The Golden Age

by John C Wright

Overview

THE GOLDEN AGE is the first book in a grand space opera trilogy by one of the true Grand Masters of science fiction, John C. Wright. It is an astounding story of artificial intelligence, advanced science, and adventure that recreates the wonder of science fiction's golden age.

Taking place 10,000 years in the future, the Golden Oecumene is a utopian society of an immortal posthumanity that has transcended the limits of Earth and of humanity itself. But even in utopia, there are rebels...

While celebrating the thousand-year anniversary of the High Transcendence, Phaethon of Radamanthus House encounters an old friend who informs him that Phaethon is an exile from his own memory for a crime he cannot remember committing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789527303511
Publisher:	Castalia House
Publication date:	05/19/2023
Pages:	392
Sales rank:	1,134,952
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

JOHN C. WRIGHT is an attorney turned SF and fantasy writer. He has published short fiction in Asimov's SF and elsewhere, and wrote the Chronicles of Chaos, The Golden Age, and The War of Dreaming series. His novel Orphans of Chaos was a finalist for the Nebula Award in 2005. The Hermetic Millennia is his second novel in the Count to a Trillion series.

Read an Excerpt

The Golden Age

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By Wright, John C.

Tor Science Fiction

Copyright © 2003 Wright, John C.
All right reserved.

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1
 
THE OLD MAN
 
 
I.
 
On the hundred-and-first night of the Millennial Celebration, Phaethon walked away from the lights and music, movement and gaiety of the golden palace-city, and out into the solitude of the groves and gardens beyond. In this time of joy, he was not at ease himself; and he did not know why.
His full name was Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043 (the "Reawakening").
This particular evening, the west wing of the Aurelian Palace-city had been set aside for a Presentation of Visions by the elite of Rhadamanthus Mansion. Phaethon had been extended an invitation to sit on the panel of dream-judges, and, eager to experience the future histories involved, had happily accepted. Phaethon had been imagining the evening, perhaps, would be in miniature, for Rhadamanthus House, what the High Transcendence in December would be for all mankind.
But he was disappointed. The review of one drab and uninspired extrapolation after another had drained his patience.
Here was a future where all men were recorded as brain-information in a diamond logic crystal occupying the core of the earth; there was one where all humanity existed in the threads of a plantlike array of sails and panels forming a Dyson Sphere around the sun; a third promised, larger thanworlds, housings for trillions of minds and superminds, existing in the absolute cold of trans-Neptunian space--cold was required for any truly precise subatomic engineering--but with rails or elevators of unthinkably dense material running across hundreds of AU, across the whole width of the solar system, and down into the mantle of the sun, both to mine the hydrogen ash for building matter, and to tap the vast energy of Sol, should ever matter or energy in any amount be needed by the immobile deep-space mainframes housing the minds of mankind.
Any one of them should have been a breathtaking vision. The engineering was worked out in loving detail. Phaethon could not name what it was he wanted, but he knew he wanted none of these futures being offered him.
Daphne, his wife, who was only a collateral member of the House, had not been invited; and, Helion, his sire, was present only as a partialversion, the primary having been called away to a conclave of the Peers.
And so it was that in the center of a loud, happy throng of brightly costumed telepresences, mannequins, and real-folk, and with a hundred high windows in the Presence Hall busy and bright with monotonous futures, and with a thousand channels clamoring with messages, requests, and invitations for him, Phaethon realized that he was entirely alone.
Fortunately, it was masquerade, and he was able to assign his face and his role to a backup copy of himself. He donned the disguise of a Harlequin clown, with lace at his throat and mask on his face, and then slipped out of a side entrance before any of Helion's lieutenants or squires-of-honor thought to stop him.
Without a word or signal to anyone, Phaethon departed, and he walked across silent lawns and gardens by moonlight, accompanied only by his thoughts.
 
Copyright 2002 by John C. Wright

Continues...

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Excerpted from The Golden Age by Wright, John C. Copyright © 2003 by Wright, John C.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Reading John C. Wright's first novel, The Golden Age, is like coming to the edge of a great precipice, looking down into total blackness, and then stepping off -- only to be fully immersed a second later in a brilliant new universe of surreal illusions and ever-changing reality.

From the very first sentences, I was fully absorbed in the grand Millennial Celebration, which takes place more than 10,000 years in the future. "It was a time of masquerade. It was the eve of the High Transcendence, an event so solemn and significant that it could be held but once each thousand years, and folk of every name and iteration, phenotype, composition, consciousness and neuro-form, from every school and era, had come to celebrate its coming, to welcome the transfiguration, and to prepare."

An interplanetary utopian society stretches across the solar system. Humans, for the most part, are immortal. It is paradise. Phaethon is attending a party to celebrate the anniversary of the High Transcendence, when he meets a mountainous Neptunian who claims to be an old friend. The Neptunian tells Phaethon that parts of his memory have been removed and are being kept somewhere by the government. Intuitively, Phaethon trusts the stranger and vows to recover his past. His dangerous journey will lead him across the solar system, and to his true identity.

The Golden Age is much more than an epic space adventure; it's an ambitious, deep book that is comparable in style and scope to Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. (Paul Goat Allen)

bn.com

This dazzling first novel is just half of a two-volume saga, so it's too soon to tell if it will deliver on its audacious promise. It's already clear, however, that Wright may be this fledgling century's most important new SF talent. Many millennia from now, his protagonist Phaethon disrupts the utopia of the Golden Oecumene to achieve "deeds of renown without peer." To write honestly about the far future is a similarly heroic deed. Too often, SF paints it as nothing more than the Roman Empire writ large. Wright recognizes that our society already commands many of the powers the Romans attributed to their gods; our descendants' world will be almost unimaginably magnificent and complex, and they will be able to reshape their own minds as easily as they engineer the heart of the sun. To make their dramas resonant today, the author uses echoes of mythology both classic (like his namesake, Phaethon is punished for soaring too high) and contemporary (SF fans will enjoy nods to modern masters Wells, Lovecraft and Vance). And he wisely chooses simple pulp-fiction plots to drive us through the technological complexities of Phaethon's world. The hero's quest to regain his lost memories, learn his true identity and reach the stars is undeniably compelling. As a result, having to wait for the next volume is frustrating. Wright's ornate and conceptually dense prose will not be to everyone's taste but, for those willing to be challenged, this is a rare and mind-blowing treat. (Apr. 24) Forecast: Intellectual SF fans should make this a cult favorite akin to Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Real Time or Greg Egan's Permutation City. If the novel finds a wider readership, it will be because, like William Gibson's work, it reflects and inspires current developments in virtual reality and AI. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In a future where humans, artificial personalities, and other exotic life forms coexist in the now-settled solar system, Phaethon, a scion of Radamanthus House, discovers that sometime in his past his memories had been locked away from him and that his familiar identity is a false one. Driven to discover his true history and his real name, Phaethon journeys across the solar system, seeking answers among human immortals, intelligent machines, and digital personalities among others. Bursting with kaleidoscopic imagery, Wright's first novel chronicles the quest of a far-future everyman in his journey of self-discovery. Reminiscent of the panoramic novels of Arthur C. Clarke, Iain Banks, and Jack Vance, this allegorical space opera belongs in most sf collections. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

First-timer Wright wrings new surprises from a familiar SF scenario: the protagonist must recover his lost memory before civilization falls. The Golden Oecumene encompasses every imaginable type of colony, lifestyle, and intelligence, both human and posthuman; Sophotects, artificial intelligences incomparably more powerful that a single human, provide guidance; immortality has been achieved; the difference between reality and computer-generated dreams no longer seems relevant. To the approval of the College of Hortators, the Seven Peers-the Oecumene's richest, most powerful individuals-plan to take absolute control of this perfect civilization. At the millennial High Transcendence revels, Phaethon discovers that he can remember nothing of the previous five hundred years. Waylaid by a Neptunian, one of a half-inorganic, multibrained, trickster race that thrives near absolute zero, Phaethon mistrustfully rejects the being's offer to restore his memories. Through diligent searching assisted by Rhadamanthus, his House's Sophotect, Phaethon finds that he's invested enormous resources in building a spacesuit of an impervious wonder-metal, and learns that he voluntarily agreed to sequester his memories. If he does not access the stored memories for 90 days, he will inherit the estate of his father Helion, killed near Mercury defending the Oecumene against a solar flare. The current Helion, now a Peer, is a relic who can't legally claim continuity with his predecessor. If Phaethon breaks the agreement, he will be exiled, penniless, his immortality lost by default. Yet what if he needs those memories to counter a threat to the Oecumene itself? This extraordinary feat of invention and plottingwould be all the more impressive had the book not ended with the central mystery unresolved, leaving readers dazzled and annoyed in equal measure.

Kirkus Reviews

The Golden Age offers an intriguing and stunning look at future society - and its problems.

L. E. Modesitt Jr.

The Golden Age offers an intriguing and stunning look at future society - and its problems.” —L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

“Think Coleridge and Xanadu — except this is no fragment, but a beautifully realized, sprawling space epic of an evolved humanized solar system teeming with artificial intelligences and life-forms. Wright wields a poetic vision that is at once intimate and intricate yet vast and dazzling. I'm pretty sure the last novel I read like this was by Olaf Stapledon.” —Paul Levinson, author of The Consciousness Plague

“The Golden Age offers an intriguing and stunning look at future society - and its problems.” —L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

“Transcendence, big ideas, slam-bang action — it's all here, in the first significant debut of the new millennium.” —Robert J. Sawyer, Nebula Award winner and author of Hominids

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