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The Golden Oecumene #1
The Golden Age
"The Golden Age" is Grand Space Opera, a large-scale SF adventure novel in the tradition of A. E. Van vogt and Roger Zelazny, with perhaps a bit of Cordwainer Smith enriching the style. It is an astounding story of super science, a thrilling wonder story that recaptures the excitements of SF's golden age writers.
"The Golden Age" takes place 10,000 years in the future in our solar system, an interplanetary utopian society filled with immortal humans. Within the frame of a traditional tale-the one rebel who is unhappy in utopia-Wright spins an elaborate plot web filled with suspense and passion.
Phaethon, of Radamanthus House, is attending a glorious party at his family mansion to celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of the High Transcendence. There he meets first an old man who accuses him of being an impostor and then a being from Neptune who claims to be an old friend. The Neptunian tells him that essential parts of his memory were removed and stored by the very government that Phaethon believes to be wholly honorable. It shakes his faith. He is an exile from himself.
And so Phaethon embarks upon a quest across the transformed solar system--Jupiter is now a second sun, Mars and Venus terraformed, humanity immortal--among humans, intelligent machines, and bizarre life forms that are partly both, to recover his memory, and to learn what crime he planned that warranted such preemptive punishment. His quest is to regain his true identity.
"The Golden Age" is one of the major, ambitious SF novels of the year and the international launch of an important new writer in the genre.
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.
"The Golden Age" takes place 10,000 years in the future in our solar system, an interplanetary utopian society filled with immortal humans. Within the frame of a traditional tale-the one rebel who is unhappy in utopia-Wright spins an elaborate plot web filled with suspense and passion.
Phaethon, of Radamanthus House, is attending a glorious party at his family mansion to celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of the High Transcendence. There he meets first an old man who accuses him of being an impostor and then a being from Neptune who claims to be an old friend. The Neptunian tells him that essential parts of his memory were removed and stored by the very government that Phaethon believes to be wholly honorable. It shakes his faith. He is an exile from himself.
And so Phaethon embarks upon a quest across the transformed solar system--Jupiter is now a second sun, Mars and Venus terraformed, humanity immortal--among humans, intelligent machines, and bizarre life forms that are partly both, to recover his memory, and to learn what crime he planned that warranted such preemptive punishment. His quest is to regain his true identity.
"The Golden Age" is one of the major, ambitious SF novels of the year and the international launch of an important new writer in the genre.
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 20, 2002
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6061 people want to read
About the author
John C. Wright
137 books451 followersJohn 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).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews
September 29, 2020
The Golden Age by John C. Wright is a fully developed view of an age 10,000 years into the future, named the “Golden Oecumene”. The solar system is a utopian society teeming with a vast assortment of human, artificial intelligence, nearly immortal tech-assisted post-humans, and many entities in between, including mass minds and AI collectives. They exist in an abundantly populated Solar System that has been re-engineered on a planetary scale. The book is filled with big ideas, whether it’s the layers of alternate reality the beings exist and communicate through, or the complex society and subtle relationships between the various life-forms. The scale of the world-building in this trilogy is stunning.
I enjoyed the start of this story, set at a masquerade ball during the time of ‘High-Transcendence”, an event held every thousand years, meant to bring together all life forms, to celebrate the Golden Oecumene, and to plan the next thousand years. The masquerade allows beings to conceal their identity, which provides some intrigue and a slow reveal of many of the main characters. The protagonist is Phaethon, son of Helion. A great lord, Helion, completed some celestial engineering of the Sun providing some of the stability and power to this golden age. Phaethon quickly realizes he has lost large swaths of his memory and quickly determines that he himself played a role in suppressing his memories. The rest of this first book, largely follows Phaethon attempting to recover his lost memories, but also unraveling a web of complexity and intrigue.
In my opinion, the novel is not without its issues. I found it to be a laborious read, never turning into the ‘mind-movie’ that the best books create for me. I was never able to easily visual the settings and I never connected with the characters. The one exception might be Rhadamanthus, Phaethon’s AI assistant that often manifests as a penguin. There are no strong female characters, and the most important one, is a strikingly beautiful, puppet replica who is deeply in love with Phaethon, but is constantly dismissed. In this respect, the book feels a bit like a typical 1950’s misogynistic sci-fi novel. In addition, I saw some troubling viewpoints from the author (outside of this book), but I’m going to attempt to keep the author’s viewpoints separate from this work. What’s impressive is that despite its flaws, I never once considered abandoning this book. It was not the plot or characters that kept me, but the continuous creative ideas about this utopian society so far in the future.
I will likely read the next two novels at some point, hoping that Wright continues to produce the intriguing ideas, but also finding better footing is his story telling. I don’t read a great deal of far future or cyberpunk sci-fi, so maybe I’m being exposed to concepts and ideas that more common than I realize. But for me, this was chocked full of imaginative concepts.
A challenging read, but worth the investment due to the non-stop mind-stretching imagining of a far off future, it’s inhabitants, and it’s wonders and tribulations.
I enjoyed the start of this story, set at a masquerade ball during the time of ‘High-Transcendence”, an event held every thousand years, meant to bring together all life forms, to celebrate the Golden Oecumene, and to plan the next thousand years. The masquerade allows beings to conceal their identity, which provides some intrigue and a slow reveal of many of the main characters. The protagonist is Phaethon, son of Helion. A great lord, Helion, completed some celestial engineering of the Sun providing some of the stability and power to this golden age. Phaethon quickly realizes he has lost large swaths of his memory and quickly determines that he himself played a role in suppressing his memories. The rest of this first book, largely follows Phaethon attempting to recover his lost memories, but also unraveling a web of complexity and intrigue.
In my opinion, the novel is not without its issues. I found it to be a laborious read, never turning into the ‘mind-movie’ that the best books create for me. I was never able to easily visual the settings and I never connected with the characters. The one exception might be Rhadamanthus, Phaethon’s AI assistant that often manifests as a penguin. There are no strong female characters, and the most important one, is a strikingly beautiful, puppet replica who is deeply in love with Phaethon, but is constantly dismissed. In this respect, the book feels a bit like a typical 1950’s misogynistic sci-fi novel. In addition, I saw some troubling viewpoints from the author (outside of this book), but I’m going to attempt to keep the author’s viewpoints separate from this work. What’s impressive is that despite its flaws, I never once considered abandoning this book. It was not the plot or characters that kept me, but the continuous creative ideas about this utopian society so far in the future.
I will likely read the next two novels at some point, hoping that Wright continues to produce the intriguing ideas, but also finding better footing is his story telling. I don’t read a great deal of far future or cyberpunk sci-fi, so maybe I’m being exposed to concepts and ideas that more common than I realize. But for me, this was chocked full of imaginative concepts.
A challenging read, but worth the investment due to the non-stop mind-stretching imagining of a far off future, it’s inhabitants, and it’s wonders and tribulations.
April 11, 2011
While at a masquerade leading up to the celebration commemorating the High Transcendence, Phaethon finds certain people are shunning him and that a large segment of his memory has been erased. Phaethon slowly pieces together why his memory has been erased and learns that if he regains his memory, he will be exiled from Oecumene and the paradise it provides. But what does that have to do with his father, Helion, and the other six Peers?
The Golden Age is one mind-bender of a read. While wrapped in space opera trappings, it's essentially a mystery. Phaethon's tale reminds me of Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time at some points, William Gibsons's Neuromancer at others, with a heaping helping of Roger Zelazny throughout. John C. Wright shook the idea tree hard when he crafted this tale, leaving only the diseased and worm-ridden ideas for the rest of us. The only book I've read recently that crammed so many ideas between its covers was Kraken by China Mieville.
Phaethon's progress in uncovering why his memory was erased was quite a read, full of red herrings. His relationship with his father Helion and wife Daphne were well done. The technology Wright invented, while extremely daunting at first, was well conceived and seemed plausible in an sf context. Phaethon was a compelling protagonist and will doubtlessly continue to be so in the next too books. The writing style was actually pretty breezy once you wrapped your head around some of the concepts.
Any complaints? Well, while I loved learning about Phaethon's world, not a whole lot happened in this book. Much like Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, Wright throws the reader into the deep end of the pool without much in the way of exposition. Still, it was quite an enjoyable read and I'm eager to devour the other two books in the series.
The Golden Age is one mind-bender of a read. While wrapped in space opera trappings, it's essentially a mystery. Phaethon's tale reminds me of Michael Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time at some points, William Gibsons's Neuromancer at others, with a heaping helping of Roger Zelazny throughout. John C. Wright shook the idea tree hard when he crafted this tale, leaving only the diseased and worm-ridden ideas for the rest of us. The only book I've read recently that crammed so many ideas between its covers was Kraken by China Mieville.
Phaethon's progress in uncovering why his memory was erased was quite a read, full of red herrings. His relationship with his father Helion and wife Daphne were well done. The technology Wright invented, while extremely daunting at first, was well conceived and seemed plausible in an sf context. Phaethon was a compelling protagonist and will doubtlessly continue to be so in the next too books. The writing style was actually pretty breezy once you wrapped your head around some of the concepts.
Any complaints? Well, while I loved learning about Phaethon's world, not a whole lot happened in this book. Much like Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, Wright throws the reader into the deep end of the pool without much in the way of exposition. Still, it was quite an enjoyable read and I'm eager to devour the other two books in the series.
February 22, 2013
5 Stars
The Golden Age is a gem of a sci-fi. It does not even matter that it is the first book in a trilogy; it is still worth a read. I want to say Thank You! To all my friends here at Goodreads that reviewed this book and put out the warning that although the beginning of this book is extremely difficult to get through, the persistent reader will be rewarded with a remarkably written hard science fiction mystery novel. This was my first exposure to John C. Wright as an author, but now I will seek out his other works.
This is a tough novel to follow as it is not easy to keep track of what is happening in the real world versus the many different layers of alternate/virtual realities that the people of Phaethon’s world live in. The novel is frequently going from one layer to another, mostly keeping you up to speed with the where and the when, but it was a tough learning curve to get used to.
“Phaethon stepped one further step into mentality, going from Nearreality to Hypertextual, what was sometimes called the Middle Dreaming level. The filter leading into his direct memory was removed.
Everything around him suddenly was charged with additional significance; some objects and icons disappeared from view, others appeared. The sound of a thousand voices, singing in chorus, thundered from the lake bottom, splendid and astonishing, surging in time with the flames. Phaethon felt the music tremble in his bones.
When he glanced at the guests, the meanings attached to their various costumes and appearance were thrust into his brain.”
This is a mystery novel in a hard futuristic sci-fi world. Our main hero Phaethon, son of one of the world’s richest men, comes to realize that centuries of his memory are missing, huge holes in his life, with no apparent reason. The conspiracy behind this memory loss is the heart of this book and without giving away any spoilers; it is the reason to read this novel. The mystery unfolds slowly to us and to our hero in a way that could only happen in the far future….great stuff here!!!!
“"I mean, how can I trust you without taking such a drastic step?"
"As to that, I do not know. The cruel technology of your society makes it unwise to trust your eyes, your memory, your thoughts. You may not be who you think you are. Everything you know could be false. This could be a dream. Your only guide of action can be to follow your instincts and feelings; how else can you be true to your character?””
I loved the deep futuristic world building and found myself lost in it. Not since Greg Bear’s City at the End of Time have I been so taken away in a far future setting. Both of these books will send your mind and your imagination spinning for a long time after. I applaud Wright and his blunt style of dropping us the reader into this amazing world, without spelling it out all black and white. He made us put work and effort into the start of this book, which really makes the whole thing payoff later on.
As a lover of hard science fiction, I can easily recommend this to others that share my same taste. This book will turn off many people that are not willing to put the initial investment into it. (It really was hard to push through). This was a great read, I cannot wait to read the second novel in the series.
The Golden Age is a gem of a sci-fi. It does not even matter that it is the first book in a trilogy; it is still worth a read. I want to say Thank You! To all my friends here at Goodreads that reviewed this book and put out the warning that although the beginning of this book is extremely difficult to get through, the persistent reader will be rewarded with a remarkably written hard science fiction mystery novel. This was my first exposure to John C. Wright as an author, but now I will seek out his other works.
This is a tough novel to follow as it is not easy to keep track of what is happening in the real world versus the many different layers of alternate/virtual realities that the people of Phaethon’s world live in. The novel is frequently going from one layer to another, mostly keeping you up to speed with the where and the when, but it was a tough learning curve to get used to.
“Phaethon stepped one further step into mentality, going from Nearreality to Hypertextual, what was sometimes called the Middle Dreaming level. The filter leading into his direct memory was removed.
Everything around him suddenly was charged with additional significance; some objects and icons disappeared from view, others appeared. The sound of a thousand voices, singing in chorus, thundered from the lake bottom, splendid and astonishing, surging in time with the flames. Phaethon felt the music tremble in his bones.
When he glanced at the guests, the meanings attached to their various costumes and appearance were thrust into his brain.”
This is a mystery novel in a hard futuristic sci-fi world. Our main hero Phaethon, son of one of the world’s richest men, comes to realize that centuries of his memory are missing, huge holes in his life, with no apparent reason. The conspiracy behind this memory loss is the heart of this book and without giving away any spoilers; it is the reason to read this novel. The mystery unfolds slowly to us and to our hero in a way that could only happen in the far future….great stuff here!!!!
“"I mean, how can I trust you without taking such a drastic step?"
"As to that, I do not know. The cruel technology of your society makes it unwise to trust your eyes, your memory, your thoughts. You may not be who you think you are. Everything you know could be false. This could be a dream. Your only guide of action can be to follow your instincts and feelings; how else can you be true to your character?””
I loved the deep futuristic world building and found myself lost in it. Not since Greg Bear’s City at the End of Time have I been so taken away in a far future setting. Both of these books will send your mind and your imagination spinning for a long time after. I applaud Wright and his blunt style of dropping us the reader into this amazing world, without spelling it out all black and white. He made us put work and effort into the start of this book, which really makes the whole thing payoff later on.
As a lover of hard science fiction, I can easily recommend this to others that share my same taste. This book will turn off many people that are not willing to put the initial investment into it. (It really was hard to push through). This was a great read, I cannot wait to read the second novel in the series.
June 23, 2010
6.0 stars. Absolutely mind-blowing science fiction debut novel. I do not know how best to describe this. In tone, it reminds me of some of the "golden age" science fiction classics like The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester and The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. However, the book is written in a very contemporary and highly "computer literate" style (think cyber punk) that reminds me of William Gibson. Absolutely incredible and very unique. I can't wait to read the sequel. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!
Nominee: John W. Campbell Award for Best Novel.
Nominee: Locus Award for Best First Novel.
Nominee: John W. Campbell Award for Best Novel.
Nominee: Locus Award for Best First Novel.
October 5, 2007
Dude. This is one of those books that, for the first 60 pages, is impenetrable to the point of sheer frustration. I was reading it thinking, this guy is an ok writer but this whole "murky mysterious" thing is making me mental. Kind of like trying to read Greg Bear, or anyone who writes obscure prose out of some lack of story or character confidence. So it was like that for the first bunch of teh book, and Tim kept reading it on the sly and overtook me, and then he wouldn't put it down until it was done.
It took me a while to get back into the story, but things started to clarify exceptionally quickly. Wright managed to explain the story and the significance of the initial murkiness using clever, (just noticable) but very well-crafted devices which clarified things without spelling them out, sometimes pushing you ahead to anticipate the characters' understanding, while sometimes letting you lag behind to fully experience the pelasure of their epiphanies.
The book is a future hero-story, a kind of fin-de-siecle in a wildly advanced earth-civilization, with various forms of consciousness (including machine) living and governing through several collective judicial and social conglomerates. War has been abolished, crime does not exist, the mind is propped up and perfected with software and machine intelligence, and people mainly live through a projection of/into a reality which is divided into different schools of thought... Such is the glory of their technology that each man can program his reality to be translated into the forms and aesthetics which most please him.
The main character, Phaethon, is brilliant, exuberant, and heoic, all while managing a charming naievete which seems exaclty in place for a world where people are so dependent on technology. While he is super-human in many ways, he has rarely/never had to experience life without first having it filtered, rendering his perspective a bit skewed.
The book is set up as a mystery, so I'll not get into the plot, but Wright has created a deeply compelling book; he brings mythic themes into future that is not entirley new, but which has been solidly made, and his character development and technical skills are excellent. It is a psychological novel set in the far-future which is more about man and his eternal revolution than about sw33t laz3rz.
I highly recommend this book to pretty much everyone. It is the smartest sci-fi I've read in a long time, and I am thrilled to note that the entire trilogy is available (the middle of teh 2nd book still hs me craving more more!), and has written a fantasy series which is purported to be just as excellent as his first SF work here has been. --hh
basically, this is one of those books that when you're reading it, makes you want to sneak into the file room to get a hit of during work. the type that sick days are made for.
It took me a while to get back into the story, but things started to clarify exceptionally quickly. Wright managed to explain the story and the significance of the initial murkiness using clever, (just noticable) but very well-crafted devices which clarified things without spelling them out, sometimes pushing you ahead to anticipate the characters' understanding, while sometimes letting you lag behind to fully experience the pelasure of their epiphanies.
The book is a future hero-story, a kind of fin-de-siecle in a wildly advanced earth-civilization, with various forms of consciousness (including machine) living and governing through several collective judicial and social conglomerates. War has been abolished, crime does not exist, the mind is propped up and perfected with software and machine intelligence, and people mainly live through a projection of/into a reality which is divided into different schools of thought... Such is the glory of their technology that each man can program his reality to be translated into the forms and aesthetics which most please him.
The main character, Phaethon, is brilliant, exuberant, and heoic, all while managing a charming naievete which seems exaclty in place for a world where people are so dependent on technology. While he is super-human in many ways, he has rarely/never had to experience life without first having it filtered, rendering his perspective a bit skewed.
The book is set up as a mystery, so I'll not get into the plot, but Wright has created a deeply compelling book; he brings mythic themes into future that is not entirley new, but which has been solidly made, and his character development and technical skills are excellent. It is a psychological novel set in the far-future which is more about man and his eternal revolution than about sw33t laz3rz.
I highly recommend this book to pretty much everyone. It is the smartest sci-fi I've read in a long time, and I am thrilled to note that the entire trilogy is available (the middle of teh 2nd book still hs me craving more more!), and has written a fantasy series which is purported to be just as excellent as his first SF work here has been. --hh
basically, this is one of those books that when you're reading it, makes you want to sneak into the file room to get a hit of during work. the type that sick days are made for.
October 18, 2019
This is a book packed with 4-star ideas, let down by a 3-star plot and 1-star author opinions.
The book starts confusingly and goes on that way, although as with all new things, once you get your bearings it's easier to go along with. The writing is a mess of ideas, infodump after infodump, and not a lot really happens, especially in the first 100 pages.
The ideas themselves are quite interesting and I suspect this is the main reason that the book has garnered so many positive reviews. The author has so many ideas about virtual reality, cloning and backups, AI, nanotech, body modification, computer-brain interfaces and memory modification, and these are all intriguing. It's often hard to visualise what's actually going on with all these things, but it's definitely a world filled with interesting technology, if nothing else.
Unfortunately, the author also has plenty of ideas on the so-called "soft" stuff as well — society, morality, liberty, law, status, relationships, and authority — that I found less coherent and less interesting.
The problem with all the ideas in general is that there are so many, covering every little aspect of every interaction in the book, that inevitably they come to confuse and contradict each other. For example, early in the book there's a line, "Helion hid a frown in a backup file, where no one could see it." I enjoyed the image, but this sort of ability never directly comes up again. It's not clear if nobody else for the rest of the book needed to hide their facial expressions in backup files, but it felt more likely that the author just enjoyed the turn of phrase as he wrote it, then promptly forgot about it. There are larger contradictions in here too — multiple times the plot concerns "AIs being able to predict human behaviour" where this is described as too hard to do, but then later is casually done.
Contradictions plague the descriptions of society too, where the author can't seem to decide if this is an enlightened time of plenty, or a terrible, cruel world. He bemoans the freedom that the ruling class gives the individual, for example to kill themselves, but then rails against its authority. In the end, it was obvious that he was for liberty (I wouldn't be surprised if he was a libertarian, given how fervently he rails against any encroachment on individual freedoms) but his inconsistent portrayal of the finer points of the society the protagonist rebelled against muddied his case quite a lot. The core of the plot basically concerns "the protagonist (liberty) vs society (security)", so I found the plot fairly weak because of this.
And finally, I've saved the best for last. The author absolutely is a bigot. After purchasing the book I found out about his homophobia, but this doesn't explicitly come up in the book (I guess it does implicitly, as there are no gay characters, even though all bar one are dudes). The main manifestation of his bigoted views are the characters. These people are so advanced they can change sex, change the physical structure of their brains, change their bodies into many-tentacled blobs and icy-armoured balls of brain and so on, and yet all of the important non-AI characters, all of the "ruling class", are men. Give me a break. And in this world where everyone has the power to take any form they choose, making every body or gender as temporary as you like, the protagonist spouts a line about "chivalry not being dead, as he was programmed to look after women and children first". Good grief. It's just so jarring when it's obvious that the author can imagine advanced technologies... But not all humans being equal. There's literally only one female character in this book, and she is the wife of the protagonist. She exists purely so the protagonist has something to lose, and his feelings for her are, as the book progresses, "I must fulfil my duty to my wife", "she's so sexy no wonder I married her", and finally (mild spoilers) "why won't she do what I want, waah". We do get a chapter from her perspective, but she's as shallow and dull as a muddy puddle. Actually, all of the characters are pretty flat. The protagonist is the most fleshed out, and I mean, you'd sure hope so, but everyone else could probably be replaced with a cardboard cutout.
Finally, the book ends on a giant cliffhanger, so there's no gratifying sense of conclusion to be had at all.
It's sad, because I'd like to read more about the world the author has created, I just really think someone else who likes humans should be writing it.
The book starts confusingly and goes on that way, although as with all new things, once you get your bearings it's easier to go along with. The writing is a mess of ideas, infodump after infodump, and not a lot really happens, especially in the first 100 pages.
The ideas themselves are quite interesting and I suspect this is the main reason that the book has garnered so many positive reviews. The author has so many ideas about virtual reality, cloning and backups, AI, nanotech, body modification, computer-brain interfaces and memory modification, and these are all intriguing. It's often hard to visualise what's actually going on with all these things, but it's definitely a world filled with interesting technology, if nothing else.
Unfortunately, the author also has plenty of ideas on the so-called "soft" stuff as well — society, morality, liberty, law, status, relationships, and authority — that I found less coherent and less interesting.
The problem with all the ideas in general is that there are so many, covering every little aspect of every interaction in the book, that inevitably they come to confuse and contradict each other. For example, early in the book there's a line, "Helion hid a frown in a backup file, where no one could see it." I enjoyed the image, but this sort of ability never directly comes up again. It's not clear if nobody else for the rest of the book needed to hide their facial expressions in backup files, but it felt more likely that the author just enjoyed the turn of phrase as he wrote it, then promptly forgot about it. There are larger contradictions in here too — multiple times the plot concerns "AIs being able to predict human behaviour" where this is described as too hard to do, but then later is casually done.
Contradictions plague the descriptions of society too, where the author can't seem to decide if this is an enlightened time of plenty, or a terrible, cruel world. He bemoans the freedom that the ruling class gives the individual, for example to kill themselves, but then rails against its authority. In the end, it was obvious that he was for liberty (I wouldn't be surprised if he was a libertarian, given how fervently he rails against any encroachment on individual freedoms) but his inconsistent portrayal of the finer points of the society the protagonist rebelled against muddied his case quite a lot. The core of the plot basically concerns "the protagonist (liberty) vs society (security)", so I found the plot fairly weak because of this.
And finally, I've saved the best for last. The author absolutely is a bigot. After purchasing the book I found out about his homophobia, but this doesn't explicitly come up in the book (I guess it does implicitly, as there are no gay characters, even though all bar one are dudes). The main manifestation of his bigoted views are the characters. These people are so advanced they can change sex, change the physical structure of their brains, change their bodies into many-tentacled blobs and icy-armoured balls of brain and so on, and yet all of the important non-AI characters, all of the "ruling class", are men. Give me a break. And in this world where everyone has the power to take any form they choose, making every body or gender as temporary as you like, the protagonist spouts a line about "chivalry not being dead, as he was programmed to look after women and children first". Good grief. It's just so jarring when it's obvious that the author can imagine advanced technologies... But not all humans being equal. There's literally only one female character in this book, and she is the wife of the protagonist. She exists purely so the protagonist has something to lose, and his feelings for her are, as the book progresses, "I must fulfil my duty to my wife", "she's so sexy no wonder I married her", and finally (mild spoilers) "why won't she do what I want, waah". We do get a chapter from her perspective, but she's as shallow and dull as a muddy puddle. Actually, all of the characters are pretty flat. The protagonist is the most fleshed out, and I mean, you'd sure hope so, but everyone else could probably be replaced with a cardboard cutout.
Finally, the book ends on a giant cliffhanger, so there's no gratifying sense of conclusion to be had at all.
It's sad, because I'd like to read more about the world the author has created, I just really think someone else who likes humans should be writing it.
March 15, 2010
When reality is only perceived through multiple layers of filters, what is truth?
When memories are readable, writable, and editable, what is an individual?
When superintelligences are capable of predicting the vast majority of our decisions, what is free will?
When biochemistry and emotional states are hackable (and therefore suppressible), what is discipline?
When every human has the option to plug in to their own custom virtual world, what is humanity?
If these questions sound like philosophical mumbo-jumbo, you may want to treat your mind to the whiz-bang, action-packed books of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and other less thoughtful authors.
If these questions consistently keep you and your geeky friends in heated discussion until 3am, then prepare to be seduced by John Wright and the deepest and most thorough picture of a transhumanist future ever scribbled.
By the way, don't expect to have any of these questions answered. At best, you'll come away with a deeper concern (and perhaps excitement) for the future of humanity.
Some of these questions even play with your sense of what is to be human today. For instance, plenty of psychological research is revealing just how fallible and influenceable our memories are. If our sense of personal identity relies on our memories of what we assume is the "true reality" of the past, what does it mean when these memories are so sensitive?
Warning: The first hundred pages or so are tough. Wright drops you in the middle of a world of sensory filters and altered memories and it's not clear what's real and what's not. Treat this confusion as part of the experience of living in a future of hacked realities and keep reading.
When memories are readable, writable, and editable, what is an individual?
When superintelligences are capable of predicting the vast majority of our decisions, what is free will?
When biochemistry and emotional states are hackable (and therefore suppressible), what is discipline?
When every human has the option to plug in to their own custom virtual world, what is humanity?
If these questions sound like philosophical mumbo-jumbo, you may want to treat your mind to the whiz-bang, action-packed books of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and other less thoughtful authors.
If these questions consistently keep you and your geeky friends in heated discussion until 3am, then prepare to be seduced by John Wright and the deepest and most thorough picture of a transhumanist future ever scribbled.
By the way, don't expect to have any of these questions answered. At best, you'll come away with a deeper concern (and perhaps excitement) for the future of humanity.
Some of these questions even play with your sense of what is to be human today. For instance, plenty of psychological research is revealing just how fallible and influenceable our memories are. If our sense of personal identity relies on our memories of what we assume is the "true reality" of the past, what does it mean when these memories are so sensitive?
Warning: The first hundred pages or so are tough. Wright drops you in the middle of a world of sensory filters and altered memories and it's not clear what's real and what's not. Treat this confusion as part of the experience of living in a future of hacked realities and keep reading.
August 30, 2011
John C. Wright's _The Golden Age_ is a worthy read. Taking place in the far future, 10,000 years from now, it is a world where the transhuman 'singularity' has occurred long before and the population of the solar system is made up of humans of massive (and varied) intellects and powers as well as the 'sophotechs', huge supercomputers of intellectual capacity to dwarf even their superhuman creators who make sure that the society of humanity does not lack for anything except perhaps risk and adventure, "deeds of renown without peer" as the main character would
have it.
This main character is Phaeton, the aptly named son of Helion. His father is one of the seven peers who are the richest and most powerful of men in the richest and most powerful age that humanity has ever known. Something does not sit well with Phaeton though, even in this golden age of peace and prosperity. Phaeton hungers for even more than the world can give him, namely the above-mentioned deeds of peerless renown. In addition to this he soon discovers that he has large gaps in his memory and is given some uncomfortable indications that he is not the man he thinks he is and perhaps the world is not as rosy a place as it seems. So begins Phaeton's quest to discover his true identity while his father, wife and seemingly the whole of humanity stand against him. The secrets that Phaeton uncovers will shatter his life and may, in the end, also shatter the world. John C. Wright has created a wonderful glimpse of a far-future for humanity. It is a solar system where FTL has not been discovered, forcing humanity to still live in its cradle system, but they have been able to engineer the planets and the sun to suit their every desire and need. They also live mostly in the cyber-like world of the Mentality where everything from their self-image to their perceptions of the world around them can be tailored to suit their varied tastes and desires. Over all watch the immense minds of the Sophotechs ensuring that no human hurts another (unless it be himself) and keeping track of the endless calculations needed to keep the golden age running smoothly.
The story is a fairly straightforward quest tale in which Phaeton must overcome insurmountable opposition in order to reach his goal, though it is laced with numerous insights into human nature, both personal and political, as well as the philosophical implications of such a utopian world that make it more than an adventure story. The prose is also excellent, a well-crafted piece of work reminiscent of Jack Vance whom the author has sited as a great influence. The ideas are also 'big' in the best tradition of both space opera and tales of human life after the singularity. The book is the first part of a trilogy and ends on something of a cliffhanger, so don't go into it expecting to get a neat resolution to the plot. All in all this was an excellent book and I think you'll enjoy immersing yourself in the world that John C. Wright has created in an erudite and well-crafted story.
have it.
This main character is Phaeton, the aptly named son of Helion. His father is one of the seven peers who are the richest and most powerful of men in the richest and most powerful age that humanity has ever known. Something does not sit well with Phaeton though, even in this golden age of peace and prosperity. Phaeton hungers for even more than the world can give him, namely the above-mentioned deeds of peerless renown. In addition to this he soon discovers that he has large gaps in his memory and is given some uncomfortable indications that he is not the man he thinks he is and perhaps the world is not as rosy a place as it seems. So begins Phaeton's quest to discover his true identity while his father, wife and seemingly the whole of humanity stand against him. The secrets that Phaeton uncovers will shatter his life and may, in the end, also shatter the world. John C. Wright has created a wonderful glimpse of a far-future for humanity. It is a solar system where FTL has not been discovered, forcing humanity to still live in its cradle system, but they have been able to engineer the planets and the sun to suit their every desire and need. They also live mostly in the cyber-like world of the Mentality where everything from their self-image to their perceptions of the world around them can be tailored to suit their varied tastes and desires. Over all watch the immense minds of the Sophotechs ensuring that no human hurts another (unless it be himself) and keeping track of the endless calculations needed to keep the golden age running smoothly.
The story is a fairly straightforward quest tale in which Phaeton must overcome insurmountable opposition in order to reach his goal, though it is laced with numerous insights into human nature, both personal and political, as well as the philosophical implications of such a utopian world that make it more than an adventure story. The prose is also excellent, a well-crafted piece of work reminiscent of Jack Vance whom the author has sited as a great influence. The ideas are also 'big' in the best tradition of both space opera and tales of human life after the singularity. The book is the first part of a trilogy and ends on something of a cliffhanger, so don't go into it expecting to get a neat resolution to the plot. All in all this was an excellent book and I think you'll enjoy immersing yourself in the world that John C. Wright has created in an erudite and well-crafted story.
May 17, 2019
Wow. This was truly one of the weirdest books I've ever read. Far future, everyone is immortal, godlike... Thoughts of Zelazney's "Lord of Light", but this was not sixties new wave, it was, rather, the modern sort of scifi I have yet to grok. I understood and somewhat like the story, but man, what a chore to read all this - so wordy; my biggest complaint with newer works. I thought we were in a era of short attention span... 2-3 minutes and we switch. I tend to prefer the Twilight Zone type stories: Short, to the point and with a twist at the end. The latest trend are these long meandering stretched out novels that do not end. They are but a prelude to something else. Okay fine, I will keep on with it...
Overall, it is an original work worth reading if you are up for long drawn out epic scenarios. The writing was odd in the way that it was at times brilliant and at other times rather sloppy. My reason, by the way, for even knowing about this author was that he wrote a sequel to A.E. van Vogt's Null-A series. I wanted to read some of his other works before getting into his "Null-A Continuum".
Overall, it is an original work worth reading if you are up for long drawn out epic scenarios. The writing was odd in the way that it was at times brilliant and at other times rather sloppy. My reason, by the way, for even knowing about this author was that he wrote a sequel to A.E. van Vogt's Null-A series. I wanted to read some of his other works before getting into his "Null-A Continuum".
September 7, 2018
Impresionante, absolutamente impresionante. 4 estrellas y media sin duda, no le doy las 5 porque la ideología política q subyace en la historia y por la q es conocido el autor es refractaria a mi forma de concebir la sociedad, pero por lo demás es una obra maestrísima llena de sentido de la maravilla y visión prospectiva de alto nivel.
Un tour de force tan lleno de potencia q abruma con su extraordinaria imaginación sobre las posibilidades del futuro tecnológico y social de la humanidad desde la perspectiva "libertaria" yanqui. Me costo entrar en el estilo y la trama (barrocos ambos) al principio, pero la lectura es una gozada absoluta, incluso me emocioné en ciertos pasajes como cuando Faetón se despide de su padre. Un must sin duda. Seguiré con la saga.
Un tour de force tan lleno de potencia q abruma con su extraordinaria imaginación sobre las posibilidades del futuro tecnológico y social de la humanidad desde la perspectiva "libertaria" yanqui. Me costo entrar en el estilo y la trama (barrocos ambos) al principio, pero la lectura es una gozada absoluta, incluso me emocioné en ciertos pasajes como cuando Faetón se despide de su padre. Un must sin duda. Seguiré con la saga.
September 16, 2018
I'll pass on reading anything by this homophobe. Yikes.
October 1, 2024
In my original review I wrote, "The four stars are probably conservative. I’m loath to bump this up to five until I give it at least a second reading, but my gut instinct is that it would not only survive one but a second read through benefiting from hindsight would be enriching. Ultimately, I found this more satisfying that the original Foundation trilogy, and it should definitely rank highly among any sustained science fiction stories of similar length."
Well, we are now on the third reading and while the story isn't perfect, I still think it among the best sustained science fiction story of all time. It's certainly the best far future science fiction work of all time, and one of the best works of the last two decades. Since I've indicated in other reviews that I consider the mark of a five story work that it begs to be reread, I'm bumping this up to five stars.
It’s hard to talk about this work without drawing some point of reference to similar works by writers that might be more familiar. To begin with, it’s obvious within just a few pages that John has read Gene Wolfe and like so many that have read Gene Wolfe is adopting his style and tropes as the best form of flattery. What’s amazing is that unlike almost every other imitator, he almost pulls it off. Please do not read that as damning with faint praise. It’s more like saying he’s almost pulls off as great a command of the English language as Shakespeare, and has almost as great of mastery of plot as Victor Hugo. Almost pulling off Gene Wolfe is so amazing, that if you have read Wolfe you’ll almost certainly think I’m exaggerating. But JCW isn’t Gene Wolfe, because who is, he is still clearly ferociously intelligent from page one with an imagination that rivals the very best in the business. He not only imitates Gene Wolfe on a superficial level, he is also imitating Wolfe’s layers of meaning, deft sleight of hand, and rich allusions.
Where the style will seem familiar from Gene Wolfe, the adventures in a far future setting with its sufficiently advanced pervasive technology and hyper-competent AI will remind the seasoned reader of science fiction of Iain M. Banks and his ‘Culture’. But where Banks is goofy and fun, or cynical and jaded, or both at the same time, Wright’s passion comes from deeper and more serious places. And perhaps even more strikingly, Wright's super-science for me never descended to mere magic but was grounded deeply in science. OK, so not all of the science is exactly plausible, but it’s mostly at least theoretically possible using mostly what we know at present, and it’s certainly believable extrapolation of what we know into the unknowably distant future. Wright refuses to push aside the speed of light as if it was an annoyingly inconvenient plot element. He eschews action at a distance unless he can explain the mechanism. Most incredibly of all, he seems to pay attention to the fact that technology of any sort needs energy to work. Alone of all the far future science fiction writers I can think of, he’s trying to work out where all the energy for this bling is coming from. I feel that in comparison to Banks, Banks was making the technology serve his desired plot, so if the plot and the physics are in a contest, the plot wins and it just happens as if by magic. Wright on the other hand is actually making his plot follow from or at least be constrained by the physics. Some of it may literally be unobtianium – imagined far islands of super stability in super-heavy virtually unsplitable isotopes for example – but at least it’s clearly science fiction and not merely a fantasy story wearing a lab coat. There are at least some reasons to believe it beyond wanting it to be true or needing it to be true for the purpose of the story, and I can’t help but think that in Wright’s case, knowledge of the science came first and the thought, “How can I use this in a story?” came second. Much like how I found the hard science fiction of ‘The Martian’ refreshing, so I also found the relative discipline of having a far future setting that was still constrained by reality as far as we know it refreshing. Some of my favorite science fiction is soft sci-fi, but over the past few decades hard science fiction had increasingly dropped into disrepute and so slightly rebellious reaction to that is very endearing.
The other author that he reminds me of is somewhat more regrettable, because he reminds me more of this author’s flaws than his strengths, and that is Robert Heinlein. While most of his story is thick in the layers of narration and imagination of Gene Wolfe, right down to the highly unreliable narrator, every once and a while Wright allows his inner pedagogue to the surface, gives his author’s voice too much freedom, and he gets a bit preachy. In my case, he’s preaching to the choir so this is mostly just a bit boring, but I’m willing to bet that if you don’t largely agree with Wright he’s going to be more than a bit abrasive at times. And this is my biggest worry. Because I don’t know one science fiction author in the history of the art form that didn’t get worse and worse in this regard as he got older, and I’ve seen links to his writing since I started reading this that suggests he’s no exception to the rule. My wife hypothesizes that write good science fiction, you’ve got to be a little bit weird in the first place, and that eventually they all go nuts. So with Wright I would say, “Hear ye! Hear ye! Early works by a Grand Master!! Enjoy them while it lasts; because it inevitably won’t.”
Well, we are now on the third reading and while the story isn't perfect, I still think it among the best sustained science fiction story of all time. It's certainly the best far future science fiction work of all time, and one of the best works of the last two decades. Since I've indicated in other reviews that I consider the mark of a five story work that it begs to be reread, I'm bumping this up to five stars.
It’s hard to talk about this work without drawing some point of reference to similar works by writers that might be more familiar. To begin with, it’s obvious within just a few pages that John has read Gene Wolfe and like so many that have read Gene Wolfe is adopting his style and tropes as the best form of flattery. What’s amazing is that unlike almost every other imitator, he almost pulls it off. Please do not read that as damning with faint praise. It’s more like saying he’s almost pulls off as great a command of the English language as Shakespeare, and has almost as great of mastery of plot as Victor Hugo. Almost pulling off Gene Wolfe is so amazing, that if you have read Wolfe you’ll almost certainly think I’m exaggerating. But JCW isn’t Gene Wolfe, because who is, he is still clearly ferociously intelligent from page one with an imagination that rivals the very best in the business. He not only imitates Gene Wolfe on a superficial level, he is also imitating Wolfe’s layers of meaning, deft sleight of hand, and rich allusions.
Where the style will seem familiar from Gene Wolfe, the adventures in a far future setting with its sufficiently advanced pervasive technology and hyper-competent AI will remind the seasoned reader of science fiction of Iain M. Banks and his ‘Culture’. But where Banks is goofy and fun, or cynical and jaded, or both at the same time, Wright’s passion comes from deeper and more serious places. And perhaps even more strikingly, Wright's super-science for me never descended to mere magic but was grounded deeply in science. OK, so not all of the science is exactly plausible, but it’s mostly at least theoretically possible using mostly what we know at present, and it’s certainly believable extrapolation of what we know into the unknowably distant future. Wright refuses to push aside the speed of light as if it was an annoyingly inconvenient plot element. He eschews action at a distance unless he can explain the mechanism. Most incredibly of all, he seems to pay attention to the fact that technology of any sort needs energy to work. Alone of all the far future science fiction writers I can think of, he’s trying to work out where all the energy for this bling is coming from. I feel that in comparison to Banks, Banks was making the technology serve his desired plot, so if the plot and the physics are in a contest, the plot wins and it just happens as if by magic. Wright on the other hand is actually making his plot follow from or at least be constrained by the physics. Some of it may literally be unobtianium – imagined far islands of super stability in super-heavy virtually unsplitable isotopes for example – but at least it’s clearly science fiction and not merely a fantasy story wearing a lab coat. There are at least some reasons to believe it beyond wanting it to be true or needing it to be true for the purpose of the story, and I can’t help but think that in Wright’s case, knowledge of the science came first and the thought, “How can I use this in a story?” came second. Much like how I found the hard science fiction of ‘The Martian’ refreshing, so I also found the relative discipline of having a far future setting that was still constrained by reality as far as we know it refreshing. Some of my favorite science fiction is soft sci-fi, but over the past few decades hard science fiction had increasingly dropped into disrepute and so slightly rebellious reaction to that is very endearing.
The other author that he reminds me of is somewhat more regrettable, because he reminds me more of this author’s flaws than his strengths, and that is Robert Heinlein. While most of his story is thick in the layers of narration and imagination of Gene Wolfe, right down to the highly unreliable narrator, every once and a while Wright allows his inner pedagogue to the surface, gives his author’s voice too much freedom, and he gets a bit preachy. In my case, he’s preaching to the choir so this is mostly just a bit boring, but I’m willing to bet that if you don’t largely agree with Wright he’s going to be more than a bit abrasive at times. And this is my biggest worry. Because I don’t know one science fiction author in the history of the art form that didn’t get worse and worse in this regard as he got older, and I’ve seen links to his writing since I started reading this that suggests he’s no exception to the rule. My wife hypothesizes that write good science fiction, you’ve got to be a little bit weird in the first place, and that eventually they all go nuts. So with Wright I would say, “Hear ye! Hear ye! Early works by a Grand Master!! Enjoy them while it lasts; because it inevitably won’t.”
January 28, 2018
Despite trusted sources calling this book “one of the smartest sci-fi books”, I think it is nearly pointless in all respects.
On the surface, the the plot is non-existent: it is a string of conversations in which information is doled out in pieces with the end-goal of solving an amnesia-trope mystery (though utilization of said trope is grounded in logic here) and the big reveal is ridiculous and underwhelming; the characters serve only to further the plot (as transmitters or receivers of information); the writing is serviceable at best (the author knows what a sentence is and has a good grasp on punctuation, I guess). There is some interesting world-building, but there’s not enough explanations. What the fuck are partials? How wide-spread is your copy of the matrix? What’s a neuroform? What are the repercussions of immortalliy? What is the economy like? Wright is just a poor man’s Stross.
But most importantly, it fails as an “idea” novel. I’m not well-read in sci-fi (I’m not well-read period, lol), but I’m pretty sure the point is to “go where no man has gone before”. Or something. The problem is that the “idea” behind the novel is ALREADY here, we are living it right now! Erich Fromm had been living it since the middle of the last century. This book will tickle your intellectual pickle only if you have no notion of the concept of negative correlation of safety and freedom.
To save u time, let me break it down for you. High safety is nigh impossible without low freedom, and high freedom is nigh impossible without low safety. Hence my cognitive dissonance when contemplating the USA: land of the free, you say, but… “safety first”. You may remember the Snowden antics - an example of a person fighting for high-freedom-low-safety against a government set on low-freedom-high-safety. There have been countless examples of horrific results of both extremes. Pro-freedom - you have Le Guin with her anarchy planet (The Dispossessed?). Pro-safety - you have your run-of-the-mill “we must kill and torture good people for the greater good”, like Red Rising. And as The Golden Age cleverly tells us, even two reasonable people may disagree as to what holds most value. You can’t PROVE that safety is more important, you can only, I don’t know… take a vote or smth.
On the surface, the the plot is non-existent: it is a string of conversations in which information is doled out in pieces with the end-goal of solving an amnesia-trope mystery (though utilization of said trope is grounded in logic here) and the big reveal is ridiculous and underwhelming; the characters serve only to further the plot (as transmitters or receivers of information); the writing is serviceable at best (the author knows what a sentence is and has a good grasp on punctuation, I guess). There is some interesting world-building, but there’s not enough explanations. What the fuck are partials? How wide-spread is your copy of the matrix? What’s a neuroform? What are the repercussions of immortalliy? What is the economy like? Wright is just a poor man’s Stross.
But most importantly, it fails as an “idea” novel. I’m not well-read in sci-fi (I’m not well-read period, lol), but I’m pretty sure the point is to “go where no man has gone before”. Or something. The problem is that the “idea” behind the novel is ALREADY here, we are living it right now! Erich Fromm had been living it since the middle of the last century. This book will tickle your intellectual pickle only if you have no notion of the concept of negative correlation of safety and freedom.
To save u time, let me break it down for you. High safety is nigh impossible without low freedom, and high freedom is nigh impossible without low safety. Hence my cognitive dissonance when contemplating the USA: land of the free, you say, but… “safety first”. You may remember the Snowden antics - an example of a person fighting for high-freedom-low-safety against a government set on low-freedom-high-safety. There have been countless examples of horrific results of both extremes. Pro-freedom - you have Le Guin with her anarchy planet (The Dispossessed?). Pro-safety - you have your run-of-the-mill “we must kill and torture good people for the greater good”, like Red Rising. And as The Golden Age cleverly tells us, even two reasonable people may disagree as to what holds most value. You can’t PROVE that safety is more important, you can only, I don’t know… take a vote or smth.
July 26, 2017
Original storyline, kaleidoscopic images, and super high-tech. Talk talk and little walk to the point where I started skimming. Won't be looking up part 2 of the trilogy.
October 1, 2018
Not a smooth read.
He tries too hard to show off his knowledge of the "great books".
Sometimes Phaethon comes across sounding like John Galt.
He tries too hard to show off his knowledge of the "great books".
Sometimes Phaethon comes across sounding like John Galt.
February 11, 2008
Extremely hardcore sci-fi, and very hard going at the start. I admit I came close to giving up, and did not enjoy the first parts of the book. I persevered only because I had nothing better to read and because I don't like leaving a book unfinished, but I'm very glad that I did. The first two books in this series are unequaled in page-turning power; it took me a fortnight to read the first half of this book, and about two days to read the second half.
Once you learn the terminology and can tell what the hell is going on, the mysteries of the plot will have you hooked. I didn't realise this was part of a series when I began it, and was highly disappointed to have to wait several months for the story to resume. The pattern continued when I finally got my hands on The Phoenix Exultant.
I highly recommend having all three books at hand (or at least able to be procured at short notice) before beginning the series.
Once you learn the terminology and can tell what the hell is going on, the mysteries of the plot will have you hooked. I didn't realise this was part of a series when I began it, and was highly disappointed to have to wait several months for the story to resume. The pattern continued when I finally got my hands on The Phoenix Exultant.
I highly recommend having all three books at hand (or at least able to be procured at short notice) before beginning the series.
September 18, 2013
So unexpectedly overwhelming that I have no patience, no patience at all, to talk about it. Shut up! And let me read The Phoenix Exultant!
(Still, my Third Thoughts wonder, 'unexpectedly'? Have you then lost your sense of infinite possibilities, your belief in the more-that-is-yet-to-come--even if not in the shape of this exact golden age?)
(Still, my Third Thoughts wonder, 'unexpectedly'? Have you then lost your sense of infinite possibilities, your belief in the more-that-is-yet-to-come--even if not in the shape of this exact golden age?)
March 19, 2015
This does not open a trilogy of three independent stories; it is a book chopped up into three parts with cliff-hangers for the endings of the first two.
It took me a bit to get into this one, because this is a story of the far-distant, transhumanist universe. Sophotects -- immensely powerful AI -- humans who have rewired their minds to connect their conscious and subconscious in various configurations, Cerebellian minds that consist of many, many, many living organisms -- even "basic" humans have the ability to remove memories or alter their personalities, or create "partials" that will do their work for them and be reassimiliated back into the original mind. (Primitivists don't, but they could if they wanted to.) Noemic recording allow people to have their minds and characters records so they can be revived. People can devise and share dream universes. The Cacophiles, the Nevernexters, resent that they will never receive an inheritance because their parents will never die. People routinely use translators to accommodate their very different brain structures in communication, and sense filters to make their environments appear as they wish.
Once upon a time, there was a extra-Solar colony at Cygnus X-1 to harvest the power of its black hole, but it fell silent. Human life is found in the Solar System -- but all over the solar system. Jupiter has been imploded to set off hydrogen fusion. The mischievous Neptunians live in the farthest reaches, for its poverty, for the chance at freedom and solitude; they are notorious for such stunts as viruses and mindworms. Venus has been terraformed, the Sun is being tamed by the Solar Array, and the once-in-a-thosand year Transcedence is approaching.
And in the middle of this, Phaethon wanders through a grove of genetically engineered trees that turn their leaves to where Saturn would shine, if it shone brightly enough, and an old man there jeers about "that reckless boy, what's his name, that Phaethon" -- something Phaethon has no memory of. The old man vanishes in a manner Phaethon finds rude, and so he tries turning off his sense filter to find him again. He learns that he has, for some reason, set his sense filter to block out Neputanians -- but with it off, he sees one. It pleads with him to come and let it free him from what has been imposed on him.
His investigation reveals that he is missing memories. Large chunks of them. Centuries of them, and he's only a few thousand years old. He could restore them -- but, he is warned, at the price of exile. His wife Daphne drops out of a dream-world competition to plead with him and, in an attempt to stop him, reveals the truth -- that she is not really his wife, who drowned herself in dreams, but an emancipated partial of her, changed to be more suitable. And he learns that he is suing his own father, Helion, with a claim that his father is actually dead. Something happened between the last noetic recording of him, and the last version's death, that meant that the recovered Helion was not the same man. Or so he is claiming. He doesn't remember any of it.
It gets even more complicated from there. Intrigue, the College of Hortators and exile, violence, the last soldier in the Solar System, an amazing ship, questions of identity, morality, individualism, and survival. The horrors of letting everyone do as they please as long as they do not use force. Love and reconciliation and really, really, really cool toys.
It took me a bit to get into this one, because this is a story of the far-distant, transhumanist universe. Sophotects -- immensely powerful AI -- humans who have rewired their minds to connect their conscious and subconscious in various configurations, Cerebellian minds that consist of many, many, many living organisms -- even "basic" humans have the ability to remove memories or alter their personalities, or create "partials" that will do their work for them and be reassimiliated back into the original mind. (Primitivists don't, but they could if they wanted to.) Noemic recording allow people to have their minds and characters records so they can be revived. People can devise and share dream universes. The Cacophiles, the Nevernexters, resent that they will never receive an inheritance because their parents will never die. People routinely use translators to accommodate their very different brain structures in communication, and sense filters to make their environments appear as they wish.
Once upon a time, there was a extra-Solar colony at Cygnus X-1 to harvest the power of its black hole, but it fell silent. Human life is found in the Solar System -- but all over the solar system. Jupiter has been imploded to set off hydrogen fusion. The mischievous Neptunians live in the farthest reaches, for its poverty, for the chance at freedom and solitude; they are notorious for such stunts as viruses and mindworms. Venus has been terraformed, the Sun is being tamed by the Solar Array, and the once-in-a-thosand year Transcedence is approaching.
And in the middle of this, Phaethon wanders through a grove of genetically engineered trees that turn their leaves to where Saturn would shine, if it shone brightly enough, and an old man there jeers about "that reckless boy, what's his name, that Phaethon" -- something Phaethon has no memory of. The old man vanishes in a manner Phaethon finds rude, and so he tries turning off his sense filter to find him again. He learns that he has, for some reason, set his sense filter to block out Neputanians -- but with it off, he sees one. It pleads with him to come and let it free him from what has been imposed on him.
His investigation reveals that he is missing memories. Large chunks of them. Centuries of them, and he's only a few thousand years old. He could restore them -- but, he is warned, at the price of exile. His wife Daphne drops out of a dream-world competition to plead with him and, in an attempt to stop him, reveals the truth -- that she is not really his wife, who drowned herself in dreams, but an emancipated partial of her, changed to be more suitable. And he learns that he is suing his own father, Helion, with a claim that his father is actually dead. Something happened between the last noetic recording of him, and the last version's death, that meant that the recovered Helion was not the same man. Or so he is claiming. He doesn't remember any of it.
It gets even more complicated from there. Intrigue, the College of Hortators and exile, violence, the last soldier in the Solar System, an amazing ship, questions of identity, morality, individualism, and survival. The horrors of letting everyone do as they please as long as they do not use force. Love and reconciliation and really, really, really cool toys.
August 24, 2016
I'm really impressed with this post-Singularity novel (and the follow-ups). This appears to be a first novel, and the copyedit was less-than-impressive (what's up with copyeditors these days?), but when I read this book in 2003, I found it the most inventive thing I'd read since LAST AND FIRST MEN. The very first page hooked me, and I couldn't put it down afterward. Wright creates a truly unique society and fashions it in such fascinating detail that you feel yourself thinking, "SF until now has only touched on these themes."
Because this is the first of a series and not a stand-alone novel, there's no conclusion. Not really even a satisfactory partial-conclusion - this is truly a three-volume novel. Wright does a bang-up job in the next volumes, so you can safely get started now.
Think Stapledon crossed with Stephenson. Wright has written exactly my kind of book, so even if he hadn't done such a fantastic job of world-building from the largest to the smallest magnitudes, I still would have been given him the benefit of the doubt and read it all. But here is such a story, with such personal tragedies of types impossible in a world not of The Golden Age, and with such a littering of clever inventions, that all I can say is that you must read it!
EDIT: Just stumbled upon this old review and wanted to post an update. In the past several years, the author has gone on attack against science fiction as a whole, so his work has taken on a seriously bitter flavor to the point that I just can't separate the author from his work. Too bad, because he had such promise in his early career.
Because this is the first of a series and not a stand-alone novel, there's no conclusion. Not really even a satisfactory partial-conclusion - this is truly a three-volume novel. Wright does a bang-up job in the next volumes, so you can safely get started now.
Think Stapledon crossed with Stephenson. Wright has written exactly my kind of book, so even if he hadn't done such a fantastic job of world-building from the largest to the smallest magnitudes, I still would have been given him the benefit of the doubt and read it all. But here is such a story, with such personal tragedies of types impossible in a world not of The Golden Age, and with such a littering of clever inventions, that all I can say is that you must read it!
EDIT: Just stumbled upon this old review and wanted to post an update. In the past several years, the author has gone on attack against science fiction as a whole, so his work has taken on a seriously bitter flavor to the point that I just can't separate the author from his work. Too bad, because he had such promise in his early career.
March 25, 2022
El relato de John C. Wright en la antología “Tiempo profundo" fue el único que me defraudó un poco y, a la vez, me dio cierta sensación de que se me estaba escapando algo. Teniendo en cuenta que se desarrollaba en el mismo mundo que la trilogía de “La edad de oro", tenía fácil sacarme de dudas, así que me puse a ello. Y sí, efectivamente algo me estaba perdiendo.
Es una auténtica locura el primer volumen de esta trilogía. Un bombardero continuo de diferentes realidades apelan a mantener el sentido de la maravilla durante toda la novela. Y lo consigue. Desarrolla constantemente ideas en la tradición del género (y no se molesta en ocultarlas. Miren el título) con resultados brillantes. En ocasiones, llega a ser tan apabullante y tan extremo el despliegue de diferentes realidades que parece fantasía o un sueño. Pero no. Al contrario, tiene un tratamiento muy hard que hace sostenible y digerible esta maravilla. Y tiene como protagonista un personaje antológico, que en la persecución de sus objetivos, recuerda a Gully Foyle, de “Las estrellas, mi destino".
Muy, pero que muy recomendable.
Es una auténtica locura el primer volumen de esta trilogía. Un bombardero continuo de diferentes realidades apelan a mantener el sentido de la maravilla durante toda la novela. Y lo consigue. Desarrolla constantemente ideas en la tradición del género (y no se molesta en ocultarlas. Miren el título) con resultados brillantes. En ocasiones, llega a ser tan apabullante y tan extremo el despliegue de diferentes realidades que parece fantasía o un sueño. Pero no. Al contrario, tiene un tratamiento muy hard que hace sostenible y digerible esta maravilla. Y tiene como protagonista un personaje antológico, que en la persecución de sus objetivos, recuerda a Gully Foyle, de “Las estrellas, mi destino".
Muy, pero que muy recomendable.
March 30, 2020
I cannot praise this book high enough. Such a mix of beautiful, baroque language and high tech on a breath-taking scale is really rare. If you like AI concepts or the simulation of personalities in a computer environment including all the options that this offers, this book is for you. But that's not all. As the story unfolds it's less and less clear which side plays which role and how our hero can overcome the obstacles.
A true masterpiece.
A true masterpiece.
November 9, 2008
Still my favorite science fiction novel of the last few years. Incredible vision of the far future that blends Jack Vance and Vernor Vinge into a classic space opera.
May 21, 2014
The prose is turgid, the dialogue is inhuman and the author is an absolute bastard.
September 28, 2024
My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
xx-dnf-skim-reference
February 23, 2025For Beyond Reality first quarter 2025 challenge.
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Ugh. P. 22 and done.
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Ugh. P. 22 and done.
December 23, 2009
J’ai rarement lu quoi que ce soit d’aussi étrange.
Et pourtant, j’en ai lu des bouquins décrivant des univers un peu dingues, des visions de l’avenir un chouïa corrompues, ou tout au moins gauchies, mais des comme ça … jamais, je crois.
En fait, le point troublant dès le départ, c'est que l’auteur nous envoie directement à ce qui est sans doute pour lui la fin de l’humanité. Enfin, la fin, pas vraiment, puisque tout le monde est immortel, avoir un corps est devenu un mode de vie comme un autre, les humains ont complètement fusionné avec les IA, et chacun dispose de filtres sensoriels lui permettant d’enrichir ou d’appauvrir son environnement à la demande. Mais la fin quand même, puisqu’avec l’allongement de la durée de la vie, et l’augmentation des capacités de prédiction, la possibilité de faire prendre des risques à son environnement a diminué jusqu’à devenir pratiquement nulle.
Oh, bien sûr, bien d’autres choses ont changé, puisque les humains sont pratiquement devenus les invités des IA dans ce monde virtuel. Par exemple, changer ses sentiments, sa mémoire, sa personnalité, sont devenus des actes presque routiniers, et éprouver un sentiment est maintenant devenu l’équivalent d’une tenue vestimentaire aujourd’hui.
Vous vous doutez donc facilement que, dans un contexte pareil, écrire une histoire est assez complexe, pusiqu’on n’est jamais sûr de ce que sont réellement les gens d’en face, ni ce qu’ils pensent, et encore moins ce qu’ils veulent vraiment.
Mais je trouve qu’avec son récit partant à la conquête des étoiles, il s’en sort plutôt bien.
En même temps, ce n’est pas de ça dont j’ai envie de parler. Parce que bon, c’est vrai que c’est une histoire intéressante (même s’il faut *vraiment* s’accrocher pour ne pas se laisser décourager par l’univers empli de faux-semblants), mais pas autant qu’un autre aspect.
En ce moment, je tombe régulièrement sur des articles vantant le côté actuel ou pas de la SF. Et je pense que ce roman est la plus criante illustration, malgré ses difficultés d’accès, de cette actualité. Car, bien que l’homme ait conquis l’espace, et ait dominé la mort, il reste un homme, empêtré dans les éternels conflits entre la sécurité et la nouveauté, entre l’expansion et la stagnation. Et ça, c’est particulièrement bien rendu ici. En effet, ce qui fait de Phaéton(1) un paria, ce n’est pas le meurtre, ni la guerre, mais plutôt la possibilité, le risque d’une guerre. Et c’est à ce moment-là que j’ai compris que ce roman n’était pas une trop lointaine anticipation, mais une parabole sur le présent.
En effet, depuis le début du siècle précédent, l’humanité a augmenté massivement son espérance de vie, et a acquis une certaine sécurité dans l’existence, grâce à de nombreux mécanismes qui sont bien pratiques. La contrepartie de tout ça, c’est que moins on vit dans le risque, moins on a envie d’y vivre. D’où dans ce roman les filets de sécurité que ne veulent pas tendre les IA (pour protéger le libre arbitre), mais que sont prêts à tendre les membres du collège des hortateurs, représentants de l’humanité. D’où aussi notre fichu principe de précaution, érigé en premier garde-fou d’un monde qui a quitté l’adolescence. Ce principe de précaution, dans le roman, va ostraciser le seul homme souhaitant que l’humanité essaime les étoiles, par crainte qu’elle ne diverge. Pourtant, c’est cette divergence, et cette différence, qui lui permettra d’affronter d’une manière humaine la fin du soleil, plutôt que de s’entourer de trous noirs transformant notre système solaire en dévoreur d’étoiles.
C’est cette réflexion, je crois, plus que ses qualités littéraires qui me fait admirer ce roman. Parce que même si la SF pose souvent la question du devenir de l’Homme, elle la pose rarement avec une telle pertinence et une telle simplicité(2).
Cela étant, je ne conseille pas ce roman à tout le monde. D’abord, parce qu’il est assez difficile d’accès. Ensuite, parce qu’il repose sur énormément de conventions non écrites de la SF. Enfin, pas vraiment des conventions, plutôt des lieux communs. Et enfin, parce qu’il faut bien s’accrocher, puisque les personnages ont parfois engendré des clones portant presque le même nom, et puisqu’il est aussi possible à un personnage d’en devenir un autre pour un temps. Mais je trouve quand même que c’est une lecture qui soulève – avec style – des questions réellement fascinantes.
(1) J’ai bien aimé l’explication qu’il donne de son nom, sur le thème des vainqueurs qui réécrivent toujours l’histoire, ainsi, évidement, que le fait que, pour la première fois, on mentionne clairement l’horreur qu’il y a à ce que l’espoir soit resté dans la boîte de Pandore.
(2) Enfin, une fois qu’on a dépassé l’esthétique absolument magnifique, mais aussi absolument baroque, de cette oeuvre. Une esthétique dont j’aurais dû parler aussi, mais je préfère la profondeur du questionnement à la superficialité de l’esthétique.
Et pourtant, j’en ai lu des bouquins décrivant des univers un peu dingues, des visions de l’avenir un chouïa corrompues, ou tout au moins gauchies, mais des comme ça … jamais, je crois.
En fait, le point troublant dès le départ, c'est que l’auteur nous envoie directement à ce qui est sans doute pour lui la fin de l’humanité. Enfin, la fin, pas vraiment, puisque tout le monde est immortel, avoir un corps est devenu un mode de vie comme un autre, les humains ont complètement fusionné avec les IA, et chacun dispose de filtres sensoriels lui permettant d’enrichir ou d’appauvrir son environnement à la demande. Mais la fin quand même, puisqu’avec l’allongement de la durée de la vie, et l’augmentation des capacités de prédiction, la possibilité de faire prendre des risques à son environnement a diminué jusqu’à devenir pratiquement nulle.
Oh, bien sûr, bien d’autres choses ont changé, puisque les humains sont pratiquement devenus les invités des IA dans ce monde virtuel. Par exemple, changer ses sentiments, sa mémoire, sa personnalité, sont devenus des actes presque routiniers, et éprouver un sentiment est maintenant devenu l’équivalent d’une tenue vestimentaire aujourd’hui.
Vous vous doutez donc facilement que, dans un contexte pareil, écrire une histoire est assez complexe, pusiqu’on n’est jamais sûr de ce que sont réellement les gens d’en face, ni ce qu’ils pensent, et encore moins ce qu’ils veulent vraiment.
Mais je trouve qu’avec son récit partant à la conquête des étoiles, il s’en sort plutôt bien.
En même temps, ce n’est pas de ça dont j’ai envie de parler. Parce que bon, c’est vrai que c’est une histoire intéressante (même s’il faut *vraiment* s’accrocher pour ne pas se laisser décourager par l’univers empli de faux-semblants), mais pas autant qu’un autre aspect.
En ce moment, je tombe régulièrement sur des articles vantant le côté actuel ou pas de la SF. Et je pense que ce roman est la plus criante illustration, malgré ses difficultés d’accès, de cette actualité. Car, bien que l’homme ait conquis l’espace, et ait dominé la mort, il reste un homme, empêtré dans les éternels conflits entre la sécurité et la nouveauté, entre l’expansion et la stagnation. Et ça, c’est particulièrement bien rendu ici. En effet, ce qui fait de Phaéton(1) un paria, ce n’est pas le meurtre, ni la guerre, mais plutôt la possibilité, le risque d’une guerre. Et c’est à ce moment-là que j’ai compris que ce roman n’était pas une trop lointaine anticipation, mais une parabole sur le présent.
En effet, depuis le début du siècle précédent, l’humanité a augmenté massivement son espérance de vie, et a acquis une certaine sécurité dans l’existence, grâce à de nombreux mécanismes qui sont bien pratiques. La contrepartie de tout ça, c’est que moins on vit dans le risque, moins on a envie d’y vivre. D’où dans ce roman les filets de sécurité que ne veulent pas tendre les IA (pour protéger le libre arbitre), mais que sont prêts à tendre les membres du collège des hortateurs, représentants de l’humanité. D’où aussi notre fichu principe de précaution, érigé en premier garde-fou d’un monde qui a quitté l’adolescence. Ce principe de précaution, dans le roman, va ostraciser le seul homme souhaitant que l’humanité essaime les étoiles, par crainte qu’elle ne diverge. Pourtant, c’est cette divergence, et cette différence, qui lui permettra d’affronter d’une manière humaine la fin du soleil, plutôt que de s’entourer de trous noirs transformant notre système solaire en dévoreur d’étoiles.
C’est cette réflexion, je crois, plus que ses qualités littéraires qui me fait admirer ce roman. Parce que même si la SF pose souvent la question du devenir de l’Homme, elle la pose rarement avec une telle pertinence et une telle simplicité(2).
Cela étant, je ne conseille pas ce roman à tout le monde. D’abord, parce qu’il est assez difficile d’accès. Ensuite, parce qu’il repose sur énormément de conventions non écrites de la SF. Enfin, pas vraiment des conventions, plutôt des lieux communs. Et enfin, parce qu’il faut bien s’accrocher, puisque les personnages ont parfois engendré des clones portant presque le même nom, et puisqu’il est aussi possible à un personnage d’en devenir un autre pour un temps. Mais je trouve quand même que c’est une lecture qui soulève – avec style – des questions réellement fascinantes.
(1) J’ai bien aimé l’explication qu’il donne de son nom, sur le thème des vainqueurs qui réécrivent toujours l’histoire, ainsi, évidement, que le fait que, pour la première fois, on mentionne clairement l’horreur qu’il y a à ce que l’espoir soit resté dans la boîte de Pandore.
(2) Enfin, une fois qu’on a dépassé l’esthétique absolument magnifique, mais aussi absolument baroque, de cette oeuvre. Une esthétique dont j’aurais dû parler aussi, mais je préfère la profondeur du questionnement à la superficialité de l’esthétique.
February 16, 2022
Enésima novela de ciencia ficción con ideas tan originales, que no piensa necesitar una trama coherente.
June 27, 2013
Este excelente livro é o 1º volume de uma trilogia escrita por John C. Wright que nos apresenta uma visão da evolução da sociedade humana nos próximos dez mil anos. O livro tem um dos inícios mais complexos que já li, mas deixa desde logo antever uma história futurista, com a referência a variadas tecnologias avançadas e recheada de visões sobre a evolução da espécie humana. A confusão inicial advém sobretudo da dificuldade em perceber a relação entre dois acontecimentos que nos são relatados em simultâneo, juntamente com a referência a tecnologias, vivências e experiências de tal modo futuristas que é difícil para o leitor relacionar tais conceitos com as experiências quotidianas. No entanto, vale mesmo a pena perseverar, já que a partir da página 96 (Capítulo 6), desfaz-se a confusão inicial, à medida que tudo começa a fazer sentido (sofotecs, adamântio, filtros sensoriais, pseudomatéria e matrizes cerebrais são algumas das tecnologias usadas por neuroformas base, não-padrão e cerebelinas, entre outras). A partir deste ponto, a história prende-nos de tal modo que é impossível parar de ler. O drama relatado neste 1º volume centra-se em torno de Faetonte, um ser humano imortal (é muito interessante a noção de imortalidade que nos é apresentada por John C. Wright) que perdeu parte das suas memórias episódicas, abrangendo um grande período de tempo para o qual desapareceram, inexplicavelmente, todas as suas reminiscências. À medida que Faetonte vai diligenciando para recuperar a memória dessa parte da sua vida, o autor apresenta-nos uma sociedade (Ecúmena Dourada) humana que conquistou já o domínio do sistema solar e o explora em seu benefício, delegando as tarefas rotineiras em seres vivos robóticos dotados de inteligência artificial (igualmente interessante é a noção de ser vivo que é introduzida por John C. Wright). A par do drama vivido por Faetonte, o autor conduz-nos de uma forma muito inteligente a autênticas reflexões filosóficas sobre o papel que a tecnologia pode desempenhar na evolução do ser humano, o tipo de sociedade a que pode conduzir, e os respetivos perigos. Em minha opinião, trata-se de um dos melhores livros de Ficção Científica que já li, ao nível do melhor de Arthur C. Clarke e Isaac Asimov. Imaginativo, bem escrito, bem traduzido e muito profundo, este livro cumpre na íntegra a promessa de uma história de Ficção Científica com todos os ingredientes que proporcionam muitas horas de leitura prazenteira. O final desperta de imediato a vontade de ler o 2º volume e, para mim, será um dos livros a reler mais tarde para recuperar e reflectir mais longamente sobre as perspectivas que o autor desenvolve para o futuro da humanidade. Definitivamente aconselhado a todos os aficionados do melhor que a Ficção Científica tem para oferecer.
January 29, 2011
"Era il tempo della mascherata."
Questo libro comincia proprio così. L'autore vuole semplicemente dire che è in corso una specie di festa di carnevale, ma io utilizzo questa frase perché ci vedo di più. E' ben rappresentativa di questo romanzo così folle e così estremamente visionario, dove l'identità non è mai stata così labile e fuori fuoco.
E' un grande romanzo di fantascienza, una vera sorpresa. Il futuro di Wright è lontanissimo, millenni avanti nel futuro, ed è un trionfo dell'immaginazione.
Anche in questo caso, è molto più di un romanzo di fantascienza, perché Wright proietta in uno spaziotempo lontano ed esotico problemi angosce e paure tutte nostre, del nostro presente. Il problema principale, soprattutto, è l'identità. Quando la realtà vissuta diventa quella virtuale (e il mondo fisico, naturale, mortale, viene abbandonato), chiunque può essere chiunque. E quando un personaggio virtuale acquista consapevolezza e diviene senziente e autonomo, si può parlare di identità e coscienza? E ancora: quando qualcuno fa una copia di se stesso, e quella copia comincia a vivere esperienze diverse, si può parlare ancora di identità?
E' un romanzo coraggioso che si tuffa nelle oscurità della mente e della coscienza, con delle trovate interessantissime e coinvolgenti.
Si è parlato di identità e coscienza, ma c'è ancora altro. C'è la depressione, la noia, che spinge un uomo a seguire un ambizione autodistruttiva.
Non mancano anche problematiche sociali di respiro più ampio, ma soprattutto, c'è pure una rilettura della storia dell'umanità, che parte dall'antica Grecia (costantemente riproposta con i suoi temi ed i suoi personaggi mitologici) e che tocca anche la nostra epoca.
Ed è solo il primo capitolo di una trilogia. Io ne sono già innamorato.
Questo libro comincia proprio così. L'autore vuole semplicemente dire che è in corso una specie di festa di carnevale, ma io utilizzo questa frase perché ci vedo di più. E' ben rappresentativa di questo romanzo così folle e così estremamente visionario, dove l'identità non è mai stata così labile e fuori fuoco.
E' un grande romanzo di fantascienza, una vera sorpresa. Il futuro di Wright è lontanissimo, millenni avanti nel futuro, ed è un trionfo dell'immaginazione.
Anche in questo caso, è molto più di un romanzo di fantascienza, perché Wright proietta in uno spaziotempo lontano ed esotico problemi angosce e paure tutte nostre, del nostro presente. Il problema principale, soprattutto, è l'identità. Quando la realtà vissuta diventa quella virtuale (e il mondo fisico, naturale, mortale, viene abbandonato), chiunque può essere chiunque. E quando un personaggio virtuale acquista consapevolezza e diviene senziente e autonomo, si può parlare di identità e coscienza? E ancora: quando qualcuno fa una copia di se stesso, e quella copia comincia a vivere esperienze diverse, si può parlare ancora di identità?
E' un romanzo coraggioso che si tuffa nelle oscurità della mente e della coscienza, con delle trovate interessantissime e coinvolgenti.
Si è parlato di identità e coscienza, ma c'è ancora altro. C'è la depressione, la noia, che spinge un uomo a seguire un ambizione autodistruttiva.
Non mancano anche problematiche sociali di respiro più ampio, ma soprattutto, c'è pure una rilettura della storia dell'umanità, che parte dall'antica Grecia (costantemente riproposta con i suoi temi ed i suoi personaggi mitologici) e che tocca anche la nostra epoca.
Ed è solo il primo capitolo di una trilogia. Io ne sono già innamorato.
June 25, 2011
The Golden Age (2002) by John C. Wright.
"Finally, a keeper!"
After picking up Robert Reed's _Marrow_ (2000) while perusing my local public library's "Books You May Have Missed" bookcase, I was a little wary to try another author I hadn't read. I found John C. Wright's _The Golden Transcendence_ (2003) in the same section, and noticed it was "Book Three of the Golden Age." I located Wright's first book in the series, aptly titled _The Golden Age_ (2002).
Super-science abounds here, with engineering projects well beyond the scope of current technology. All the same, Wright is able to clearly show how these high-tech advancements directly affect human beings and their variant forms. Overall, a capitivating read if you let it suck you in.
Despite its flowery and somewhat dense verbiage, this book is a pageturner. Unfortunately, I counted 5 spelling errors, which seem to be more common in books published here in the early 21st century. Whether that means copy editors are having to race over an exponentially increased number of manuscripts these days is hard to tell, but entirely possible.
And now, for the *really* bad news. You'll want to read all three books in this trilogy back to back, just so you can find out what happens next. The good news is that they've all been published, so you may want to check your local public library before hitting the bookstores.
No doubt about it, I'll be tracking down more of this author's work. "The Golden Age" series has made me a John C. Wright reader.
(12 Dec 2005)
"Finally, a keeper!"
After picking up Robert Reed's _Marrow_ (2000) while perusing my local public library's "Books You May Have Missed" bookcase, I was a little wary to try another author I hadn't read. I found John C. Wright's _The Golden Transcendence_ (2003) in the same section, and noticed it was "Book Three of the Golden Age." I located Wright's first book in the series, aptly titled _The Golden Age_ (2002).
Super-science abounds here, with engineering projects well beyond the scope of current technology. All the same, Wright is able to clearly show how these high-tech advancements directly affect human beings and their variant forms. Overall, a capitivating read if you let it suck you in.
Despite its flowery and somewhat dense verbiage, this book is a pageturner. Unfortunately, I counted 5 spelling errors, which seem to be more common in books published here in the early 21st century. Whether that means copy editors are having to race over an exponentially increased number of manuscripts these days is hard to tell, but entirely possible.
And now, for the *really* bad news. You'll want to read all three books in this trilogy back to back, just so you can find out what happens next. The good news is that they've all been published, so you may want to check your local public library before hitting the bookstores.
No doubt about it, I'll be tracking down more of this author's work. "The Golden Age" series has made me a John C. Wright reader.
(12 Dec 2005)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews