The Phoenix Exultant: The Golden Age, Volume 2

And now The Phoenix Exultant, a second epic novel of an heroic quest in a far future world of super-science from an important new talent.

The Phoenix Exultant is a continuation of the story begun in The Golden Age and, like it, a grand space opera in the tradition of Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny (with a touch of Cordwainer Smith-style invention).

At the conclusion of the first book, Phaethon of Radamanthus House, was left an exile from his life of power and privilege. Now he embarks upon a quest across the transformed solar system--Jupiter is a second sun, Mars and Venus terraformed, humanity immortal--among humans, intelligent machines, and bizarre life-forms, to recover his memory, to regain his place in society and to move that society away from stagnation and toward the stars. And most of all Phaethon's quest is to regain ownership of the magnificent starship, the Phoenix Exultant, the most wonderful ship ever built, and to fly her to the stars.

It is an astounding story of super-science, a thrilling wonder story that recaptures the verve of SF's Golden Age writers The Phoenix Exultant is a suitably grand and stirring fulfillment of the promise shown in The Golden Age and confirms John C. Wright as a major new talent in the field.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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This is the story of Phaethon, exiled from a life of privilege and questing to reclaim his spacecraft, the Phoenix Exultant. He seeks the city of Talaimannar, impeded greatly by the fact that those who would help him risk exile themselves. Still, the strangest persons, those with no fear of exile, do help. The Old-Woman-of-the-Sea--a mind spread across all life in the sea, and the last remnant of the massmind of the Bellipotent Composition--helps him; and she and other helpers strive to ruffle the smooth waters of the peaceful, stagnating Golden Oecumene. Now, Phaethon believes that beings from another star are set on destroying him the moment he logs onto the Mentality, but the truth is even more sinister. This is the middle of a trilogy, and newcomers may find it hard to get into at first, despite action that starts and stays fast. But take the time, and maybe back up and read The Golden Age [BKL Mr 15 02], for when it grabs, it holds. Regina Schroeder
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"Extraordinary ... Witty, inventive, labyrinthine, with a life-sized cast, Wright's creation—something like Alexander Jablokov meets Charles Sheffield, with a dash of Gene Wolfe—grows steadily more addictive."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A philosophical novel in high-tech dress."
--The New York Times