A Promise and a Thousand Calamities: the Dark World Begins from Half a Novel

Before my boss died, he left everything to me, on the condition that I live like the protagonist in his novel "A Guide to Conquering the Dark World." In the wasteland, out-of-control giant machines wander like zombies; in the towns, the technology of the old civilization is regarded as a miracle and a taboo. And my only reliance is a novel that I have only read half of.