Restoring Civilization from the Mountaintop

St. Dominic’s Preparatory School for Girls is a private Catholic school located in Alleghany County, Virginia. It offers a last chance for at-risk girls, a reform school of sorts. Secluded and isolated, it is perched on Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a good spot to survive when the H7D3 virus ravaged human civilization.

Mountain of Fire, by Jason Cordova, the thirteenth book in John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising universe, tells the story of its survival through the eyes of one of its students, Madison “Mad Maddie” Coryell. She is seventeen when the novel starts, the only student willing to kill those infected with H7D3.

The disease turns victims into mindless, shambling cannibals, and is passed by blood-to-blood contact. Without someone willing to stop them, everyone in the school would have been infected and died. As it is, the survivors are down to two score schoolgirls between the ages of eight and nineteen, and one nun, Sister Ann Constance.

Sister Ann was Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tabitha N. Towers (TNT), before leaving the service and taking vows in the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. She left the Marines, but the Marines have not left her. She is determined to see her charges survive after civilizational collapse.

St. Dominic’s is a good place to start. Not only is it apart from the world, it was close to Greenbrier, the shelter for Congress if atomic war broke out. During the Cold War, the school’s director had an underground bunker built. The uninfected girls sheltered there. Moreover, several of the school’s lay staff were enthusiastic hunters and fishers. The rural school is well-stocked with weapons.

Sister Ann plans for more than simple survival. She is determined to save and rebuild society, starting with St. Dominic’s. She molds the girls in her charge to assume future leadership, assigning them roles in the school’s community. Maddie is an example, the head of security. Sister Ann also offers St. Dominic’s as a sanctuary for other survivors.

Not all other survivors are peaceful, though. Some see the collapse as an opportunity for power. This included Dale, the self-proclaimed King of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is intent on creating a kingdom, which he will head, near the school. He wants to bring St. Dominic’s under his sway whether they want it or not. In Mountain of Fire, he first has to overcome a determined nun and Maddie.

“Mountain of Fire, by Jason Cordova, Baen Books, September, 2024, 336 pages, $28.00 (Hardcover), $9.99 (Ebook), $25.00 (Audiobook)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.