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From the Product Description: 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 comprises three volumes:
This book sat on my shelf for months simply because I thought the cover looked a little bit dopey -- it looked to me a little like one of the members of the blue man group looking at a flower... Don't let that deter from you reading this trilogy! John C. Wright's Golden Transcendance is one of the more thought-provoking explorations of the future of humanity that I have read!
The story is that of Phaethon, and he's a man with a unique problem. You see, bit chunks of Phaethon's memory have been erased... An essential question is, without his memory, is Phaethon really Phaethon? The story starts out with Phaethon about to attend the biggest party of the millenium, the high transcendance. His misadventures begin as he is accused of being an imposter and informed that his memories have been edited.
Part of Phaethon's nature (as you will soon learn as you begin reading the story) is that he simply can't leave something alone. He could remain happy and content, but he just can't rid himself of that nagging desire to get at those lost memories and figure out the great mystery. I won't spoil things for you by giving away any more details, but suffice it to say that over the three volumes you get a truly mind-bending exploration .of the future of humanity, of philosophy, and of what it means to be human. Is a man merely the sum of his memories, or is he something more?
What makes The Golden Age really stand out is the exploration of the different forms of advanced humanity. There is everything from a basic unaltered human, to advanced augmented humans, to communal minds. If you really want to know every conceivable way that humanity could evolve into advanced beings, then this novel is for you.
I just can't stop reiterating how much I enjoyed this series, and I look forward to reading some more of John C. Wright's work.
This review Copyright (c) 2005 by Scott M. Baker -- please do not use or publish without permission