Fred Saberhagen - Empire of the East

The sketching of all my high school classmates (see below) got me thinking of other high school times... beyond the cars, music, movies and whatnot, I read a lot as a teenager, as I guess I still do.

I probably read "Empire of the East" 4 or 5 times as a teen. Fred Saberhagen was one of my favorite authors from that time of my life. He might be best remembered for his "Berserker" series, which has been ripped off about a million times and a million different ways since (humanity builds intelligent robots, that gain more intelligence and independence and decide to turn against their creators).

Empire of the East, however, was a future fantasy book, wherein lost high technology is the new "magic".