---
title: "Aeon's Surreal Renaissance | SurrealDB University"
description: "Explore SurrealDB courses covering database fundamentals, data modelling, querying, and real-world applications. Learn at your own pace with hands-on exercises."
url: https://surrealdb.com/learn/book
---

![Course content preview](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/part-0-title-image.CMfrCDuq.avif)

[Back to Courses](https://surrealdb.com/learn)

Course chapters

[Aeon's Surreal Renaissance](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book) [Prologue - your story](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/welcome/prologue) [Chapter 1: One year later](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-01) [Chapter 2: The grey book](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-02) [Chapter 3: Gone in an instant](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-03) [Chapter 4: The security door](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-04) [Chapter 5: A long road to travel](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-05) [Chapter 6: Inspiration from the past](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-06) [Chapter 7: A rude surprise](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-07) [Chapter 8: A nice surprise](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-08) [Chapter 9: A peaceful interlude](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-09) [Chapter 10: The ancient world begins to reappear](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-10) [Chapter 11: A growing map](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-11) [Chapter 12: The wires return](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-12) [Chapter 13: The outsiders](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-13) [Chapter 14: Learning from each other](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-14) [Chapter 15: France saves the day again](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-15) [Chapter 16: Keeping knowledge free](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-16) [Chapter 17: Landevin's journey](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-17) [Chapter 18: Restoring civilisation](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-18) [What now?](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-18/what-happens-now) [Chapter 19: Aeons later](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-19) [Chapter 20: Take three](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-20) [Chapter 21: Breaking out](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-21) [Congratulations](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/the-end) [FAQ (no spoilers)](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/faq-no-spoilers) [FAQ (contains spoilers)](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/faq-with-spoilers)

# Aeon's Surreal Renaissance

Welcome to *Aeon's Surreal Renaissance*! This book takes you on a journey through the ins and outs of SurrealDB as you follow an immersive story crafted to make learning a new database feel as enjoyable as sitting back and watching your favourite movie.

## The story

Aeon's Surreal Renaissance follows in the footsteps of your alter ego as you use SurrealDB to restore civilisation. The story takes place in the future, one in which you are the main character. Your alter ego in the book is going to need a name, so we've chosen the name Aeon. Why Aeon? Two reasons:

- Many aeons have passed between today and the time when this book begins.
- Aeon doesn't bring any sort of person to mind, so it's easy to imagine your alter ego with this name no matter who you are. Compare that to names like *Arnold* or *Isabella*, which bring to mind certain people and ideas.

So what is life like for Aeon in the future? It's not bad at all, but something odd has happened between now and then: for some reason humanity has lost most of its technology. People are once again riding horses, heating their houses with wood stoves, and writing books by hand one word at a time.

What could have happened? And what does SurrealDB have to do with a person who grew up in a world like this one?

All good questions. There's a tunnel up in the mountains close to the town where Aeon lives that holds the secret. We'll begin to find out in the next chapter where the story starts.

## Using this book

### The technique used in this book

This book follows a progression similar to that of the main character Aeon, who has never encountered databases or even any modern technology before. As such, it begins with the simplest parts of SurrealDB and proceeds step by step to more complex examples - along with a story to carry you through it all. This is a technique known as the "input hypothesis", in which you, as the reader, receive a constant stream of input just above your current level - just enough to be interesting, but not enough to scare you away.

### Which version of SurrealDB does this book use?

Aeon's Surreal Renaissance teaches you the latest stable version of SurrealDB: version 3.X. If you were using a 2.X version of SurrealDB before coming across this book, you will notice a lot of new functionality and some differences in behaviour.

The complete changelogs for SurrealDB's newest versions can be seen [at this link](https://surrealdb.com/releases).

### Querying with SurrealDB Studio

As SurrealDB's official visual dashboard [SurrealDB Studio](https://surrealdb.com/studio) is easy to embed inside web pages, many queries in this book will have a runnable SurrealDB Studio drop-down window to give you the opportunity to experiment with it yourself. Give this one a try!

```
CREATE my:["first", "surrealdb_record"];
```

![Surrealist Icon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/fdfe2c20f5941d5e.D0guSOhZ.webp) Run Query

However, as each code sample is followed by the output it is expected to generate, you can also simply read the book in a traditional form without needing to make any queries yourself.

### Chapter quizzes

Most chapters have a quiz section with about five questions to test your knowledge of the chapter. Put together a quiz question of your own that you think would make a great addition? Let us know [at our documentation repo](https://github.com/surrealdb/docs.surrealdb.com) and maybe it will end up in the book!

### Let's begin

Time to start the story! Let's turn our attention centuries into the future to see what the world looks like as Aeon's adventure begins.

Get started

Prologue - your story

[Get started](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/welcome/prologue)

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Course","name":"Aeon's Surreal Renaissance","description":"Welcome to Aeon's Surreal Renaissance! This book takes you on a journey through the ins and outs of SurrealDB as you follow an immersive story crafted to make learning a new database feel as enjoyable as sitting back and watching your favourite movie.","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book","inLanguage":"en","isAccessibleForFree":true,"provider":{"@type":"Organization","name":"SurrealDB","url":"https://surrealdb.com"},"hasPart":[{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Prologue - your story","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/welcome/prologue"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 1: One year later","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-01"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 2: The grey book","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-02"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 3: Gone in an instant","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-03"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 4: The security door","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-04"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 5: A long road to travel","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-05"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 6: Inspiration from the past","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-06"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 7: A rude surprise","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-07"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 8: A nice surprise","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-08"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 9: A peaceful interlude","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-09"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 10: The ancient world begins to reappear","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-10"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 11: A growing map","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-11"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 12: The wires return","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-12"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 13: The outsiders","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-13"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 14: Learning from each other","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-14"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 15: France saves the day again","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-15"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 16: Keeping knowledge free","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-16"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 17: Landevin's journey","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-17"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 18: Restoring civilisation","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-18"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"What now?","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-18/what-happens-now"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 19: Aeons later","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-19"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 20: Take three","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-20"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Chapter 21: Breaking out","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/chapter-21"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"Congratulations","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/the-end"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"FAQ (no spoilers)","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/faq-no-spoilers"},{"@type":"LearningResource","name":"FAQ (contains spoilers)","url":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/faq-with-spoilers"}]}
```

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","name":"SurrealDB","url":"https://surrealdb.com","logo":"https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/logo.BG7_TG2b.svg","description":"SurrealDB is the unified data layer for AI. A multi-model database for documents, graphs, vectors, and time-series.","foundingDate":"2022","hasCertification":[{"@type":"Certification","name":"SOC 2 Type 2"},{"@type":"Certification","name":"GDPR"},{"@type":"Certification","name":"Cyber Essentials Plus"},{"@type":"Certification","name":"ISO 27001"}],"owns":[{"@type":"SoftwareApplication","name":"SurrealDB","url":"https://surrealdb.com/surrealdb"},{"@type":"SoftwareApplication","name":"Agent Memory","url":"https://surrealdb.com/agent-memory"}],"knowsAbout":["multi-model databases","document databases","graph databases","vector search","time-series databases","SurrealQL","Agent Memory","real-time databases","embedded databases","context layer","graph ontology","distributed database","knowledge graphs","distributed transaction protocols","highly-scalable databases"],"sameAs":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124316308","https://github.com/surrealdb/surrealdb","https://twitter.com/surrealdb","https://www.youtube.com/@surrealdb","https://www.linkedin.com/company/surrealdb","https://discord.gg/surrealdb","https://www.reddit.com/r/surrealdb","https://www.instagram.com/surrealdb","https://medium.com/surrealdb","https://dev.to/surrealdb"]}
```

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://surrealdb.com"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Learn","item":"https://surrealdb.com/learn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Book","item":"https://surrealdb.com/learn/book"}]}
```