reversal. The story will take us throughout the new-Old world, from Maghreb to Moskva and from the Aeire to New Nairobi, the capital of the mighty Kenyan empire. The civilisation of the Users is gone, and machinery and science are viewed with suspicion though not necessarily universally: the Kenyans are building industry and developing technology already: from windmills to projectile weapons (not identical to ones known from our past!). Old religion survived and appear to be thriving, Islam, Christianity and its Orthodox version in Mother Russia has returned.
The set-up and something in the feel of this world reminded me of Walter M Miller's s-f classic [[''A Canticle for Leibowitz]]'', but ''The Lost Art'' is first and foremost a riotous roller coaster of an action-adventure story, with a well constructed, fast-paced plot, judicious use made of science fiction devices and concepts and larger-than-life characters.
A set of indestructible User books is stolen in a bloodily murderous raid at the Siberian monastery. A fanatic ex-assassin monk who believes that if used, the books will bring on the destruction of the world sets off to find them, aided by a princess bound to him by an irrational and unrequited love.