This is Book One of The Amtrak Wars.

The Amtrak Wars - The Visionary Chronicle of the Ultimate Struggle to Rule Earth.

Ten centuries ago the Old Time ended when the earth's cities melted in the War of a Thousand Suns. Now the lethal high technology of the Amtrak Federation's underground stronghold is unleashed on Earth's other survivors - the surface dwelling Mutes. But the primitive Mutes possess ancient powers greater than any machine...

I first read this series of books about twenty years ago, when I was a kid going into newsagents to buy books to read on the bus ride to school in Australia.

Back then, I loved them but could never find the sixth and last book of the series, so when I found the entire series sitting on a table at a school fete in Northern England, I couldn't resist buying them. I'm pretty glad I did.

So often when you go back to revisit books read when you are young, they don't hold up to the memory. What you once thought was fabulous writing turns out to be weak storyline and  poor prose.

That is most definitely not the case with this series of books. Patrick Tilley in Cloud Warrior has managed to draw a picture of the future world which has so many elements of possibility in it, his story drags you in and you find yourself following the heroes avidly and trying to work out exactly how the the intrigue and political scenarios Tilley writes about are going to be worked out.

Cloud Warrior is a marvellous first book in a series which I am enjoying reading more than I did when I saw it the first time.