Book Review: “Count to a Trillion” by John C. Wright

Count to a Trillion by John C. Wright

 This is the first book of a series, The Hermetic Millennia (2012) and The Judge of Ages (2014) and more to come. I look forward to reading more.

Some of Wright’s earlier work annoyed me with blatant and heavy handed Roman Catholic ideology, which simply drove me away. I’m just not interested in that.

This book still has his ideological tint, but its less annoying. In future new dark ages, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine the Catholic Church might reassert its historic authority. Wright seems to think this is a good thing, which I don’t.

In any case, the story is so massive and literally awe inspiring, I can ignore his misguided theories about human nature. This is a stunning space opera, with spatial scope beyond the galaxy, and temporal scope of many millennia.

The future technology includes super minds, artificial intelligences, a star ship, a weird antimatter star that is both a source of near infinite energy resources and also an alien artifact with a long message to be decoded.

Also, supertrains, a space elevator, smart clothing, and a whole bunch of nasty military tech.

Phew! There is certainly plenty of scope for a bunch more books.

Personally, I can do without the stupid “illiterate Texan” slang. I mean, once he is augmented to become a post human supermind, could you please let him talk plain English?

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1. Wright, John C., Count To A Trillion, New York, Tom Doherty, 2011.

 

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