The Hermetic Millennia

Count to the Eschaton Sequence #2

by John C. Wright

Continuing from Count to a Trillion , Menelaus Illation Montrose―Texas gunslinger, idealist, and posthuman genius―has gone into cryo-suspension following the discovery that, in 8,000 years, a powerful alien intelligence will reach Earth to assess humanity's value as slaves. Montrose intends to be alive to meet that threat, but he is awakened repeatedly throughout the centuries to confront the woes of an ever-changing and violent world, witnessing millennia of change compressed into a few years of subjective time. The result is a breathtaking vision of future history like nothing before sweeping, tumultuous, and evermore alien, as Montrose's immortal enemies and former shipmates from the starship Hermetic harness the forces of evolution and social engineering to continuously reshape the Earth in their image, seeking to create a version of man the approaching slavers will find worthy.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Science Fiction Fantasy

399 pages, Hardcover

First published December 24, 2012

About the author

John C. Wright (John Charles Justin Wright, born 1961) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy novels. A Nebula award finalist (for the fantasy novel Orphans of Chaos), he was called "this fledgling century's most important new SF talent" by Publishers Weekly (after publication of his debut novel, The Golden Age).

Reviews

[Kalin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the previous book, this one abounds with complex ideas and vocabulary. Eventually, I started skipping the more technical parts--and found myself enjoying the variety of clashing and complementing worldviews. The MC, thanks to showing some vulnerability, is gradually getting more likable too.

More impressions:

~ The beginning was slow and overladen with descriptions ... until I got to "The Warlock of Williamsburg."

It starts innocuous enough:

“(...) Surely the tents record all conversations.”
“Yup. What would you like me to have the record say? I can do visuals and audio. I could record that orgy with the Nymph ladies you was talking about earlier, except then the Blues would wonder how you managed to fit seventy virgins in a tent this size.”
“Your power is such?”
“My know-how is such.”
“Knowledge is power,” said Mickey (...). “Can you teach me the spell?”
“How good are you at differential calculus using analytical logic notation?”
“Ah … I know enough geometry to cast a horoscope, and can calculate the motion of the same and the motion of the other of the wandering star Venus on her epicycles using hexadecimals. I know how to consult an arithmetic table.”
“Hm. Do you know what a zero is? Or algebra?”
“These are forgotten concepts, invented by the Christians, whom we curse.”
“I think the Mohammedans invented the zero. Or was it the Hindus?”
“Bah! All forms of monotheism the Witch race despises with the Unforgettable Hate.”

And then:

“(...) I am a Magus, a master of the most hidden powers, and I live for the Threefold Way: to look at darkness, hear the silence, and name the nameless. Even a godling cannot give me this.”
“Damn straight, because I ain’t got the teensiest notion what you just said. And I told you I ain’t no god. I don’t even say ‘thou’ or ‘verily’ or not no scrap like that. My mother’d done take a bar of lye soap to your mouth, she heard you talk all blasphemous! And tan your hide with a strap—except seeing as you’re tan enough as it is, she might not.”
Mickey had a big laugh, deep and bass and full of joy. “Strange and wondrous! To think the little gods fear their mother goddesses! Truly the Feminine Principle is paramount in all things!”
“Damn straight, the female principle is paramount. That’s why Life is a Bitch. (...)”

And then:

“What about the larger ship? The helicopter?”
“Also built by my people. She is an air-ironclad called Albatross, used by my ancestors to hunt down the remnants of the Sylphs and Demonstrate them. The iron hull was resistant to hunger silk.”
“Demonstrate?”
“With nerve toxins or radioactive chemtrails. My people are pacifists, and not allowed to employs soldiers, but the Coven Law allows for peaceful mass demonstrations by activists. The Demonstrator flying machines were the only things left over from the days of Steel and Smoke, the technology days, that still worked. The totemic markings on the wings allay the anger of the sky-beings, for using internal combustion engines and marring the blue sky with black smoke. Such machines would be very carefully preserved. All this happened long before my time, but Witches are scrupulous about keeping our lore correct, and we neither flatter our ancestors nor condemn. It is one of the blessings of Gandalf, that our memories are as long as our shadows.”
“Or, in your case, as wide. Wait. Did you just say Gandalf?”
“He is the founder of our order, and the first of the Five Warlocks. He comes from afar across the Western Ocean, from Easter Island, or perhaps from Japan.”
“No, I think he comes from the mind of a story writer. An old-fashioned Roman Catholic from the days just before First Space Age. Unless I am confusing him with the guy who wrote about Talking Animal Land? With the Cowardly Lion who gets killed by a Wicked White Witch? I never read the text, I watched the comic.”
“Oh, you err so! The Witches, we have preserved this lore since the time of the Fall of the Giants, whom we overthrew and destroyed. The tale is this: C. S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke were led by the Indian Maiden Sacagawea to the Pacific Ocean and back, stealing the land from the Red Man and selling them blankets impregnated with smallpox. It was called the Lewis and Clarke Expedition. When they reached the Pacific, they set out in the Dawn Treader to find the sea route to India, where the sacred river Alph runs through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea. They came to the Last Island, called Ramandu or Selidor, where the World Serpent guards the gateway to the Land of the Dead, and there they found Gandalf, returned alive from the underworld, and stripped of all his powers. He came again to mortal lands in North America to teach the Simon Families. The Chronicle is a symbolic retelling of their journey. It is one of our Holy Books.”

And then:

“All Christians must perish! Such is our code.”
“Your code is miscoded.”
“What of the Unforgettable Hate?”
“Forget about it.”
“Ah! The Witches are a pragmatic race,” said Mickey in a tone of grandiose modesty. “Toleration is our cardinal virtue, second only to our scientific rationality.”
Menelaus raised an eyebrow. “You guys call yourselves scientific?”
“Of course,” said Mickey. “Enemies of science are cursed by the Crones.”
“The ones who paint fright masks on biplane wings to create lift? Those Crones?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mickey. “Lift is created by the Bernoulli principle: wing curvature magically creates a partial vacuum which the goddess Nature abhors, and so she lifts the windcraft upward to occlude the void in compensation. The Witch-marks are inscribed not to create lift, but to avert malediction according to the law of sympathy and contagion. It is based on an entirely different principle of the occult sciences.”
“And you believe this because you’ll be cursed if you don’t?”
Mickey looked at him with a level-eyed judicious look. “You have told me that you and your enemies can make it fated for nations, tribes, and peoples to rise and fall, meet victory or defeat, expansion or extinction, by means of mathematical hieroglyphs and incantations you found written on a dead moon circling an impossible star in the constellation of the Centaur? And you ask me to doubt something as obvious and elementary as a curse? Everyone utters curses. You utter curses.”
“God damn it, I do not!”

And also:

“(...) I gave my word of honor that everyone who enters here weren’t not ain’t never going to be dug up by greedy later generations, or curious, or nothing.”
“You must excuse me, great and august Godling, but your double and triple and quadruple negatives confound me. When you say ‘not ain’t never’—does this mean it won’t not be done, therefore it will be done, or that it won’t be done? Or is this a mystery of the gods it will blast a mortal’s brain to know?”
“Nope, you need a brain for that, so you’re right safe. Will you shut up and start talking sense?”
“At the same time? Even my deep powers quail, Divine One.”

... Whew. I wish Wright employed his comedic talent more often.

~ A sample of the intercultural exchanges between varieties of humankind from various millennia:

Yuen said, “You are an unwed girl?”
Fatin, who was probably (despite her looks) considerably older than Yuen, narrowed her eyes at him. “I am pre–sexually active, yes. We have dispensed with marriage customs. We regard the word ‘girl’ as a deadly insult. You must say ‘living organism each with his or her or its place in the ecologic web not superior to any other.’”
“You are an unwed organism no better than a bug?” Yuen said, “And yet you command the Witches?”

(I like how Witches have rejected speciesism. ;)

[Mary Catelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

The next book in the series, after Count To A Trillion. Spoilers ahead for Count To A Trillion.

Menelaus rouses out of cryogenic slumber to discover that his beloved Rania 's interstellar venture to the antimatter star will not continue with her return to Earth. Instead, she is going onward -- to search out the aliens that will enslave them unless they prove they are capable of maintaining a civilization that can deal with traveling to another galactic cluster and back. (All of which was made clear in Count to A Trillion, which is why reading them in order is probably wise.)

Meanwhile, Menelaus's erstwhile companions, the Hermetists, are trying to remake humanity over into cultures that would survive the alien contact without bothering about the interstellar journey. Blackie gives each of the survivors an era in which to test out his theories. Menelaus tries to interfere when he can, when he wakes from his cryogenic sleep long enough (and ages all the more, to his grief, while Rania remains young in near light-speed travel.)

This book is about their conflicts. It also involves knights in shining (powered) armor and their white horses; an enormous attack on cities that destroys them all (revealed in the first chapter, but with something more revealed in nearly the last); weapons with names, whose owners must not be insulted in their presence; a woman who explains that because she is a dutiful, obedient, meek, and gentle woman, she must not interfere with the matters of war or order about men, so she will leave them to their duty to triumph over those holding them captive and commit suicide for failure; a culture of extravagant luxury where the Nymph Queens cure the ill and erase their memories of suffering; airships that live like sylphs; and much more

[Jeff Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is book two in the "Count to the Eschaton" series.

The start of it is rather jarring in connection to the first book "Count to a Trillion" where the duel between Menelaus Montrose and "Darkie" ends in a bit of cliffhanger and that this book picks up thousands of years in the future. Montrose has been frozen and awakes periodically during the various millennia in preparation to the face off with the monument makers and the return of his wife.

This book reminds me to some extent of Olaf Stapledon's works especially "Last and First Men" a history of the human race into the far future. I read Stapledon's works based on John C. Wrights recommendation and they are quite interesting and quite an undertaking but also fall a bit flat in regards to characters. In this book the shipmates from the starship "Hermetic " are engaged in cultural and bio engineering of mankind where each crew member employs his utopian dreams on a millennium. It is a massive chess game between Montrose and his former crew members as Montrose works to set right what he can.

While it took me a bit to get into this book, once I did I was totally in the story. Wright always has a lot of mythic elements introduced into both his SF and Fantasy and this is also true of this book. Though the myths introduced are myths translated between the different millenniums which all have some element of Montrose and the other crew members. The story involves members of these various generations interacting after having been awoken by tomb raiders and imprisoned and interviewed for information.

Like the first book this one ends on another cliffhanger where things are not going as expected. I eagerly await the next book in the series as this is just great space opera with some interesting elements and I just so love the character of Montrose.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a dialog about 1/3rd of the way through The Hermetic Millennia where Menelaus Montrose is talking to a Warlock of the 48th century AD, one of the human races the Hermeticists have created in their quest to create a suitable slave race for the alien intelligences of the Hyades. They’re discussing the man’s holy scriptures and the “history” they relate:

Or, in your case, as wide. Wait. Did you just say Gandalf?

He is the founder of our order, and the first of the Five Warlocks. He comes from afar across the Western Ocean, from Easter Island, or perhaps from Japan.

No, I think he comes from the mind of a story writer. An old-fashioned Roman Catholic from the days just before [the] First Space Age. Unless I am confusing him with the guy who wrote about Talking Animal Land? With the Cowardly Lion who gets killed by a Wicked White Witch? I never read the text, I watched the comic.

Oh, you err so! The Witches, we have preserved this lore since the time of the Fall of the Giants, whom we overthrew and destroyed. The tale is this: C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke were led by the Indian Maiden Sacagawea to the Pacific Ocean and back, stealing the land from the Red Man and selling them blankets impregnated with smallpox. It was called the Lewis and Clarke Expedition. When they reached the Pacific, they set out in the Dawn Treader to find the sea route to India, where the sacred river Alph runs through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea. They came to the Last Island, called Ramandu or Selidor, where the World Serpent guards the gateway to the Land of the Dead, and there they found Gandalf, returned alive from the underworld, and stripped of all his powers. He came again to mortal lands in North America to teach the Simon Families. The Chronicle is a symbolic retelling of their journey. It is one of our Holy Books.

Your Holy Books were written for children by Englishmen.

The gods wear many masks! If the Continuum chooses the lips of a White Man to be the lips through which the Continuum speaks, who are we to question? Tolkien was not Roman. He was of a race called the hobbits, Homo floresiensis, discovered on an isle in Indonesia, and he would have live in happiness, had not the White Man killed him with DDT. So there were no Roman Catholics involved. May the Earth curse their memory forever! May they be forgotten forever! (pp. 135-6)

The passage illustrates two things. One – and this isn’t a bad thing – is how time and human nature twist narratives so that they are hardly recognizable. The second thing it illustrates is a major problem with the book as a whole, and that is the author’s indulgence in asides and Easter eggs catering to readers “in the know” about SF tropes and authors. It takes the reader out of the story too often, and – worse – doesn’t serve any purpose other than to show off Wright’s shallow cleverness.

The Hermetic Millennia is the second book in the series that began with Count to a Trillion. That book ended with Menelaus Montrose, who was determined to resist the enslavement of humanity by the armada on its way from the Hyades cluster, losing a duel with Ximen del Azarchel, his erstwhile friend, equally determined to create a human race that would be suitable for the aliens’ needs, and being buried under the wreckage of a space elevator. In that same catastrophe, Rania Grimaldi, Menelaus’ recent bride and Azarchel’s former fiancée, is swept away into space, where she takes the starship Hermetic and sets out to confront the masters of the Hyades and redeem humanity from its impending servitude.

The Hermetic Millennia begins with three prologues that take place in AD 2535, 2540 and 9999, respectively, and set the stage for the rest of the novel. In the first, we learn that Rania has reached the antimatter star V 886 Centauri and has appropriated it to power her voyage to the M3 cluster, where the galaxy’s masters reside. Menelaus has set up a network of Tombs so that he can survive until AD 70,000, when Rania is expected to return, and so he can be reawakened occasionally to thwart Azarchel and the Hermeticists’ schemes. The Tombs also serve to preserve various human species across the aeons. The second prologue takes place on the farside of the Moon, where Azarchel lives in exile. He and the Hermeticists map out the next eight millennia of human history. Each will have 1,000 years to create a human race and attempt to prove that his version of Man is best suited for enslavement. The third prologue takes place 7,500 years later when Menelaus awakes to discover that Azarchel has apparently wiped the slate clean by dropping a planet-killing asteroid that’s triggered a global ice age.

In part four, we finally get to the story. We’re dropped in media res about 500 years later as Menelaus’ slumber is interrupted by Tomb raiders. Though these thieves are looking for the fabled Judge of Ages (aka Menelaus), they don’t recognize him and Montrose finds himself one of a group of revenants awakened from every era since the events of Count to a Trillion. What follows – in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales or Dan Simmon’s Hyperion (which, itself, is based on the Tales) – are a series of chapters told from the point of view of these relicts that bring the reader up to date on what’s happened since AD 2500. Interspersed between these asides is Menelaus’ effort to get the contentious human species to work together to free themselves.

Taken individually, I enjoyed reading each chapter but in terms of the narrative, they keep bringing the story to a screeching halt. We spend nearly 400 pages absorbing background but never going anywhere. It’s only in the last chapter that things begin to move but then Wright leaves us hanging from an even higher cliff than last time.

It’s frustrating.

And – as in Count to a Trillion – there’s no character development. I still like Menelaus but we don’t really get to know anyone else. There are possibilities: The three people outside of Montrose who get the most face time are Illiance, one of the Blue Men who are plundering the Tombs; Soorm, a Hormagaunt from the 69th century; and Oenoe, a Nymph from the preceding human race. All three have potential that isn’t developed.

I want to know what’s going to happen; I continue to enjoy Wright’s prose; and that part of me who enjoyed the appendices in The Return of the King, didn’t mind the backgrounding. So if anyone were prompted to read the first book from my review, I recommend The Hermetic Millennia. It suffers from a sever case of middle-book-of-a-trilogy syndrome but if Wright can return to the pace and focus of the first book, the fever can be endured and the author’s self-indulgence forgiven.

[Leigh Kimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second of a six-volume science fiction novel by the inimitable John C. Wright. Like the first, it's full of mind-blowing ideas, and once again we have jumps through vast periods of time, now the result of multiple periods of suspended animation in the Tombs (I keep wanting to call them the Time Tombs, but that's another writer's 'verse).

Montrose is a rough man, but with a stern sense of honor toward all who have entrusted themselves to cryonic suspension in a world where he owns every single facility for it. So when he is rudely awakened by a group of "archeologists" who look like a certain cartoon image of an alien, only blue instead of green or gray, he's driven to find out who they are and what the heck they think they're doing -- while all the time he needs to conceal his own identity from both his fellow resurectees and the Blue Men.

It's that need for concealment that provides a lot of the tension of the novel, as Montrose learns the stories of various eras now long past. Each of these civilizations is a piece in a puzzle he must solve before he is discovered, and he doesn't even know what the puzzle is.

Reading it, I kept thinking about Sherwood Smith's The Banner of the Damned, and how the early drafts were panned by beta readers as boring -- until she hit on the idea of it being a deposition by what had been a relatively minor character, on trial for her life. Without Montrose's desperate need for concealment, this novel would probably be as dry and tedious as a number of early sf novels that dealt with the long future, of the rise and fall of future civilizations.

[Sheppard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book in this 4 part "space opera". It is complex, wide ranging in just about every category of speculative social and hard science and much like the 1st book, I had to look up many terms while reading. It didn't bother me at all. Unlike the first book I actually laughed often at the banter and ridiculous situations the protagonist found himself in.
What I liked most is that when the book was closed, it still had me thinking, and often, like the first book, my mind was exploring new avenues to look at our world.
I did have to read some material twice just to make sure I got the gist, but that was fine.
Projecting a long history of homo sapiens and making it compelling is not easy. Assimov's foundation covered 1k years, Dickson's Childe Cycle, maybe less and there have been others. John Wright has taken this mantel seriously and deeply and is not afraid to through a mixed bag of ideas out there and make the reader work for it.
This is not a lazy read, and it really helps to have some decent college math under your belt, less so than the first one, but it helps. In this one biological sciences is featured more prominently, so are political and economic theories. For me it was worth the ride and the pleasant side effect of amusement was a nice touch.
Issues - only one, the editing fro this HARDCOVER edition was quite poor and detracted for some key passages. 10-12 minor grammar errors but they hurt the flow.

[Nicholas Kotar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is maddening. It is so fresh and unusual. The imagination John C. Wright has is ridiculous. I mean, how can you realistically expect every single classic sci-fi caricature to be introduced in a single book (human-animal hybrids, evil AI, huge armored robot-suits, genetically engineered humans), but done in a way that is actually serious, not tongue in cheek. And it works! I've never felt such affinity for a bear-otter-human hybrid with a shark-toothed mouth and a poisoned tail who can actually kill people with flatulence!

But at the same time, it feels rushed and rough. A second draft at most. And the usual second book problems persist here.

Just so you know, the entire book is a series of flashbacks. The action sequence that we build up to in the entire book is... you guessed it... left for the next volume in the series. Gah.

There were parts that made no sense. There were revelations that felt flat. You never know if the main character is ahead of the game or pitifully overmatched. But I hung on to the next volume, and it was worth it. Basically, the Hermetic Millenia and The Judge of Ages are one long book. If you read them that way, the end of Judge of Ages is almost perfectly sublime. But that's for another review...

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skip it! got about halfway then gave up

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

As much a book of philosophy as an adventure story, I thoroughly enjoyed "Hermetic Millennia" as I did "Count to a Trillion" before it.
Most of the stories are told by representatives of 5-6 major cultures / incarnations of bio-engineered human who are being interviewed by their captors. In between these interviews, Menalaus - himself also a captive of the little blue men - plans their escape and retaking of the tombs.
I found Wright's various races imaginative, at least marginally believable, and thought provoking.
Just now, as I was looking for some of the amusing quotes, I came across these notes from the author himself, and now I love the book even more.
http://www.scifiwright.com/2013/03/a-...

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who even attempts to write far future SF gets some points. Wright has imagined a half dozen deep future civilizations, each with its own morphology and morality, in Last and First Men style. The trouble I had was that nearly all of the book is the main character talking to people, and they describe their distant past interactions with him, not realizing who he is (all these folks have just been thawed from cryogenic sleep.) I had the sneaking suspicion the whole thing was meant to be a theological allegory. Anyway, by the time I got to his epiphany at the end I didn't really care about the plot enough to bother figure out what he was talking about.

[David Leger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting novel. It covers a vast sweep of time. Without giving things away, while it was at times a difficult read (there is a lot to take in), it covered some interesting concepts on the future of humanity, machine intelligence, absolute power corrupting absolutely, obsession. I wouldn't recommend this as a casual read, but I did enjoy it, and the ending was a surprise which, while leaving some questions unanswered, was thought provoking.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun romp through future history. I still struggle with the hero's drawl...it's a bit much at times. The way the story is told, through a series of interrogations, is tough to get into at first, but is effective at covering 8000 years in sufficient depth.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Count to a Trillion was Flash Gordon, The Hermetic Millennia is Planet of the Apes.

[Nick Stengel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Count to a Trillion was really clever. The other two books were very much like jury duty to see the characters I loved through to the end. Some good philosophy and ethics, but soo long

[Richard Sampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best the genre has to offer! Diving right into the next book!

[ltcomdata · Rating 2 out of 5]

About 500 years before the invasion of the aliens from the Hyades, Dr. Montrose wakes up to his tomb being violated. Yes, he survived the final duel, but his nemesis also survived. His wife has gone on the 70,000-year trip to plead humanity's cause before super-advanced aliens. He has used the medical suspended animation technology to sleep away the centuries until his wife returns. (His nemesis is immortal thanks to the knowledge from the alien artifact). In the meantime, he has made himself the head of the Knights Hospitaller, and has charged his subordinates to open up the suspended animation technology to rescue those who are sick and agree to sleep until such a time as they can be healed, or who otherwise want to trade their times for an uncertain future.

But the artificial intelligence managing and protecting the tombs seems to have been compromised. He is taken prisoner among all the humans who have similarly been taken prisoner. Given Dr. Montrose's gifts with languages (he understands all the languages of the intervening millennia), he is given the charge of translating the interrogation of the prisoners by his captors --- who are looking for him. (His "coffin" had been mislabeled on purpose, precisely for this eventuality). Thus does Dr. Montrose recruit prisoners for an eventual rebellion against their captors. Thus we learn that the Hermeticists have divvied up the millennia among themselves to create the form of man whom each believes will best serve their coming conquerors.

The action stops midway when the captors finally manage to disable the automated defense system of the tombs and are able to freely enter the tombs, seemingly dooming Dr. Montrose's true identity to be discovered as the Judge of Ages. For Dr. Montrose has been intervening in history, waking up at key moments to undo the plans of the Hermeticists, and a legend has grown around him: that if he is awoken before his bride returns, his wrath will wake up alongside him to judge the age and terminate it if he thinks it insufficiently prepared to fight the far-future alien invasion.

The conceit of the book seems designed to introduce different forms of man into the story. The whole book is almost entirely exposition. And while the particular details of the different forms of man are interesting, and while the references to Dr. Montrose's myth in action, the whole story is made confusing by having it be told out of order and with great gaps that point to something else going on under the surface that is being carefully hid from the reader.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

i am of mixed feelings about this book. In the end, I liked it but just barely. To get to the negative first, I have to be honest and say that I found it difficult to get through. While I enjoyed thinking about the worldbuilding, it distracted too much from both the narrow plot of the novel and especially the larger plot of the series. Sometimes the worldbuilding succeeded in getting me to not care about that but after about page 200 it became a drag. The novel picked up pace again near the end which tips the balance for me from being a two star review to a three star but it was still...eh.

The world created in the novel really does capture the imagination in certain parts. Minor spoiler:
The descriptions of civilizations deliberately created and manipulated from afar by posthuman puppet masters has always been an interesting sci-fi idea to me as is the realities of the rise and fall of cultures. This was the strongest part of the novel in which the mythos of the world, of the Judge of Ages, of the fight throughout the millennia two warring factions was pretty cool. It ended up tying together really well by the novel's conclusion which has me thinking I may continue reading the series eventually. I may take a break for a while too though as something about Wright's writing style tires me. He writes well but I think he packs so much into his writing that it just leaves me feeling worn out. The best writers are able to both impart a lot of information but also create a good sense of flow that almost makes the novel read itself. George R.R. Martin is really good at that type of prose for example.

The main negative for me was how much of the plot seemed to slow down when it came to the major events of the previous novel. The Hyades aliens, Rania, Del Azarchel, etc. seem very distant. Sure, that is because a new world is being built but it feels disconnected. Granted I read the first novel years ago so I am just relying on memory here. Also, too much of the novel is about the past rather than the present which makes the drama of the present seem threadbare compared to the recallings and expositions about the past. Sometimes this works really well but other times it just further slows the pace of the plot.

So far, I'd recommend Wright's earlier The Golden Age trilogy over this one. If I attempt to read the next entry into the series, I'd have to see a lot more plot progression to make it worth it.

[Jjohn_galt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would you like to read a mystery where you already know whodunit, and you simply watch the characters blunder around trying to decipher the obvious?

Would you like to read a novel that is 90% dialogue or monologue? How about when the dialogue is almost entirely a retrospective review of some imaginary future?

Would you like to read a scifi novel about the smartest man in the world blundering around and doing stupid things for no good reason?

If you answered "yes" to all these questions, then "The Hermetic Millenia" is just the book for you.

As for me, I'm done with this series.

Spoilers follow:
Menelaus Montrose, the world's first post-human, is trying to cryosleep his way through 64 millenia until his wife returns from outside of the galaxy. He has scattered "tombs" of cryosleep containers all around the earth, which are gradually accumulating sleepers from many generations. While he sleeps, the Hermeticists are trying to reshape humanity into a servile race, and trying to find and kill Montrose. Montrose awakens from cryosleep every so often to improve his defenses and try and thwart the Hermeticists' plans.

Essentially the entire novel occurs somewhere in the 10th millenium A.D. Montrose's tomb is ransacked and many of the people awakened. Montrose and company are kept in a prison camp while the raiders try to dig further into the tomb. Virtually the entire novel takes place in this prison camp. Montrose is secretly trying to organize the prisoners to escape, while hiding his true identity. The raiders are obsessed with learning as much as they can about the legendary "Judge of the World" who supposedly sleeps in the tomb and awakens from time to time to destroy civilization.

The novel consists of Montrose being asked by the raiders to interview various people from different ages to learn what they know about the Judge of the World. Throughout, Montrose does a terrible job of trying to hide his nature and skills. The raiders are oblivious to the threat he poses, to a degree that defies the suspension of disbelief.

Violence: PG-13
Language: PG-13
Sexuality: R

[Jackson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would you like to read a mystery where you already know whodunit, and you simply watch the characters blunder around trying to decipher the obvious?

Would you like to read a novel that is 90% dialogue or monologue? How about when the dialogue is almost entirely a retrospective review of some imaginary future?

Would you like to read a scifi novel about the smartest man in the world blundering around and doing stupid things for no good reason?

If you answered "yes" to all these questions, then "The Hermetic Millenia" is just the book for you.

As for me, I'm done with this series.

Spoilers follow:
Menelaus Montrose, the world's first post-human, is trying to cryosleep his way through 64 millenia until his wife returns from outside of the galaxy. He has scattered "tombs" of cryosleep containers all around the earth, which are gradually accumulating sleepers from many generations. While he sleeps, the Hermeticists are trying to reshape humanity into a servile race, and trying to find and kill Montrose. Montrose awakens from cryosleep every so often to improve his defenses and try and thwart the Hermeticists' plans.

Essentially the entire novel occurs somewhere in the 10th millenium A.D. Montrose's tomb is ransacked and many of the people awakened. Montrose and company are kept in a prison camp while the raiders try to dig further into the tomb. Virtually the entire novel takes place in this prison camp. Montrose is secretly trying to organize the prisoners to escape, while hiding his true identity. The raiders are obsessed with learning as much as they can about the legendary "Judge of the World" who supposedly sleeps in the tomb and awakens from time to time to destroy civilization.

The novel consists of Montrose being asked by the raiders to interview various people from different ages to learn what they know about the Judge of the World. Throughout, Montrose does a terrible job of trying to hide his nature and skills. The raiders are oblivious to the threat he poses, to a degree that defies the suspension of disbelief.

Violence: PG-13
Language: PG-13
Sexuality: R

[Russell Davoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't read the previous book in the series, but despite that I was drawn in to the story at first. After less than 100 pages, I grew tired of the very long, stilted conversations and found myself skipping through action to find where the plot became interesting again. By just over 150 pages, I couldn't take any more, so I skipped to the end and read the final few pages. Amazingly, I didn't seem to have missed much and the ending made sense.

I can't shake the feeling that the author became fascinated with an exercise in seeing just how much gibberish he could write and still have the reader understand just enough information to advance the plot. I did enjoy the scope of the story and the ideas discussed, but not enough to keep wading through this mess.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

For hardcore Sci Fi enthusiasts, this successor to Count to a Trillion is your ultimate all-you-can-eat banquet, but for most of us, just too much to digest. Too much technical fantasy, although the vocabulary and creative inventions suggest that the author is a genius. Too many plot twists. Imagined futures full of too dystopian hellscapes, to the point of being highly unlikely, even absurd. The main character, Meneleus Montrose is a very interesting fellow, and the ethical contrasts between the various post-human cultures gives the book some small redeeming value. Hopefully, Volume 3 in the series will rescue the disappointingly dreary conclusion, but I will probably take a pass on that one.

[Brown Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

An odd book, part two of several. I have not read any other volumes. This installment is static and stentorious. There is a certain firearms fetish in evidence. The setup is explained, but the payoff is definitely deferred. The question in this kind of case becomes: is further investment of time and money warranted.

I will not invest, and cannot recommend that you do.

[MrAaronE · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended for Genius Transhuman Children

Superfan. Nice twist on the Chaucer frame to be tied to witness, translator/narrator, investigator(s)/interloper(s), and aeons. There is extremely few curse words or minimal sexual references. So if a young teen or older Lee-teen could comprehend and focus on the story to complete, the story could be appropriate for those ages onward.

[Sean Hannifin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only real complaint is that it dragged a bit when it switched to first person for some characters to tell their stories. Otherwise it's a super fun read, full of interesting sci-fi ideas, and I love the author's sense of humor. Looking forward to continuing the series.

[Peter Schubert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paninteligentsia

So many theories of intelligence and sociology, told with many new vocabulary words as to boggle my normal human brain. Thin on venues but rich in future history - worth reading, but hungry still for resolution.

[Frank Ormond · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful sequel, but not as good as the first.

[BBFlyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A seemingly pointless story of men who tough to play god.

[Marc Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

For once the characters stayed in one place to have their drama. Because they were in a prison, away in the future.

[Roland Matanzas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to finish this, I really did. But at the hundred-and-fifty page mark or so I began skimming. After a bit more I just gave up. It's ultimately an oral history of a fantasy world, poorly and haphazardly narrated by characters you care absolutely nothing about.

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think John C. Wright is one of the most creative SF authors of this millennium, so far. Stephen Baxter is more scientifically plausible, I guess, but doesn't have as many idea's per page, nor does he have the romance and hope that Wright shows in his stories. He also plays around with mythology and the way events get distorted into legends, and legends inspire events, a theme I always like to engage with myself.
Wright is diatrametically opposed to the SF that clings to earthbound and somber view of the future, and propounded a new wave of SF: The Space Princess Movement. This novel has a space princess too. It's a story in the vein of the old, golden age SF, with larger than life characters, conflicts that span the galaxy, taking place over thousands of years, and has the future of humanity itself at stake, while two former friends, now mortal enemies, fight each other with evolution and the progress of civilisation as their weapons.
It's the second book in Wright's new series, so read it in the right order. In this book Menelaus Montrose has frozen himself in cryogenic suspension, waiting for his lover, the princess Rania, who will return from her voyage to star cluster M-3 in 70.000 years. A long wait for a mortal man, especially when a group of shady figures is shaping human evolution according to their philosphies. Around the year 11000 Menelaus is waken from his slumber and put to work in the excavation of his tomb. His captors (little blue men) don't know he is the fabled 'Judge of Ages' himself. As he recruits human beings from different eras to his cause, he plans his escape, for behind the tomb robbers he suspects the influence of his enemy 'Blacky' D'Azarchel and his machine copy Exarchel. He needs all his wits to safe his life and the future of the human race at the same time ...
Well written, with lots of great ideas (of which I will 'steal' one or two in my own novels, I have to admit. Luckily on his blog Wright admits to being inspired by novels, games and movies himself, so no problems there ;-).) I really like the high concepts in this novel, and the ambition in the time span involved. I also liked the social commentary involveld in some of the vignettes told here, even though I do not agree with all Wrights views (that are those of a very conservative American politically). Still, I thought they were subtle enough. As was the mention of his Catholic faith. As a christian myself and a SF author, I'm interested where he will take the matter of faith in the sequels. Is God real in this future? And with a story spanning the aeons and the star clusters, how will his influence be felt?
The book lost a star because all the technological wizardry and discussion about esoteric philosophical subjects outcrowded the more human aspects of the tale. Menelaus is an engaging character, but also a little bit archetypical. As is his romance with Rania. Still, in a novel of idea's as this one certainly is, that is to be expected. Read this book for the scope of the story and you'll be fine.
I for one will be waiting eagerly for the third book in the series!