The
Hermetic Millennia
is a science fiction novel by John C. Wright, author of the "Golden
Age" trilogy (The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcendence) and a fantasy trilogy beginning with Orphans of Chaos, among others. It is the second book in his "Eschaton
Sequence" and a direct sequel to his previous book Count
to a Trillion,
which should definitely be read first.
For
8000 years, transhuman genius, gunslinger, and former space traveler
Menelaus Montrose has waged a secret war for the future of the human
race against his former comrades, the crew of humanity's first manned
interstellar spacecraft, the Hermetic. Fifty lightyears from Earth,
the human race found a source of all but limitless energy and wealth
in the form of an entire star made of antimatter and dramatic
evidence of alien intelligence on a monolith orbiting it, inscribed
with a vast library of knowledge far beyond humanity's.
The
Hermetic was sent to investiagte the monolith and, using stellar
lifting equipment sent ahead of them by unmanned craft decades
previously, begin mining the star. They succeeded- but returned to
earth over a century later not as explorers but as conquerors after a
mutiny killed the original captain and much of his crew.
With
control of the only interstellar spacecraft, the vast knowledge
gleaned from the monolith, and enough antimatter to either Usher the
earth into a golden age of almost unlimited energy or turn its cities
to ash, they became the masters of the world while Montrose slept in
cryogenic hibernation to preserve his life and sanity after an
ill-advised decision to inject himself with an experimental serum
that restructured his brain to superhuman levels of intelligence but
left him dangerously unstable for much of the expedition. Finally
awakened decades later, his former comrades- now calling themselves
the Hermeticists- welcomed him into their new elite, but Montrose
soon becomes disaffected with them as he sees the oppressive world
they've created and starts to regain his memories of what happened on
their expedition.
In
11,000 AD, an invasion fleet sent by an unimaginably advanced
civilization of machine intelligences in the Hyades Cluster will
reach Earth. The monolith was a trap, and by successfully mining the
nearby star humanity alerted the monolith's builders to our existence
and our possession of sufficient technological sophistication to be
useful subjects. We will serve them, or be exterminated. Even if
we could fight them off, they are only one among many vassal races of
a still greater power, which is in turn subject to an even more
advanced civilization in the M3 globular cluster.
With
the intent of the Hyades civilization coldly laid out in the monolith
left for us to find and the apparent impossibility of defeating them
demonstrated by the staggering knowledge contained in it, the
Hermeticists begin a project to save the human race: Reshaping our
biology and culture to make us the best slaves possible, so that the
Hyades civilization will find it worthwhile to let humanity survive in
some form rather than snuffing us out.
Equipped
with his transhuman intellect, advanced knowledge in the alien
monolith, the physical and financial resources acquired in his brief
stint as one of the Hermetic elite, and skills acquired from his
early days as a "lawyer" in a devastated 22nd-century Texas
where the practice of law frequently involved quasilegal duels fought
with pistols that were practically entire artillery batteries unto
themselves, Menelaus Montrose is the only man on earth who can stand
in their way. And so for millennia, as civilizations, societies, and
entire posthuman species rise and fall, Montrose has used all the
vast mental and physical resources at his command to wage a slow
struggle against his former crewmates, trying to steer humanity onto
a path that will allow it to resist the threat from Hyades long
enough for humanity's one hope- an expedition to M3, 33,900
lightyears from Earth- to succeed.
In
the year 10,500 AD Montrose finds himself unexpectedly awakened to
discover that his hibernation chamber has been found and dug up by
the dominant civilization of this time- and, with it, those of
thousands of others from across the ages who, disaffected with their
own eras, chose to sleep away the millennia in cryonics facilities
maintained by Montrose's agents. Now, Montrose must recruit aid from
the wildly diverse array of post-humans who have been awakened with
him in order to free himself and continue his struggle. And the fleet
from Hyades is not far away...
I
liked this book a lot. I love the whole concept of the series, with
its vast scope in both space and time and, and Wright executes it
well. The central conflict between Monrose and the Hermeticists is
interesting, there's some exciting action sequences, and Wright
incorporates a lot of interesting and inventive ideas into it and
into the larger backdrop it's set against.
Much
of the book is episodic in format, with people of different eras
telling their own stories as Montrose meets them and recruits them
into his planned rebellion. We encounter a bewildering array of
post-human species and cultures, from the militaristic, eugenicist
Chimera, to the almost mindlessly hedonistic Nymphs, to grotesque
beings that can incorporate parts of other organisms into
themselves, to group-mind beings, and more. Interspersed, and
sometimes intersecting, with these are stories of Montrose's periodic
awakenings during each era to counter the machinations of
Hermeticists.
Most
of the post-humans are pretty interesting, and the way the author
presents them makes them more compelling. Some of them initially come
across as caricatures or stock archetypes- the Proud Warrior Race,
the Innocent Hedonists, the Hive Mind, the Embodiments of What the
Author Thinks Is Wrong With the World- but they have more depth than
that. Many of them are monstrous, morally and sometimes physicaly,
but they are not monsters;
Wright does a good job of portraying all of them with at least some
degree of dignity and sympathy, and the book is much stronger for it.
Menelaus
Montrose is a highly enjoyable, likable protagonist, and its
enjoyable watching him put his talents to work to understand and
survive the situation he's thrust into upon being awakened. I
thought his characterization was effective in portraying a man with a
naturally idealistic temperament hardened by his youth in an
impoverished, violent, borderline post-apocalyptic world ravaged by
decades of religious conflict and biological warfare. He works well
as a primary viewpoint character, since he comes from something at
least vaguely resembling the world as we know it
His
personality and disposition- hopeful without being saccharine or
Pollyanna-ish, strongly concerned for others, trying to think of
himself as just a person unlike any other despite his augmented
intelligence and the godlike stature he has gained in myths of the
legendary "judge of Ages" created by his periodic and
sometimes dramatic returns over the millennia- provides an
interesting contrast in tone with the setting of the series. (As do
many of the other characters, to a lesser extent.)
The
galaxy revealed in Count to a Trillion is a terrifying, brutal place,
with relationships between species governed by utterly amoral
considerations of economics and game theory. The purpose of the human
expedition to the civilization in M3 is not to appeal to their
sense of mercy or justice, but to the same calculations laid out in
the monolith explaining why we are currently nothing but the Hyades
civilization's chattel. Interstellar invasions are staggeringly
costly endeavors even for races millions of years beyond us, and it's
far more efficient to interact peacefully with a species if
they can make plans and commitments on the vast timescales required
for a galaxy-spanning civilization limited by the speed of light.
The
pitiful insignificance and vulnerability of the human race amongst
such vast, superior, ancient, and utterly uncaring powers is almost
Lovecraftian, cosmic horror by way of hard science fiction. The
history of humanity and posthumanity across the millennia is
scarcely kinder. The Hermeticist's create and then discard sapient
human species as they try to shape humanity into something that they
think will survive the arrival of the invasion from the Hyades, each
failure consigned to extermination by its successors
The
contrast between the warmth and humanity of most of the characters
and the cold heartlessness of their world (the very first scene even
begins with the protagonist encased in a cryonic hibernation chamber)
is very effective at making both stand out, and adds a lot to each.
I
greatly enjoyed The
Hermetic Millennia
and would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in hard science
fiction, space opera, or stories about transhumanism, though you
should definitely read Count
to a Trillion first.
I greatly look forward to the next book in the series, The
Judge of Ages.
