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Count to a Trillion Hardcover – December 20, 2011

by John C. Wright (Author)

220 ratings

Book 1 of 6: Count to a Trillion

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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 geniusand 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 an

Book 1 of 6

Count to a Trillion
Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Books
Publication date

December 20, 2011
Dimensions

6.47 x 1.29 x 9.57 inches
ISBN-10

0765329271
ISBN-13

978-0765329271
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Editorial Reviews

Review

It's a pity the word 'awesome' has been misused to the point of meaninglessness: it would once have been an ideal description of Count To A Trillion. Instead, I'll say that the novel came perilously close to overloading my capacity for wonder, burning out all my 'gosh' circuits--and I¹ve been reading science fiction assiduously since 1954. Mr. Wright is a major figure in the recent renaissance of space opera, the kind of writer who is equally at home with hard science and poetry, the kind you read slowly and carefully, and very happily. Count to a trillion, as slow as you like: you'll be done long before you forget this story, or its Texan gunfighter hero, a child-abuse survivor yearning with all his heart for a cartoon future of hope called The Asymptote. (Spider Robinson, author of Very Hard Choices)

Spectacularly clever… in weaving together cutting edge speculation along the outer fringes of science. Highly impressive. (Kirkus)

R.A.Lafferty meets A.E.VanVogt in a cakewalk through a future full of anti-matter, alien artifacts, transhumans, an Iron Ghost, a Texas gunfighter, and a Space Princess. Well worth the price of admission. (Michael Flynn)

Wright is at his best…. Appealing to readers interested in glimpses of the unfathomable immensities of our universe. (Publisher's Weekly)

An awe-inspiring book, brave and full of wonder. Count to a Trillion pokes grand fun of humanity and post-humanity alike. (Brenda Cooper, author of Reading the Wind)

An elegant stylist and a true visionary, Wright will delight hard sf fans with his exuberance, while his characters and plot keep the action fast and furious. (Library Journal)

This is much more than a space opera, and fills your mind with intriguing, startling possibilities. John Wright's novel is bursting with ideas, blending mythology, machine and human evolution, mathematics, space travel, and much more. The hero, Montrose, is caught in the crosshairs of deadly, highly unusual foes--and his fate could very well determine the fate of everyone on Earth. Ultimately this is about human survival and potential, the future of mankind across a trillion star systems. (Brian Herbert)

About the Author

JOHN C. WRIGHT lives in Centreville, Virginia.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First Edition (December 20, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765329271
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765329271
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.47 x 1.29 x 9.57 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,632,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,050 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #15,995 in Space Operas

Customer Reviews:
220 ratings

About the author

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John C. Wright

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John C. Wright is a retired attorney, newspaperman and newspaper editor, who was only once on the lam and forced to hide from the police who did not admire his newspaper.

In 1984, Graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, home of the "Great Books" program. In 1987, he graduated from the College and William and Mary's Law School (going from the third oldest to the second oldest school in continuous use in the United States), and was admitted to the practice of law in three jurisdictions (New York, May 1989; Maryland December 1990; DC January 1994). His law practice was unsuccessful enough to drive him into bankruptcy soon thereafter. His stint as a newspaperman for the St. Mary's Today was more rewarding spiritually, but, alas, also a failure financially. He presently works (successfully) as a writer in Virginia, where he lives in fairy-tale-like happiness with his wife, the authoress L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their four children: Pingping, Orville, Wilbur, and Just Wright.

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

220 global ratings

5 star		53%
4 star		17%
3 star		10%
2 star		13%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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I consider his earlier works "The golden Age" to be my absolute favorite science fiction of all time

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2015

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Wright is probably the most intellectual wordsmith I read. His novels are deep and rich. His ideas are also deep, complex and far reaching. I consider his earlier works "The golden Age" to be my absolute favorite science fiction of all time. I have read that work over a half dozen times and it is still awesome in its scope.

Count to a Trillion. I purchased this years ago and started reading. I struggled to get into the book and shelved it after half a hundred pages or so. It was simply too deep and convoluted. I guess I was disappointed that the journey to the monolith was not a main focus of the story line and seemed to happen as an aside. Regardless... I moved on to other books. A few weeks ago I noticed on the authors website that he had commented on reviews of the fourth episode in this series. I decided to give the original book another chance. This time I made a conscience effort to pace myself and really read the words. Before long, and similar to "The Golden Age" the story started to make sense and the richness became a cherished part of the novel instead of a distraction.

This series is as awesome in scope as the story of "The Golden Age". How would you imagine humanity over sixty centuries? How would you go about preparing yourself and your facilities to cold store your body in a way that survives looters, grave robbers, wars, mining, and natural disasters? How do you plan for humanity growing beyond your and then falling back to the stone age over and over? Wright gives it a solid shot.

After finishing this book I purchased the next two and devoured them. My only disappointment is the big payoff for the main character and his wife is still far in the future after the third novel is over so there is no hint of closure. Knowing this... I am considering delaying my purchase of books 4-6 until they are all written. A huge negative goes to the publisher set outrageous e-book pricing. I've become so enamored at great books in the $5 range that to see a new work listed at $12-$15 is outrageous. It pushes me even further into the realm of supporting the self publisher as I have become over the last couple of years. Fewer and fewer of these legacy authors will earn my money as time goes on.

One person found this helpful

Kindle Customer

The hero is a zero

Reviewed in the United States on June 4, 2015

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I really liked this book, but it is not for everyone. I gave it 4 stars for that reason, a lot of people will be disappointed in it. I started to give it 3 stars myself, as I really disliked the main character: Menelhaus Montrose (MM). MM is brilliant, which brainpower alone can carry you a long ways in life, especially in technical fields, but MM has a giant personality defect that overshadows his abilities: He has a severe impulse control problem. If you are not familiar with the 'marshmallow test', it was a test for showing how far, how successful someone would be in life when that person is 5 years old or so. You simply put a marshmallow in a saucer, instruct the child to wait for you to return, and if they had not eaten the marshmallow, then they would get a second one. The time period is typically 15 minutes, which can be an eternity to a small child.

Suffice to say, the kids who make it the longest, and go all the way through the test period without eating the marshmallow, those are the ones that wind up with advanced degrees, start businesses, write Nobel winning scientific papers, publish million best sellers, don't get into drugs or have early out of wedlock pregnancies, etc. The kids that cannot wait, well, skid row and prisons are full of them. (YouTube has lots of videos on the subject. Look for 'marshmallow test' clips.)

Well, Melenhaus Montrose would run to the test administrator, knock her down and take the marshmallows by force. Several times in the book, he is in a situation where taking a breath, rocking back on your heels, and just thinking it over would have saved a lot of sheer misery. In fact, he loses his life and therefore a lifetime of happiness with the girl of anyone's dreams because of one such impulsive action.

I suppose a novel can be considered 'good' even if the main character is unlikeable, or even if he/she is pure evil. However, in this book it really doesn't work for me. I like the technical speculation, the magnificent envisioning of big ideas, etc., all of which is superb. I am also 'brand loyal' to the author, and will automatically purchase anything he publishes. So, I had to get this book, period.

I recommend this book, and even give it 4 stars, and it is worth a read.

Regards,

John Price

2 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Adam Carlton

Very clever but soulless

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2012

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John C. Wright's new novel is a space opera set in the 2240s, featuring a dystopian future Earth and an antimatter star 50 light years away. The automated starship which visited found a strange, partially-decipherable monolith and potential free-energy for the entire planet for hundreds of years if the AM could be mined.

The hero of the tale is Menelaus Illation Montrose, a gun-slinging attorney in the backwater which is future Texas, after the global biowar. Montrose is a math genius who takes an experimental IQ-enhancing nanoware potion as he joins the first manned expedition, an act which scrambles his mind for the duration of the mission. Most of the tale is set after the starship returns with its antimatter cargo: devastating consequences follow.

This is a strange book to read, bringing to mind all those criticisms that SF is all head and no heart. Wright is widely read and intelligent and deploys legions of physics buzz words (Lie Groups, Grassman algebra, Hilbert spaces) to convey super-intelligence. The plot is complex and time-shifts around.

The problem, as usual, is with characterisation. The personalities of the main characters and their motivations don't really invite empathy or identification - sometimes even comprehension. All the characters are constructs, well-made and complex to be sure, but not real enough to engage and involve. In the end this is a clever intellectual exercise but still cold and people-by-numbers.

5 people found this helpful

mcdowella

A real SF novel of ideas

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2013

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This is an old-fashioned SF novel of ideas, where the ideas and the world-building are the focus of the story, not the plot or even the characters. I think the central idea is in the title - "A man might not have the patience to count to a trillion, but the number is real whether he counts it or not". Similarly, the far future is real whether you consider it or not - and a civilization which travels between stars slower than light will be planning journeys that could take tens of thousands of years - what changes might the Earth see in even a fraction of that time, or prompted by the results of those journeys? How could a civilization arrange for bargains made over that period of time to be kept? There's a lot of mathematical name-dropping, which I find slightly suspect because of an argument for the existence of fundamentally alien logics with which I disagree, but the author does succeed in asking questions and making you think about ideas.

3 people found this helpful

Gibbs

Galactic Game Theory

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 30, 2012

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As usual with JCW, the book is full of interesting ideas, mostly drawn from political theory (and especially game theory), applied to the problem of hierarchies of power and intelligence in a galaxy-wide civilization (which his protagonists are just discovering) constrained by light-speed, rather than relying on magical wormholes and the like. That last constraint is becoming popular in modern sf (see also Greg Egan, Alastair Reynolds)and does have the proper mind-boggling effect. The problem, as other reviewers have said, is that the protagonists either have no character at all or characters that arouse no sympathy, interest or belief. It becomes a chore to slog through the foul language and fouler actions of his hero, the post-apocalyptic Texan gunslinger turned mathematical genius, just to enjoy the political theory. And that theory, though engaging, is also very implausible!

5 people found this helpful

Incandescent

Lots of interesting ideas, but far too wordy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 23, 2014

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As usual, John C Wright is bursting with interesting ideas about posthumanism, the singularity and how a real interstellar society might function.

Sadly this book is much too wordy and filled with whole segments that just don't need to be there. And it's just the first in a multi-novel series.

I really want to know how it all turns out in the end, but the emotional effort of slogging through several sequels is not an appealing prospect. Perhaps I'll wait for some helpful soul to write a summary on wikipedia.

(And I write this as a John C Wright fan)

2 people found this helpful

Mr. Mark A. Laborda

Unusual, quite interesting, wearing at times

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 4, 2013

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I quite enjoyed this book, it has unusual plot themes which makes it interesting but some passages get a bit wearing and I wished he would get on with the plot. Some parts I thought he tried too hard to be plausibly technical and I speed read some of these parts. The 'enemy' were a bit vague too, not actually coming for another 8 thousand years and right at the end it was revealed that there are actually 3 levels of 'enemy' each one vaguer than the rest. I will probably get the sequel but only out of curiosity.

2 people found this helpful

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