Item from Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
Us. The pre-apocalyptic civilization that the Hundred Kingdoms remember as mythological precursors — whose highways are ruins, whose bombs made the wasteland, and whose ghosts still flicker in the machines.
The Builders are the series' biggest reveal: they are us. Our civilization. The Broken Empire is set on Earth, approximately a thousand years after nuclear war destroyed modern society. The 'Builders' who created the impossible roads, the magical lights, the mysterious bunkers — they were humans with technology, not a lost magical race. The Hundred Kingdoms built themselves on the ruins without understanding what they were building on. They call our highways 'Builder roads.' They call our bunkers 'Builder tombs.' They call our nuclear craters 'cursed ground.' They are right about the last one. The irony of the Builders is that the reader knows from the first page what the characters take three books to discover: the world already ended once, and the people living in its aftermath are making many of the same mistakes.
Known only through their ruins — concrete, steel, glass, and technology that the Hundred Kingdoms cannot reproduce or fully understand. Builder artifacts are treated as ancient magic. Builder roads are used without understanding who paved them. Builder weapons are discovered in bunkers and treated as divine or cursed.
Also known as: The Builder Civilization, The Ancients