It turns out that more John C. Wright isn't necessarily better John C. Wright. But okay, let's take this from the top. Our hero, Phaeton, is the man everyone openly hates while secretly wanting to be him. He’s managed to tick off his semi-utopian society by insisting on building a giant spaceship to explore the stars—a major no-no that resulted in his peers forcing him to forget he ever built it, effectively exiling him from society. But you can't keep a man from his precious ship forever. Once...

Well, I did it—I finished the trilogy ending with The Golden Transcendence. It feels like a real accomplishment. The trilogy itself has been a total paradox for me: flawed in so many ways, yet brilliant and endlessly intriguing. As a whole, it is richly layered, complex, and intellectual, but also damaged, imperfect, and deeply blemished. For those new to the series, it takes place ten thousand years in the future, in a fully and diversely populated solar system. Humanity is joined by a variety ...

The final book in this trilogy has a reputation for being the worst of the three, and perhaps that’s why, by some reverse logic, I felt compelled to dive into it so quickly. I’ve already mentioned that The Golden Age felt like a novel accessible to both genre die-hards and casual readers alike. In Phoenix Exultant, however, we witnessed a degradation of the main characters and the story itself, which devolved into a tasteless parody. Given that, I didn't know what to expect from this final chapt...

John C. Wright's The Golden Transcendence, the third and final installment of his Golden Age trilogy, is so profoundly disappointing that it has actually forced me to lower my rating of the previous books by two stars. What started out as a brilliantly imagined and well-crafted work of speculative transhumanist fiction has, by this third novel, devolved into absolute drivel. At the start of the trilogy, you could easily overlook the story’s pretensions toward philosophical depth because of its ...

Wow! What a total letdown. After two books that were both absolutely excellent, John C. Wright wraps up the trilogy not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Golden Transcendence is packed with so much half-baked philosophy and crackpot science that it was nearly impossible to finish. There is almost no action—just characters stuck in interminable, endless dialogues. With no real plot twists and nothing of substance to hold onto, it feels like Wright is just trying to show off by cramming in as m...

‘Here at last is the dazzling conclusion of the masterpiece of far future space opera that began with ‘The Golden Age’ and continued in ‘The Phoenix Exultant’. The time is imminent when all the minds of the solar system – human, post human, cybernetic, sophotechnic – will be temporarily merged into one supermind called The Transcendence. It is an awesome moment, but one when humanity will be helpless. The mighty ship ‘Phoenix Exultant’ is at last in the hands of her master, Phaethon the Exile....

The Golden Transcendence trilogy is perhaps the most ambitious space opera—and work of fiction, for that matter—I have read so far. It is also one of the cleverest, most visionary, and provocative stories... but honestly, to hell with those labels. I’m just not up to the task of describing it. Take a look at the quotes I’ve shared, and just try reading the books themselves for this must-read sci-fi series.There’s more to my silence, though. I am genuinely disappointed by the ending: by the ultim...

3 Stars 4.5 Stars for the series I’m giving 3 stars to The Golden Transcendence and 4.5 for the Golden Age series as a whole. To be honest, I was extremely disappointed with this final installment. It wasn't a mystery like the first book, it wasn't a quest like the second; instead, it felt more like a philosophical debate trapped inside an epic space opera war. In my opinion, far too much time was spent psychoanalyzing every single detail and potential outcome between the characters, which mea...

The Golden Transcendence (2003) by John C. Wright. "This changes EVERYTHING... or does it?" "Things are not as they seem." With that assertion firmly in mind, John C. Wright plunges the reader into the final volume of his "Golden Age" trilogy. His flowery but captivating prose is back once again, which—to editor David G. Hartwell's credit—is fairly easy to forgive despite a few spelling errors. Half a dozen typos per book seem to be typical for this series (for example, "Helion" is misspelled ...

On the eve of the Transcendence, Phaethon takes the Phoenix Exultant into the very heart of the sun to confront his enemy, the Nothing Sophotech, agent of the Silent Oecumene. Can he stop the Nothing before the Nothing launches a sneak attack during The Golden Transcendence? And does he even want to? Wow. I was really hoping John C. Wright could wrap up the Golden Age saga in a satisfying way, and he certainly delivered. I can't say much about the plot without spoiling the experience, but I will...