John C. Wright

[Mithfânion]

Who has read his books and what did you make of them?

His most recent book was an authorized A. E. Van Vogt sequel, before that he wrote the Orphans of Chaos trilogy, before that The War of the Dreaming Fantasy duology and his first work was the Golden Age trilogy, an SF space opera. What have you read and what did you think of it?

I've read Last Guardian of Everness which I was initially hugely impressed by but it became too farcical and whimsical towards the end. I've now picked up the second book to give that another chance because there was a lot of potential in book 1.

[suciul]

Who has read his books and what did you make of them?

His debut - the far future space opera trilogy starting with Golden Age - was very impressive.

I tried Everness 1 several times but it's just not for me

The Chaos series is light and funny at least volume 1 that I read - I have and plan to read vol 2 and 3 at some point too. A bit silly and pretentious at the same time, but still enjoyable

I found Null A 3 unreadable - I enjoyed the original Van Vogt Null A 1 and 2 and even the non-canon - some say not written by Van Vogt Null A 3 - but this one tried to imitate the style of those and in my opinion is a disaster.

Stephen Baxter did a remarkable job in continuing Wells Time Machine by mixing the original content with modern style, but Mr. Wright sticking to Van Vogt' style just does not get it.

So a great debut trilogy, but then mediocre to ok novels and a huge whooper.

[Rob B]

I haven't read any of his fantasy, but I did read The Golden Age and the first to Chaos books. The first Chaos book Orphans of Chaos was pretty good but the second, Fugitives of Chaos, was a major disappointment for me.

[Eventine]

I thought his first Everness book was pretty good, but slipped away in the second. His Golden Age books were compulsive reading for me at the time, really good stuff. I've been meaning to pick up the Orphans books since.
Unfortunately my views on him have been somewhat tainted by reading his blog, but I can't see it stopping me from continuing to enjoy his novels, although I'm sure I'll look at some of the content differently.

[Arrgh]

The Golden Age is great stuff. I haven't tried the rest.

If your religion is liberalism and/or you're a political correctness fanatic you should avoid his blog. I enjoy most of his blog posts and it doesn't put me off his writing at all.

[cgw]

I enjoyed both the Everness and Chaos books. The kind of stuff I like though it is "whimsical" at times and maybe a little overly descriptive at times. I would read more from him depeding on the topic.