The Golden Age (Hardcover)

by John C. Wright (Author) "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..." (more)
Key Phrases: noetic examination, emergency persona, noumenal recording, Golden Oecumene, College of Hortators, Phoenix Exultant (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The Golden Age is the most ambitious and impressive science fiction novel since China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. Amazingly, it is John C. Wright's debut novel.

In the far future, humans have become as gods: immortal, almost omnipotent, able to create new suns and resculpt body and mind. A trusting son of this future, Phaethon of Radamanthus House, discovers the rulers of the solar system have erased entire centuries from his mind. When he attempts to regain his lost memories, the whole society of the Golden Oecumene opposes him. Like his mythical namesake, Phaethon has flown too high and been cast down. He has committed the one act forbidden in his utopian universe. Now he must find out what it is--and who he is.

A novel influenced by Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, and A.E. van Vogt, yet uniquely itself, The Golden Age presents a complex and thoroughly imagined future that will delight science fiction fans. John C. Wright has a gift for big, bold concepts and extrapolations, and his smoothly written novel pushes cyberpunk's infotech density to a new level, while abandoning cyberpunk's nihilistic noir tone for SF's original optimism. Big ideas are joined by big themes; Wright provocatively explores the nature of heroism, the nature of power, and the conflict between the rights of the individual and those of society.

Fiction as ambitious as The Golden Age is never flawless. Action fans will find this novel too talky. A change of quests late in the novel is jarring. And, while this Romance of the Far Future suitably examines the heroic virtues, its unfortunate subtext is "heroism is a guy thing." This far-future novel published in 2002 maintains a credulity-shattering mid-20th-century sexual status quo.

Not all plotlines are resolved in The Golden Age, and a sequel is forthcoming. --Cynthia Ward

From Publishers Weekly
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 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (April 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312848706
• ISBN-13: 978-0312848705
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #280,518 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten Star Science Fiction!, October 20, 2002

By	Kevin Spoering (Buffalo, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Life, 10,000 years from now. Read this and you enter into a world of immortal beings where consciousness takes many forms as minds find many diverse vessels in which to inhabit. Nanotechnology, computer science, and other technologies have transformed civilization into a true golden age where Sophotechs (conscious computers who think many times faster than humans) control nearly everything. The group called the Hortators exhibit much control also, so is this really a golden age as it appears to be at first glance? The primary character here is a man called Phaethon, who has lost a good part of his memory as a result of a process of selective amnesia, a result of previous actions he cannot remember. He becomes obsessed with discovering the missing memories, with much intrigue along the way, and this is at the heart of a great mystery, brimming with passion and intellect, and ambition.

John Wright uses much reality based imagination here, this is far-future science fiction at it's best, without reverting to fantasy. I especially enjoyed the questions of personal identity and how that relates to whether or not a person is the original or a copy in cases of transferring minds from one medium to another, very thought provoking, speculation that will surely move from science fiction to reality someday, well done here. To use an old cliche', it does'nt get any better than this, with superb plot and character development. THE GOLDEN AGE is book one of a two book series, the concluding novel is THE PHOENIX EXULTANT, yet to be published.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hugo/Nebula contender (and likely winner), April 12, 2002

By	Bruce F. Webster "geek in a suit" (Parker, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For all the talk of 'space opera' and other genre/author comparisons, _The Golden Age_ is one of the most original novels to come out in years. John Wright lays out and tosses away more inventive, imaginative ideas in a few pages than many SF authors manage in a whole book. And not only has he developed a long-term extrapolation of human/technical evolution, he has done so in a story built on various intersections of myth and philosophy.

Wright's writing is intellectually challenging without being condescending or obtuse (deliberately or otherwise). He never forgets the need to be a good storyteller, yet probes close to the bone on such core issues as the determination of truth, the nature of reality and the tension between individual freedom and social good.

Utterly outstanding. I hope Wright gets the accolates he deserves. ..bruce..

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure mental exhilaration. Ideas enough for 20 novels., October 16, 2002

By A Customer

If this book were titled "Brilliant new ideas for SF writers" and simply listed alphabetically the ideas Wright packs into his story it would still be worth the money. There are single paragraphs in "The Golden Age" which contain more original concepts than the entire works of other SF writers. I had the distinct sense that Wright has had a very pregnant mind for far too long and that finally writing everything down was an incredible release for him. This all begs the obvious question: What hideous ogre has kept him off the shelves? Why are we shackled with "Picard Gets a Hangnail, Part IV" when we could have books like the "The Golden Age". Someone in the publishing world needs to be fired.

Wright seems to take particular glee in tackling some of SFs stickier ideas head on just to prove he can. For example: How do you write a character a thousand times smarter than you are? What would such a character say and how do you extrapolate its actions and thoughts? By page 28 he's already hit this one out of the park. The main character's exchange with a bizarre creature called the Neptunian deserves to be studied by other authors as a shining (and hillarious) example of how an alien super intellect might behave.

Far future novels featuring technology that controls all the perceptions of the characters often fall apart. If authors have to extrapolate too much they lose credibility and discerning readers inevitably have to break out their B.S. shovels. But Wright is so comfortable and fluent with his ideas you get the impression he's not extrapolating so much as explaining the world in which he lives. I kept wanting to review some huge stack of technical notebooks from which these concepts were obviously drawn. Even the things he casually tosses out just to show off have a kind of critical mass of detail that hints at much deep thought. Throughout the book there's a constant undertone of Wright daring you, "think about this for a month or two and you'll come to my same conclusions."

With his first novel Wright brazenly cuts near the front of the line of my favorite authors. I eagerly await more.