John C. Wright

The Golden Age — (2001-2003) Publisher: 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.

The Golden Age

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 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 faster-than-light travel 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 Wright has cited 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, The Golden Age is 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. —Terry Lago (guest)

Count to a Trillion —  (2011-2012) Publisher: Hundreds of years in the future, after the collapse of the Western world, young Menelaus Illation Montrose grows up in what was once Texas as a gunslinging duelist for hire. But Montrose is also a mathematical genius — and a romantic who dreams of a future in which humanity rises from the ashes to take its place among the stars. The chance to help usher in that future comes when Montrose is recruited for a manned interstellar mission to investigate an artifact of alien origin. Known as the Monument, the artifact is inscribed with data so complex, only a posthuman mind can decipher it. So Montrose does the unthinkable: he injects himself with a dangerous biochemical drug designed to boost his already formidable intellect to superhuman intelligence. It drives him mad. Nearly two centuries later, his sanity restored, Montrose is awakened from cryo-suspension with no memory of his posthuman actions, to find Earth transformed in strange and disturbing ways, and learns that the Monument still carries a secret he must decode — one that will define humanity’s true future in the universe.