Search - The Golden Age (Golden Age, Bk 1)

Well, I'd read The Golden Age back many years ago and didn't care for it because the viewpoint character, Phaethon, is an unsympathetic, Randian SOB. Recently, I got a copy of the collected trilogy (which was useless because it had a section replaced with text from a romance novel). So I thought I'd try again. And re-reading it confirmed it. Still, there is some nice worldbuilding. You get a sense of history from the setting, one that hasn't been interrupted by any technological dark ages for 10,000 years. It also assumes that the human brains can be handled like programs and/or computers. I'm not so sure that will ever happen, but if you can swallow that conceit, then go for it.

The government and set up is also pretty purely Randian - minimal with only really elements to enforce contracts and a bit of common defense. Its also pretty nasty with monopolies, a formalized social exclusion process that seems it can be initiated at any time, cliquish to feudal organizations within the society that argue that this is a flawed world and government (it could be easily argued that's what Wright was trying for). And this is supposed to be utopia...

Now, as to what's going on ...

Phaethon is trying to recover his memories in the midst of a conflicting factions and organizations. He agreed to have 250 years (out of over 2000 years) of memory removed. Why? Well, that's the conceit for The Golden Age. Since the book is almost 8 years old, I'll spoil away - he was building a star ship suitable for colonizing stars and the immortals of the Golden Oecumene are afraid of the possibility of conflict thousands and millions of years from now.

Golden Age Likes: Cool worldbuilding, sense of history, 'dark' utopia.
Golden Age Dislikes: Protagonist, heavy duty objectivist elements, character shallowness.

Overall, it is hard to suggest this book but if you are a fast reader or willing to trudge through pages of made up words and things that just don't make sense, there is a story here worth reading.

Excellent, if a bit dense.