---
title: "Aeon's Surreal Renaissance | SurrealDB University"
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…"
url: https://surrealdb.com/learn/book
---

# Aeon's Surreal Renaissance

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

Course chapters

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

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.

At a glance

**Chapters**

26

**Format**

Text, with queries you can run

**Runs in**

SurrealDB Studio, in the browser

**Cost**

Free

**Then take**

[Movie database tutorial](https://surrealdb.com/learn/movies)

[Start the course](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/welcome/prologue)

## Continue

### [SurrealDB University](https://surrealdb.com/learn)

All courses

### [Prologue - your story](https://surrealdb.com/learn/book/welcome/prologue)

Get started

THE PLATFORM

## Everything an application and its agents know. Five surfaces, one engine.

Database

Document, graph, vector, time-series and relational in one engine.

![Five data models as dotted tiles: documents, graph, vector, time-series and relational](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/platform-database.DUdumYDz.avif)

Read more

[Database](https://surrealdb.com/surrealdb)

Agent Memory

What an agent learns, with its source and its time, in the same engine.

![A timeline of remembered facts, each with its source](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/platform-agent-memory.Cvv8D5Wl.avif)

Read more

[Agent Memory](https://surrealdb.com/agent-memory)

Cloud

Managed clusters in the regions you choose, scaled on demand.

![Clusters in three regions on a world map, each running or scaling](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/platform-cloud.--QZnaVi.avif)

Read more

[Cloud](https://surrealdb.com/cloud)

Studio

Query, explore and design the schema from the browser.

![A SurrealQL query in Studio and the schema graph under it](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/platform-studio.7ykBFNLq.avif)

Read more

[Studio](https://surrealdb.com/studio)

MCP

Every model that speaks MCP reaches the database and the memory directly.

![Three models connected through MCP to the database and Agent Memory](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/platform-mcp.D_oH0_wm.avif)

Read more

[MCP](https://surrealdb.com/mcp)

IN PRODUCTION

## Trusted at scale. Samsung, Nvidia, Verizon, Tencent, and Walmart run on SurrealDB.

14,000+

Developers building on SurrealDB Cloud

4M+

Developers building on SurrealDB worldwide

FROM THE TEAMS

> SurrealDB gives us a foundation where we can unify semantic search, knowledge graphs, and AI-driven decision making without stitching together multiple systems. Collapsing responsibility into SurrealDB has become our default engineering posture.

*Justin Foley*

VP of Engineering, Later

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