Rating: 
Summary: Golden writing
Review: In a world where human intelligence varies as the whim of each individual, the tension in this book slowly builds around the identity and the moral crises of the hero, Phaeton, (Phaeton Prime, Rhadamanth Humodified (augment) Uncomposed, Indepconsciousness, Base Neuroformed, Silver-Gray Manorial Schola, Era 7043 ("The Reawakening") and his decision to excise 250 years worth of his memory and endeavors. The Golden Age opens with the slow deliberation of an excellent Georgette Heyer historical novel, introducing not only the scenario but the detailed and cleverly wrought setting: An old man creates a shadowy garden of silver flowers designed to seek sustenance from, and point gently toward, the rings of Saturn. A full council of Peers debate the future of the world and we learn that the old man's garden is a political and artistic slur against the machinations of one paramount threat to peace and security: Phaeton himself. But until Phaeton wandered (by accident) into this bit of performance art, he had no knowledge that he was not (literally) himself, nor that uncounted millions view him with distrust and contempt. Despite the stately beginning, the hook is set: Who is this man and why do total strangers seem to know more about him (and to abhor him) than he does? And are they, perhaps correct? To my mind,
Phaeton's world of the Golden Oecumene is as much a character (and as compelling) as Phaeton himself. As the plot unfolds, so too does our knowledge of the world, increasing detail and depth making a nice counterpoint to increasing complications and danger. Villain and hero trade places moment to moment within the same personae, as the reader begins to doubt which reality is the truth. John C. Wright (in other reviews) has been compared (aptly) with both Cordwainer Smith and with Jack Vance. The graceful and beautiful use of language and the generosity of invention in The Golden Age are no doubt the touchstones for these comparisons. Wright has also mastered Vance's skill of creating the impression of a Tolkien- or historical-style depth of reality, so that the reader enjoys the delicious sense of another (and perhaps more fascinating still) story "off-stage". But The Golden Age reminded this reviewer most strongly of a much earlier fantastic adventure; Patricia McKillip's The Riddle Master of Hed. Including, alas, the cliffhanger ending. In this respect, The Golden Age is much like Peter Jackson's movie, The Lord of the Rings, ending at an appropriate point in the narrative arc, but leaving the reader impatient to continue the story.
Rating: 
Summary: Spellbound Meets Neuromancer
Review: It's not uncommon for a mystery or melodrama to feature a hero who is suffering from amnesia. What gives "The Golden Age" its special excitement is that it takes place far in the future, when men and computers have melded in a variety of different ways that provide not only immortality but also the ability to perceive the actual world as a virtual reality.
When a person first starts reading this novel, there is a moment of disorientation because the full dimensions of the world in which the hero, Phaeton, lives are not clear. Although solution of the core mystery will intrigue readers, it is the thrill of discovering and understanding this world that may provide science fiction fans with the most delight. But even as the reader tries to get the hang of what's going on, he or she must also pay attention to every small detail, for something presented quickly, without fanfare, will later return as a major factor in the development of the story. Even though the author has provided the reader with a Dramatis Personae briefly describing the key characters, one will also have to attach actions to their roles to avoid confusion.
Certain stylistic aspects of the story may seem slightly repetitious. Why there are two courtroom scenes that have many of the incongruities of an old Thorne Smith screwball comedy is questionable. Also, the author has a tendency to run through a long list of nouns and verbs in a row when he wishes the reader to see that things are complex. This technique wears thin after the second or third use.
That the hero speaks like a 19th century Victorian while the house computer often appears as a virtual penguin seems to be an effort at giving the complex plot an unnecessary comic twist.
Yet the search through a virtual reality, which may not reflect a true reality, where the world is infested with viruses that make it impossible to know if one can accept the testimony of the hero's electronic senses makes for compelling reading.
By the way, before you start this book, you should know that its curious mysteries will not be solved in this volume, but require you to read two more books. Most serious science fiction readers will enjoy at least this first volume.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning debut worthy of the masters
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding debute
Review: John Wright is brilliant - the sheer breadth of his writing is spellbing, his imagination is stunning, the novel excellently crafted. This book has Nebula or Hugo written all over it.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious, slow, and unfulfilling
Review: Just about the worst thing any reviewer has so far cared to say about John C. Wright's The Golden Age is that it is incomprehensible. I, unfortunately, had no such problems. In fact, I think I enjoyed the most about this novel the intricate way in which Wright constructs his far future. Wright describes a future in which reality is fluid, personality is something one constructs, and the term Virtual Reality has no meaning, because one's perception of reality can be skewed to one's satisfaction. The scope of Wright's vision is impressive, but the detail he goes into isn't. All too often, action in The Golden Age grinds to a halt in order to describe more technology. Wright is a competent writer, but no better, and I found his prose very hard to get into. It was dense, but not rich - just about the worst combination possible. Even worse, Wright's dialogue is wooden and stilted. The plot of The Golden Age is thin, which makes sense, as the entire 400 page novel takes place over less then 48 hours. Some novelists can stretch an even shorter period of time into an even longer page count, and maintain a brisk and energetic pace. Wright is not one of them. The main character, Phaeton, starts out as a cypher to us and to himself, as large portions of his memory have been erased. Unfortuanetly, he never coalesces into an interesting character, or into a character at all, for that matter. He remains a stiff-necked, whiny creature, permanently on the lookout for that third emotion. Worst of all, upon finally arriving at the end of The Golden Age, one discovers with shock that the entire book was nothing more then scene-setting. The real action doesn't even begin until the next installment, The Pheonix Exultant. This is a dishonest practice, and entirely unnecessary. The Golden Age could easily have been cropped by at least 100 pages, maybe more, and it certainly doesn't stand up on its own. www.Amazon.com is billing The Golden Age as the next Perdido Street Station - don't believe it. While it's obvious that China Mieville and Wright have studied from the same masters, Mieville learned from them to write well and honestly, whereas Wright learned to write long and pompously.
Rating:
Summary: Ten Star Science Fiction!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: More than just good ideas
Review: Many of the reviewers have mentioned that this book overflows with wonderful and origonal ideas about the far future. This is absolutly true, but missed many of the other wonderful things about this book. First, there are the consistantly well developed and sympathetic characters. Really, this book belong to the top 3% or so in strong major characters, and the top 2% in strong minor characters. Even the legal AI that appears "on screen" for only a minute is better developed than some SciFi writers can ever manage in 200 pages. Secondly, this book does a wonderful job of illustrating a host of philsophical topics; ranging from the definition of self to the perfectability of man. This is not to be missed!
Rating:
Summary: Life changing...
Review: Ok, so there are a few things I'd like to get straight with you right off the bat... 1: I just got back from a semi-romantic dinner with my 24 year old ex...stunningly beautiful, tall, Mexican...an absolute angel. Anyway, all to say I needed a few drinks to help reconcile why she's my ex, so, technically, I'm drunk. 2: I've been agonizing over how to write a review about a trilogy so important to me, so life changing, that in all my determined creative ability, I've failed to find proper words for. Allright then, now that I've set the contextual table for my mindset in writing this review... Hmmm...three 400 something paged books, that's quite an investment for even the most voracious reader. Me, I almost abandoned this series in Shanghai China (where I brought it to serve as a semi-cerebral distraction from the dark melee that is Shanghai to a well-to-do 30 year old). Anyway, about 50 pages into this first book I almost dropped it. Although fascinated by the bigness of its scope (10,000 years into the future, insanely well-thought-through...it just wasn't hooking me right). I put it down for a couple of months, but found myself talking to friends about what I had read. For instance, I would share how (that far into the future) characters took the potential for miscommunication so seriously that it would take a page or so to issue a simple salutory greeting (of course! strange, but that's just right!) So, while it didn't grip me from the start, its unique style, complexity, and substance stayed with me. I decided to give it another chance. I'm so thankful I did. At around 80-100 pages I was consumed in this strange but believable world of the future, set so far ahead of any reasonable predictatory event horizon most mere mortal authors would attempt. John Wright pulls it off in a way that is sure to earn him a place at the table of some of the best sci-fi writers of all time. Delicious prose gives life to a story so well detailed, characters so solid and dynamic, it wouldn't surprise me if there exists whole books he wrote just to make sure there weren't inconsistencies. Damnit, I'm getting off the subject. Here is the essence of what I'd like to communicate. Having waited until finishing this trilogy before writing this review I can say this: The first book (The Golden Age) is fascinating, well-written, and rife with mind-numbing concepts detailing the wildly fantastic potential of humanity that far off in the future. But that's not why you should read The Golden Age. You see (and this is where I'm really going out on an assumptive limb) I believe the author constructed the entire series to make one life changing point; a point made in one paragraph of the second to last page of the trilogy...the most important advice I've ever read or heard in my life. I've told this to friends, and in each instance tendered this warning (because I could see what they planned to do): "It won't make sense to you unless you read the books". And I mean it. Unfortunately, as rational beings we need basis to believe anything; important understandings require substantial basis. That's what this trilogy is about. Other than being enormously entertaining, it builds 1500 pages worth of basis in making a simple, elegant, and enormously important statement. It's now 2 in the morning, I'm exhausted (but newly sober). I hope that this review stimulates sufficient interest to compel you to pick up this first book, read 80 pages, and see if you yourself aren't seduced. However, unlike most pleasures, this series will leave you more fulfilled, more inspired, more uplifted after finish than during.
Rating:
Summary: Software manuals are more readable
Review: Others who have called this jargony and overwrought are dead-on. The result is borderline unreadable, plodding and uninteresting. If the Dune books are the zenith of unravelling a complex knot of economic, cultural and technological relationships in a compelling and interesting way, this book is the nadir. The author needs to read and reread the New Sun books by Gene Wolfe and "The Last Legends of Earth," the fourth volume in A.A. Attannasio's tetralogy for lessons in elegance and subtlety as applied to describing advanced technology. The old cliche, "Ask the man what time it is and he tells you how to build a watch," is an apt description of how most will feel when trying to grind through this. Moreover, this book is representative of a disturbing trend of "review inflation" on this site and others. Soon every novel and musical recording on the internet will be rated "four stars" or higher.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous futuristic tale
Review: Ten millenniums into the future, the solar system is a human utopia as mankind has achieved God-like status with near immortality. However, at the millennial High Transcendence gala, Phaethon Prime of Rhadamanth meets a Neptunian who insists they are old friends, but Phaethon fails to recognize the individual. Though the latter is part of a nonstandard neuroform renowned as pranksters, Phaethon believes the Neptunian and wonders why he recalls nothing about what has happened to him over the past five centuries. Phaethon begins investigating his memory loss. He learns that he volunteered to temporarily surrender his memories to a government storage facility in an attempt not to use them for three months in order to inherit the estate of his deceased father. If he breaks the agreement, Phaeton faces exile and a loss of immortality. However, he worries that his lack of recollection could prove threatening to the lifestyle of the Golden Oecumene that comprises every sentient being in the solar system. In spite of the moral dilemma Phaethon feels in exile and begins his quest to find his stored memories. THE GOLDEN AGE is a great futuristic science fiction that genre fans will absolutely love. The story line is fabulous as the heroic Phaeton struggles between his own needs and that of the greater good while he does not grasp either. The only weakness in Mr. Wright's strong debut is that the audience needs to wait for the release of the second book to learn what happens to Phaethon. This left this reviewer crashing from a reading high. To avoid major disappointment I suggest waiting for the concluding novel in order to read both together. Harriet Klausner
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