Beginning with The Golden Age, continuing with The Phoenix Exultant and now concluding in The Golden Transcendence, The Golden Age is Grand Space Opera, an SF adventure saga 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 in the suspenseful and passionate tale of a lone rebel unhappy in utopia.
The end of the Millennium is imminent, when all minds, human, posthuman, cybernetic, sophotechnic, will be temporarily merged into one solar-system-spanning supermind called the Transcendence. This is not only the fulfillment of a thousand years of dreams, it is a day of doom, when the universal mind will pass judgment on all the races of humanity and transhumanity.
The mighty ship Phoenix Exultant is at last in the hands of her master; Phaethon the Exile is at her helm. But the terrible truth has been revealed: he is being hunted by the agents from a long-lost dead star, the eerie and deadly Lords of the Silent Oecumene, whose super-technology plumbs depths even the all-knowing Earthmind cannot fathom.
Humanity will be helpless during the Golden Transcendence. Phaethon’s enemies plan to use the opportunity to destroy the population of the Inner System, man and machine alike. To do this, they must take control of Phaethon’s beloved starship and turn her unparalleled power to warlike uses. Phaethon’s memories are incomplete – but he knows a spy for the Silent Ones is already aboard. And when the all-encompassing Mind of the Golden Transcendence wakes – who will it condemn? Which future will it chose? Are Phaethon’s dreams of star-flight about to revolutionize the Golden Age into an age even more glorious than gold, or will they kindle the first open war fought across the immensity of interstellar space?
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Well, I did it, I finished “The Golden Age” trilogy. It feels like an accomplishment. The trilogy itself has been a paradox for me. Flawed in many ways, yet brilliant and intriguing. As a whole, it is richly layered, complex, intellectual, and damaged, imperfect, and blemished. For those of you new to the series it takes place ten thousand years in the future, in a fully and diversely populated solar system. Mankind is joined by a variety of post-human and artificial intelligence in a solar system that has been remade. The sun has been tamed, planets have been relocated and reformed. Jupiter has been ignited, and the entire system has been populated with all manner of intelligence.
Author John C. Wright has imagined an erudite, multifaceted, and elaborate future that feels probable and genuine. His tale is complex, with great profundity. He has heroic characters and epic settings and a plot that weaves and unravels throughout the trilogy. There is a parade of entities, some human, some post-human, and some fascinating forms of machine intelligence. Author Wright explores the many ways they interact, with layers and layers of different sensory filters and communication devices. It’s all mind-stretching and dazzling, and yet . . . yet . . . imho, it profoundly broken. I was astonished and amazed, but I never once felt any real emotion for a character. I only briefly saw the words turn into a story in my head, momentarily in the second and third books when action drives the plot. But through most of the trilogy there is massive amounts of exposition. It’s brainy and mesmerizing, but it’s chocked full of narration. And it feels more like a textbook than a novel. The characters never come alive, instead they feel like puppets on wires. The plot never feels sincere, instead remains a story, a tale that I appreciate from a distance without sentiment or emotion.
The third book continues the trend of sexualizing female characters. They have no role other than erotic puppets. Every time they appear, we hear about curves and pouts and giggles. There is a scene in the interior of the sun, with mind-blowing technology to keep the insane forces of gravity and temperature at bay. Yet, main female character, Daphne appears with a sunhat, a skirt and high-heeled pumps. I mean entities are reconstituted, just to exist in the environment and somehow Daphne shows up in pumps!!!!!
I enjoyed the plot of the third book up until the actual transcendence, and then the ‘telling’ become overwhelming for me. I slogged through page after page of narration explaining how transcending the transcendence was, but there was no meat to the event. Afterwards, the plot became convoluted and longwinded. I pushed through to the end, where I did enjoy many loose ends being tied and explained, but more from an intellectual capacity verses the typical satisfaction of a good story resolving itself.
But here is the paradox, for all the flaws, I still enjoyed this trilogy. It was incredibly imaginative and bright. It was rich and complex and unpredictable. I’m going to give both the final novel and the series four stars. Worthwhile for the intelligent imagining of a distant future, but imperfect and falls short as an enjoyable, honest, and emotional story.