Wait … What?
I came across this while ego-surfing.
The Golden Age by John C. Wright?
I am reading this book for AP lit, but there is no sparknotes or anything for this book. Does anyone know any website or book or anything where they have the book summarized or analyzed by chapter? Thanks!
So a teacher in advanced placement literature assigned one of my books in school? For kids to study? For credit??
I am flattered, very much so, but, come on, folks! Did the schoolchildren run out of Dickens and Shakespeare to read?
My work is fine, and I am proud of it, but is this the best use of the student’s limited time and attention span? How about anything on any topic by G.K. Chesterton instead? I seriously think Chesterton wrote at least one article on everything in the cosmos at one point.
If you want to read good science fiction, how about HYPERION by Dan Simmons? Then force the young scholars to read CANTERBURY TALES by Chaucer and show the comparisons.
Oh, maybe I should write up the cheat notes myself! That way, I can assure their accuracy, and be certain that my masterwork will be treated with the respect, nay, the groveling admiration it deserves! I much choose my words carefully. Let me see…
“The story is set so ridiculously far in the future that author does not have to worry about being realistic. It is so far in the future, that the main character, a ripoff of a Robert Heinlein dude named Pheatherbrains or something like that, lives in an English mansion with a butler who is a part time Penguin. And the main character talks like an imitation Jack Vance character.
“He is missing part of his memory because of a wild drunken weekend, because there is a party going on lasting a thousand years. Then there are some exciting scenes where a lot of weird people sit around a table and talk and talk, but later there is a very exciting scene where even more people sit around and talk.
“I think one of them was a cube. And then Featherbrains loses his mind, or misplaces it, and turns out to be someone else, unless that’s actually him. He gets stabbed by Harlequin, who is a cute girl working for the Joker. Or maybe his name was Scarface or something.
“Then there is this big Giant Gold Starboat called the Phoenix Arizona, and more robots, and Pheatherbrains goes out and gets a job, and I think they turned off the sun after Featherhead has an argument with his Dad, named Helium, who is another version of him.
“And there was a girl. And a war.
“This soldier named Achtung also turns out to be him. I think at one point everyone is him.
“Everyone gets married at the end. I love happy endings!
“The author is a very philosophical person who always talks about himself on his blog, and he was making a very deep and important philosophical point in his story: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Launch of a Giant Gold Starship. They cost plenty.”
John C. Wright’s THE OLDEN AGE, with Princess Daphne and the Phoenix Exultant pictured on the cover. She does not look that old to me.
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About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
