The Golden Age (The Golden Age, Book 1): Wright, John C.: 9780812579840: Amazon.com: Books

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The Golden Age (The Golden Age, Book 1) Mass Market Paperback – April 14, 2003

by John C. Wright (Author)

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Book 1 of 3: The Golden Age

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The Golden Age is 10,000 years in the future in our solar system, an interplanetary utopian society filled with immortal humans.

Phaethon, of Radamanthus House, is attending a glorious party at his family mansion celebrating the thousand-year anniversary of the High Transcendence. There he meets an old man who accuses him of being an imposter, 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. Is he indeed an exile from himself? He can’t resist investigating, even though to do so could mean the loss of his inheritance, his very place in society. His quest must be to regain his true identity and fulfill the destiny he chose for himself.

The Golden Age is just the beginning of Phaethon’s story, which will continue in The Phoenix Exultant, forthcoming from Tor.

Book 1 of 3

The Golden Age
Print length

407 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Science Fiction
Publication date

April 14, 2003
Dimensions

4.19 x 1 x 6.75 inches
ISBN-10

0812579844
ISBN-13

978-0812579840
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Wright may be this fledgling century’s most important new SF talent. . . . a rare and mind-blowing treat." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"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." – Paul Levinson, author of The Consciousness Plague

About the Author

John C. Wright, a journalist and a lawyer turned SF and fantasy writer, lives with his wife and son in Centreville, Virginia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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 than worlds, 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

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Science Fiction; 1st edition (April 14, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 407 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0812579844
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0812579840
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.19 x 1 x 6.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #668,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #42,026 in Science Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
242 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

4.2 out of 5

242 global ratings

5 star		58%
4 star		22%
3 star		11%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Stunning debut worthy of the masters

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2004

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John C. Wright's "The Golden Age" is one of the most important pieces of science fiction in recent memory. Although this flowery revival of the romantic space opera won no awards (that I am aware of, anyway), it truly is one of the finest works of science fiction I have read in at least a decade.
Wright was schooled in classics from Homer to The Federalist Papers, and he worked as a lawyer and a journalist. His erudition shines through on every page. Characters are named after personages from ancient myth, and their dialogue is learned and meaty. Wright has also meticulously painted a convincing backdrop of human society in the far, far future. His knowledge of the classics has enabled him to distill and retain what is essential about the human experience, i.e., the ability to dream, love and achieve (as well as their opposites, stagnation, hatred and resentment). This gives his characters a kernel of familiarity despite their distinct otherness of living in an essentially post-human civilization spanning most of the solar system.
Wright is equally passionate about scientific realism. The book paints incredible advances in computing and nano-scale technology, there are no warp drives. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is strictly adhered to. Yet his scenarios and inventions are so fantastic, so wonderfully fresh and well-crafted, as to send the mind reeling.
All this would be enough to recommend the book on its own, but I believe the book's philosophical merits will be of particular interest to many readers. In interviews, Mr. Wright states outright that he created his future society to be a libertarian utopia. In fact, he wrote it partly as an explicit rebuttal to certain portrayals of communist utopias. Although this human society is set tens of thousands of years in the future, it still functions on money (though the currency is computer processing time, not a metal such as gold) and there are still rich and poor. Contracts are voluntary, all property is private, and crime has whithered away so that murders occur once every few centuries.
Of course, there is not much drama in an actual utopia, and the central conflict in the novel arises out of the desire of one man to upset the conventions of his prosperous society in pursuit of a magnificent vision. And a hero is a hero. If you admired Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead" or Henry Seldon in the "Foundation" series, you will appreciate the hero in this book. In one interview, Mr. Wright named his target audience when he says, "I am certainly writing for those who believe in the American dream."
The story revolves around Phaethon, a man who believes himself to be wealthy and powerful. But a brief encounter with an odd visitor starts him down a path of questioning who he really is. I will say no more here. Those interested in more plot details can turn to other reviews. One caveat: "The Golden Age" is half a story. It is completed in "The Phoenix Exultant".
The book is not long, but it took me more than a week to finish simply because it is so dense. Every page is packed with meaning, and I found myself rereading passages over and over to extract their full meaning. No words are wasted, and readers are rewarded for paying attention to details like names, titles and descriptions of the various factions and elements in this fabulous future society.
I encourage readers to seek out a couple of interviews with Mr Wright that are widely available online. In them, he delves into his philosophy a bit more and discusses his influences and objectives at length.
Mr Wright has woven together a gripping story, a vast cultural background, mind-blowing technology, and insightful thinking into a grand tale worthy of the masters. I can't recommend this one highly enough.

9 people found this helpful

D. Cloyce Smith

Phaeton's Oedipal Odyssey

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2008

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Ten thousand years in the future, during the Golden Age, humankind has been incorporated by the Sophotechs into a virtual utopia that allows its citizens the joys of immortality, competitive world building, neurological resurrection through downloading, and social transcendence--not to mention outlandishly silly masquerades. The Manorial elites interact entirely through a Matrix-like grid, although there are hints that others not so "fortunate" exist outside the network. The solar system's computerized administration and its nanotechnological bioforms support a world in which every "transformation took an eye-blink" (or what passes for an eye in hyperspace), and entire memories and dreamscapes and databanks are transmitted instantaneously.

Given the light-speed transactions available to this future civilization, the courtly greetings ("Hail to thee!"), garrulous dialogue, and brooding soliloquies of its inhabitants seem a tad out of place. But then again, these poor souls have nothing but time on their (virtual) hands. Into the midst of their inexorable talk, threatening to ruin the interminable fun, strides the hero Phaeton, who stumbles upon the twin realizations that he is somehow missing the most recent 250 years of his 3,000-year life and that there are powerful interests struggling to keep him from regaining those memories, apparently as punishment for an unforgivable crime.

On John Wright's desk, I imagine, are well-thumbed copies of Bulfinch, of Frazer, of Edith Hamilton. As the main character's name suggests, the plot of "The Golden Age" is peppered with classical references, or (more accurately) Wright's novel is a series of classical allusions enclosed by a threadbare Greek plot. To wit: Phaeton, the son of a "god," is oblivious of his past; he seeks to recover this past, in spite of the dangers this discovery might pose to his (and his wife's) blissful life; if he rebels, he would be forever banished from the realm. Alongside this familiar story is a nifty twist on an Oedipal subplot: Phaeton's actions, past and present, have also endangered his template-father, Helion, who may no longer technically be his father because a life-changing experience occurred to Helion's "original" after the last back-up had been saved to the Mentality an hour before his "death."

There's some interesting and mind-bending stuff here, but I'm afraid the stagy clunkiness of the dialogue, the show-offish hokum of the technobabble, the purple prose of the descriptions ("She was garbed in a gown of flowing emerald green, and her golden braids were twined to hold an emerald crown in place"), and the strain of the mythological references conspire to make reading a bit of a chore. Most of the characters, too, are either cartoonish or indistinguishable; several opening chapters, for example, are spent describing six powerful yet interchangeable Peers, but their supposed individuality seems not to matter much anyway (at least in this installment). And Phaeton's Odyssean journey doesn't really begin until the final chapters, when we find out that this encyclopedic 330-page short story is little more than a scene-setting prologue for a subsequent book (or two). In the end, this is one of those books that must be judged partly on the strengths of their sequels.

43 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

R. Fisher

Good SF ideas; sense of wonder; beautiful writing style; a plot that makes sense.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 5, 2015

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There are three volumes, of which this is the first, but this is one long novel. I found it to be money and time well spent.

This is a far future tale set in what is almost a post-scarcity economy: humans have immortality thanks to mind recording; vast energy and computational resources; can tailor their sensory experiences however they wish; and can choose between living in their own invented universes, the real world, or anything in between. But the laws of economics still apply: the author realises that there is still scarcity of human effort and attention. Phaethon, the protagonist, is attempting to achieve “deeds of renown, without peer”, and it is a struggle.

There is artificial intelligence, the most advanced of which are self-aware computers called Sophotechs who have intelligence vastly superior to humans, and it is possible to argue that the existence of these would make humans redundant. But the novel constructs some clever economics that avoid this problem and give meaning to people's lives. It also constructs some unique and fascinating solutions to the problem of policing such a free society, and these solutions drive the plot along in a self-consistent way.

Instead of uniformity or warring factions, Mr. Wright has constructed a society where multiple alternate lifestyles exist in harmony, giving us a colourful and interesting world. Modification of one’s own memories is common practice, and this device is used to add intrigue. How does one tell what is real when one’s perceptions and memories may be altered? The answer is that since reality is objective, it is a matter of looking at the evidence and using reason. This is a work of rationalist fiction. There are no red-herrings. It is possible for the reader to think through and work out what is going on. There are multiple levels of deception at times as the protagonist uncovers deeper and deeper levels of truth. But it all makes sense in the end. Everything is neatly wrapped up.

Mr. Wright has managed to construct a perfect world and still have an exciting plot within it.

All in all, this is a story rich in ideas, set in a consistent and well thought out universe. Its plot concerns civilisation-changing events caused by the grand deeds of individuals. It is a long novel but the pacing is right. Enough words are spent lingering over details, arguments and reasoning, the writing erudite and humorous, but not too many words: events happen; the plot shifts along.

One person found this helpful

Incandescent

A bold, imaginative, wonderful book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 9, 2014

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The Golden Age is one of my favourite books of all time, along with its two sequels.

It's set in the distant future, after not one singularity, but several. Wright works very hard to try to imagine and describe what such a world would be like, which is a tall order as it would be incomprehensible to pre-singularity humans like ourselves. The most important difference though, is that human consciousness is now completely understood by science and can easily be copied, moved, transplanted, expanded or transmitted. People are no longer prisoners in their bodies.

The consequences and possibiities of this are gradually revealed throughout the Golden Age and its sequels as the main character, Phaethon (a shorthand form of his full name Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconsciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043) quests to find out why part of his mind and his memory have gone missing.

A cracking story. A wonderful exploration of what-if ideas in the grand tradition of classic science fiction. And a rather odd main character who I became very fond of.

2 people found this helpful

Claus

A Wonderful Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2003

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(There should be no spoilers here. Most of the information revealed is presented in the first few pages of the book)
It is the time of the masquerade hosted this time by the electrophotonic self-aware entity Aurelian. A sophotech of the Golden Oecumene. All posthumans and nonhumans of the Golden Oecumene have come to participate. Actual, fictional, composition-assisted reconstructions, extrapolated demigoddesses from imagined superhuman futures, lamia from unrealized alternatives and on the active channels of the mentality, recidivists returned from high transhuman states of mind.
The Golden Age is full of ideas, mythological references and wondrous sights and scenes. In fact so much it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. Especially the first part of the book can seem daunting but the pages turn faster and faster until it becomes impossible to stop. The story is about Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043 (the “Reawakening”) and a great mystery about his past that he cannot remember.
An absorbing tale is told of Phaethon’s one man struggle against society, posing interesting philosophical and moral questions. Although over dramatized at times it is an intelligent and beautiful look at a possible future of technological utopia. Foremost though it is a story about Phaethon.
I can’t wait to read the second part and then to read it all a second time.

7 people found this helpful

Kt

Intriguing first part of the trilogy ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 16, 2011

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Dense in ideas , it took a while to get into this.

I liked the general intellectual thrust of the book and the critique that was emerging but by the time it had ended I felt that it was still 'getting going', as I guess would be the case in the first part of a trilogy, and yet for all that was unclear as to where it was all heading.

Intriguing all the same and may well pick up the next part.

Ventura Angelo

Individual Vs Society part One

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2004

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Phaeton is an ideally satisfied citizen and member of the Golden Transcendence Sun-System spanning Civilization. Oh, how it's all perfect, artistically enjoyable and fit for the most elevated sentient needs! Two encounters in a garden will persuade him otherwise. He, apparently, has a past not in accordance to the satisfied conformist that he's been led to believe to be. And the Illuminated Government of Utopia may not have the best interest of the citizens in mind.
Phaeton will undertake a search for its true identity that will reveal that all is not well in Utopia.
I love the baroque style and the inventiveness of situations. A well crafted series, that recalls something of Moorcock's Dancers at the End of Time

4 people found this helpful

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