Rating: 
Summary: "Fun in Exile"
Review: Plot Summary: We continue from the end of the last book where Phaethon was exiled from civilization and the life that he is used to and boycotted by every service he had previously taken for granted. As far as Phaethon knows, he is falsely in exile. Due to the nature of the society they live in, it is very hard to prove that the things that happened to him in The Golden Age are not just self delusions. He will not submit to a full memory reading because those events have made him paranoid that opening himself to the mentality will kill him. There are enemies that want him, and his ideas and spaceship, dead. Most of this book deals with finding out who those enemies are. The other main plot line is Phaethon trying to prove himself innocent of breaking his self imposed memory wipe and thus the unfair exile. He wants his ship, the only one of its kind, meant to travel the stars and expand the reach of man, back. The setting is almost entirely on Earth, specifically in the community of the exiles. Civilization is still in the midst of celebrating the coming Transcendence which will set the prevailing thoughts on politics and arts and such for the next millennium. This book closes with only 7-10 days left until the big event.Opinion: Wow again! These books will provide entertainment on my 2nd and 5th readings I'm sure due to me missing half the connections I'm supposed to be making. I just can't keep everything straight in my head as to who is projecting themselves ans who and why and what their normal state of being is. However, the story is so good that it doesn't really matter on the first reading. There are several groups out to stop Phaethon and several who secretly wish to eschew the boycott and help him. Loopholes abound. Hooray for a lawful society. The ending sets up the next book The Golden Transcendence. I found the conclusion wholly satisfying. The plot was advanced sufficiently and enough questions were answered just enough to feel like stuff happened even though only about 2 weeks pass. I would rate this 4.5 stars out of 5 same as the last book. Recommendation: I recommend this book again to anyone enjoying sci-fi. I especially recommend it to anyone who read the first book.
Rating: 
Summary: Going Downhill
Review: This science fiction book follows the continuing adventure of Phaeton, the hero of "The Golden Age", after he is exiled from the Golden Oecumene, and is no longer able to participate in the mind-joined activities of his society. We follow his adventures in a society made up of other exiles and see an example of the one-eyed man being a king in the land of the blind. We also remeet Daphne Tercius, an iteration of Phaeton's wife, Daphne and follow the couple in a joint adventure.
Literary critics often suggest that nothing should be in a story that does not contribute to the ultimate story line. However, most of this book seems to be a diversion from the story of Phaeton's effort to take the Phoenix Exultant into deep space. However, given the author's penchant for surprises, deception and red herrings, it may be that what appears to be a diversion will be essential to the story. But certainly as a stand-alone novel, the diversion seems unnecessary. But that is just one of the many literary elements that preclude consideration of this volume as a stand-alone book.
Part of the excitement of the original book was the discovery of the nature of the society that the hero lived in. There are few additional surprises about the societal organization in this book.
The relationship between Phaeton and Daphne is fleshed out in this volume. Unfortunately, it reminded me of the bantering Nick and Nora Charles from the old Thin Man movies. Even though humor is always appreciated in a novel, most of the attempts here fall flat.
The surprise revealed near the end of the novel reminded me of the finding that an entire season of the TV show Dallas was merely a dream. Any hints of where the story was going, something that readers might expect from an author who is dealing with them fairly, were too subtle for me.
Finally, Phaeton reveals himself as even more of a pompous, naïve bore than he seemed in "The Golden Age". It's hard to get excited about a hero who the reader does not care about.
In summary, if "The Golden Age" delighted you, you will probably need to read this book, and the third in the trilogy, "The Golden Transcendence". But you will probably be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, loose plot, decaying style
Review: While I thought the first book in this series was excellent, packed with all sorts of cool stuff from the impact of redactable senses and memory on people and society on up to self-aleration of thought and the legal consequences thereof, too many of those ideas have gone on from supporting concepts or themes to become plot devices, instead. While the upending of half the story and assumptions in the first novel was brutally effective, and a jarring shock, creating the ultimate unreliable narrator, Mr. Wright pulls that particular rabbit out of his hat one too many times and it really begins to lose its impact. A lot of the ideas that made the first novel so interesting are old hat here, and there's the sense that they're used to prop up a flagging story rather than illuminate the (post)human condition.
In addition, Mr. Wright's Objectivist philosophy begins to surface here (though not to the extent it does in the third book), and bits of this novel can begin to read a bit like Atlas Shrugged, set in the year 10000AD. Given the similiarities between Ms. Rand's characters and Mr. Wright's, I suspect it's intentional. If you enjoyed (or at least tolerated) Atlas Shrugged, it can make reading "The Phoenix Exultant" a fun game of 'find the paralell'. If Atlas Shrugged annoyed you, then this novel will start to grate on your nerves fairly quickly once you reach the midpoint.
If you enjoyed the first one, and have to see how it all turned out, give it a read, just don't expect much more than potboiler entertainment and an increasingly thinly-disguised rehashing of standard Objectivist tropes.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for a fast-acting sense-of-wonder recharge.
Review: ____________________________________________ I loved it. PHOENIX continues on from the cliff-hanger that ends vol. 1. Phaethon has indeed been banished, ostracized, cast out of the Golden Oecumene, for rocking the boat... I should stop here and reiterate that PHOENIX is emphatically NOT a stndalone. You will absolutely need to start with vol. 1 to make sense of this, and even then, it can be hard going. But worth the effort, and a lot of fun. Anyway, PHOENIX opens with one of the neatest bits of recapitulation I've ever seen, and most welcome, too, as it's been 18 months or so since I read #1. The writing here is considerably smoother than in the first book, and the story is simpler and more linear --though I'm sorry to say the proofreading hasn't improved a bit (sigh). Cool covers, though. OK, here's the reliable Paul Di Filippo, if you'd like a coherent, real review: [google at scifi.com] "Wright dances brilliantly back and forth between... romance and talk of tightly woven superstrings and mesonic disrupters. Another thread is classic space opera: The whole contest between the Golden Oekumene and the Second Oekumene rings of nothing so much as the battle between Arisia and Boskone in Doc Smith's Lensmen series." Sheer narrative pleasure, that's a good way to put it. The first half of #2 is a fairly routine (but fun!) "can't keep a good engineer down" romp --and I'm doing Wright a bit of a disservice, because there are still a dozen neat ideas per chapter --but PHOENIX really starts to rock when Daphne Tercius Semi-Rhadamanth makes her re-entrance, Daphne Tercius being the successor (sort of) to Daphne Prime, Mrs. Phaethon, who's hiding from him, and reality, inside an impregnable VR vault... Anyway, Daphne3 is bright, sharp-witted, and determined, but Phaethon is so incredibly thick in dealing with her, you want to whack him upside the head. Gah! Their interactions are a delight, even if Phaethon isn't. Plus, we learn more about Atkins Vingt-et-un, the Last Soldier. And move in to Mercury, to fire up the Phoenix Exultant! What can I say? Wright is very, very good for a fast-acting sense-of-wonder recharge, and PHOENIX is a welcome return to straightforward storytelling from the baroque splendors of GOLDEN-1. And I kept getting the frissons of delight, wonder and strangeness that are the reason I read SF. So, guys, it ain't perfect, but I predict Wright's GOLDEN AGE series will be delighting readers for a long time to come. And I'm more than ready for The Golden Transcendence, vol. 3, now available (and should be in my hands RSN). Interview by Nick Gevers (highly recommended):
[Google at SF Site]
[on his influences]
"Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe are masters of style, and I filch from them without a twinge of remorse. The men are brilliant. They are the only authors I enjoyed as a child whom I can still enjoy as an adult. Of the two of them, I have a mild preference for Jack Vance. Gene Wolfe, in fact, is too brilliant for me: I cannot figure out his puzzles. The mysteries in Jack Vance, in contrast, are honest and fair, and the clues are there..."
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Note 1). Apparently, Wright had planned for a 2-volume issue, but vol. 2 ran long, and the publisher decided to split it. IB Golden Age was conceived as one long novel.
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