Or John C. Wright.
I had been meaning to read _The Golden Age_ when it came out, but I never got around to doing so. It deals with all the big themes I love - transcendence, posthumanism, and the conflict between individual and society. I'm actually quite glad I didn't, because now I can read all three books back to back. All three books are tightly linked together, and like the Lord of the Rings, should be considered one book in three parts.
_The Golden Age_ is set in a time thousands of years in a future, where technology is indistinguishable from magic, and where virtuality is nearly indistinguishable from reality. Humanity lives in the Golden Oecumene, under the gentle aegis of the Sophotechs, immensely powerful artificial intelligences who think millions of times faster than the average human being. Mankind has become divided among many different species and subcultures, ranging from the mass mind Compositions, to the intuitive Warlocks, to the coldly dispassionate Invariants.
In all of this, there is Phaeton of Rhadamanthus, a Manorial of the Silver-Gray school. The Manorials are the upper class of the Golden Oecumene, raised from birth with the guidance and help of powerful Sophotechs. The Silver-Grays are traditionalists, who prefer to view the world with at least a semblance of realism and recognizably human forms. Ironically, in a world of infinite possibility, Phaeton, and his father, Helion, choose to view the world as a pair of Victorian aristocrats.
The faux Victorianism of the novel is an interesting choice. On one level, the novel is a scientific romance, as it even carries the subtitle, "A Romance of the Far Future." Phaeton is, among many things, a brilliant engineer. He was responsible for moving the moon, and trying to ignite Saturn into a third sun. However, at the start of the novel, large portions of his memory have been wiped, and he is completely bankrupt. In the true spirit of a scientific romance, Phaeton has to use his wits, ingenuity, and technical skills to rediscover what he has lost, and to recover his drowned wife, Daphne.
On another level, the novel contains many social conflicts that are clearly stolen from wider examples Victorian literature. The central conflict of the novel is that of the heroic man against his society. Noble Phaeton wishes to recover his memories, but the College of Hortators prevents him. The College is both a symbol and a microcosm of future human society, made up of the leading figures from the most significant posthuman cultures. However, it has no legal power, only the power to shun people and cast them out. Still, when society controls all access to energy, all access to travel, and all access to immortality, their sentence is akin to life and death. The actions of the Hortators are contrasted with the wise and enlightened rulers of the Golden Oecumene, the Sophotechs, who secretly help and encourage Phaeton for their own secret ends.
Wright makes excellent use of symbolism throughout his work. In a world where most communication is non-verbal and non-written, pure symbols become correspondingly more important. The characters are all highly symbolic, with names borrowed from mythology. Phaeton is a passionate visionary who takes the name of the boy who stole the chariot of the sun. Daphne plays the role of drowned Ophelia and the passionate female protagonist. Even jovial Rhadamanthus takes the form of a penguin, reflecting certain contemporary geek icons. The most potent symbol of the conservative forces in the Golden Oecumene is Orpheus, and Neo-Orpheus. Orpheus was once a Romantic, and a poet, but now deletes any changes new information makes to his mind so he can stay in a perfect and unchanging state. Orpheus, however, is also the all-powerful god of death, since his corporations control the patents on making mental recordings and back ups.
Some reviewers have complained that there is a very Victorian attitude towards women in the story. Most of the key protagonists and antagonists are male, and the key female protagonist, Daphne, is a helplessly passionate romantic. The other key characters presented as female are the Cerebellines, who are minds distributed through an ecosystem, and members of the Red School, who are passionate sensualists. I would argue this reflects the symbolism of the novel and the society the novel presents. In a world where sex and gender are endlessly mutable, it makes sense that "femaleness" has returned to encompass its "traditional" stereotypes, since anyone who did not wish to make use of that social construction in some way would simply alter their form into something encompassing a social construction they prefered. In addition, it should be noted that while all characters are referred to as male or female, many characters, like Vafnir, who is a pillar of flame, or the Harmonious Composition, a mass mind, don't really have a gender.
To conclude, Wright has woven together an excellent novel which deals with classical themes in a highly innovative way. The faux Victorian themes in his work highlight a very traditional story of mystery and intrigue with some decidedly untraditional trappings. If there is any weakness in the work, its that so many ideas and implications are glossed over in the steadfast march of the central plot. There are so many other characters with their non-standard forms and neurochemistry that Wright could easily have constructed a bloated 10-volume series in the grand tradition of David Feintuch or David Weber. As it stands, its a tightly written novel with a lot of food for thought.
