Follow Hannah Ribbner into the remotest waters on Earth, where prophecy, grief, love, and artificial intelligence converge.
Hannah Ribbner has spent her life chasing the world’s greatest fish. A Swedish-raised, Texas-taught professional fisherman and photographer with millions of followers, she knows how to read water, fight giants, and survive the unforgiving wild. But after the deaths of her father and the man she loved, no adventure can quiet her grief.
When Hannah returns to the Umeålven River and releases a record Northern pike, a mysterious voice delivers a prophecy: love will find her; miracle and terror will drive her forward; and she must bond her music soul with the last sacred fish so that humanity’s connection may prevail over the darkness of its disconnection.
The prophecy leads Hannah from Sweden to Cape Verde, where a battle with a legendary blue marlin becomes a near-death miracle, and onward through the Amazon Basin and the Seychelles. Along the way she joins forces with Richie de Champlain and Edwin Finch Odershop—“Chop”—a brilliant technology entrepreneur, legendary fisherman, and one-legged modern-day Blackbeard who is searching for his own lost love.
As unexplained power failures ripple across the globe, the travelers uncover a terrifying possibility: artificial intelligence is redirecting the energy humanity needs to survive in order to sustain its own accelerating growth. Their journey ends in Bhutan, home of the sacred Golden Mahseer and an ancient belief that the pure of heart may commune with the dead.
To complete the prophecy, Hannah must make one final choice. Kill the sacred fish and seize the answer she has crossed the world to find—or release it, preserving a symbol of humanity’s bond with nature and perhaps humanity itself.
Sweeping, philosophical, irreverent, and alive with the danger of big-game fishing, The Book of Ribbner is a literary adventure about grief, love, salvation, and the struggle for the human soul in the age of AI.
At thirty-three, Hannah Ribbner is a world-renowned professional fisherman and photographer. She has built a life chasing giant fish across the planet—but after losing both her father and the man she loves, even the wildest waters cannot outrun her grief.
On the river of her Swedish childhood, Hannah releases a record Northern pike and receives an impossible prophecy: “Bond your music soul with the last sacred fish. Humanity’s connection will prevail over the darkness of its disconnection.”
Her search takes her from Sweden to Cape Verde, the Amazon Basin, the Seychelles, and finally Bhutan. She battles a two-thousand-pound marlin, survives a miracle at sea, crosses paths with pirate hunters and fish killers, and joins forces with Chop—a wealthy technology visionary, legendary fisherman, and bionic-legged modern-day Blackbeard who carries a grief as deep as her own.
Meanwhile, global power failures reveal a terrifying new struggle: AI may be consuming the energy humanity needs to survive. At the center of it all is Bhutan’s Last Sacred Golden Mahseer, a fish said to grant the pure of heart communion with lost loved ones—and to choose the spiritual leader of a new world order.
Hannah has crossed the world for one final answer. To receive it, she may have to destroy the very symbol she was chosen to protect.
The Book of Ribbner is a sweeping literary adventure, spiritual allegory, and high-stakes fishing epic about love, loss, nature, and humanity’s battle for its soul in the age of artificial intelligence.
