The Golden Age is Grand Space Opera, a large-scale SF adventure novel in the tradition of A. E. Van vogt and Roger Zelazny, with perhaps a bit of Cordwainer Smith enriching the style. It is an astounding story of super science, a thrilling wonder story that recaptures the excitements of SF's golden age writers. The Golden Age takes place 10,000 years in the future in our solar system, an interplanetary utopian society filled with immortal humans. Within the frame of a traditional tale-the one rebel who is unhappy in utopia-Wright spins an elaborate plot web filled with suspense and passion. Phaethon, of Radamanthus House, is attending a glorious party at his family mansion to celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of the High Transcendence. There he meets first an old man who accuses him of being an impostor and then a being from Neptune who claims to be an old friend. The Neptunian tells him that essential parts of his memory were removed and stored by the very government that Phaethon believes to be wholly honorable. It shakes his faith. He is an exile from himself. And so Phaethon embarks upon a quest across the transformed solar system--Jupiter is now a second sun, Mars and Venus terraformed, humanity immortal--among humans, intelligent machines, and bizarre life forms that are partly both, to recover his memory, and to learn what crime he planned that warranted such preemptive punishment. His quest is to regain his true identity. The Golden Age is one of the major, ambitious SF novels of the year and the international launch of an important new writer in the genre. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Thank you, Mr. Vance / Dean Koontz -- Preface / Jack Vance -- The True vintage of Erzuine Thale / Robert Silverberg -- Grolion of Almery / Matthew Hughes -- The Copsy Door / Terry Downling -- Caulk the witch-chaser / Liz Williams -- Inescapable / Mike Resnick -- Abrizonde / Walter Jon Williams -- The Traditions of Karzh / Paula Volsky -- The Final quest of the Wizard Sarnod / Jeff Vandermeer -- The Green bird / Kage Baker -- The Last golden thread / Phyllis Eisenstein -- An Incident at Uskvesk / Elizabeth Moon -- Sylgarmo's Proclamation / Lucius Shepard -- The Lamentably comical tragedy (or the laughably tragic comedy) of Lixal Laoavee / Tad Williams -- Guyal the Curator / John C. Wright -- The Good magician / Glenn Cook -- The Return of the Fire Witch / Elizabeth Hand -- The Collegeum of Mauge / Byron Tetrick -- Evillo the Cunning / Tanith Lee -- The Guiding nose of Ulf?nt Banderoz / Dan Simmons -- Frogskin cap / Howard Waldrop -- A Night at Tarn House / George R.R. Martin -- An Invocation of incuriosity / Neil Gaiman.

"The five have made sinister discoveries about themselves. Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter around him; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls where none had previously been; Colin is a psychic; Quentin is a warlock. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the inexplicable universe - and they should not be able to coexist under the same laws of nature. How is it that they can?" "The children must experiment with and learn to control their strange abilities in order to escape their captors. Something very important must be at stake in their imprisonment."--BOOK JACKET.