Rise of the Summer Kings or Aestevals, a caste (later, a subspecies) of terraformers biotechnologically and psychologically adapted to entering mental union with ghosts in order to perform otherwise impossible feats of chaos mathematics, needed for precise weather control.
The Summer Kings dominate the worlds of the inner Solar System. Suprastratospheric weather-control clouds circle Earth and Venus. Poles heated and tropics cooled by engineering the world ocean currents. Mars is crisscrossed with a series of vast canals, an ancient myth at last come true.
Eventide Life-Sculptors occupy Laurasia, the Eastern continent of Earth. Earth becomes famed for the beauty of its women, the perfect tropical charm of its nearly seasonless environment.
SECOND POWER of SOL
Birth of Neptune, a second Power of Sol, the Seventh Power of Man [Neptune is roughly 7,000 miles in diameter at this time, 90^4 IQ.]
Neptune Brain establishes forward bases on Uranus, makes contact with isolated elements of the Patrician sovereign-mind named Cnaeus.
• 52nd Millennium A . D . / 18 V
A final attempt is made to assimilate Fox cliometry into the baseline of predictive history, without success, with the Fox Maidens serving as an Amazon soldier class in the place of the now-extinct Myrmidons.
The Summer Kings, awash with wealth of dubious origin (energy funds meant to be set aside to ignite Rania’s deceleration starbeam), reestablish the old Golden Lord racial caste system with Patricians occupying the ranks once occupied by Hierophants.
Patrician Golden Lords reclaim power over crucial nodes of the cliometric model on Earth and other worlds, while allowing the Summer Kings to seem to retain control. This marks the end of the Tribulations. Course of predictive history restored.
Neptune enters a period of external inactivity and internal reorganization, thought to be akin to REM sleep.
TREASON OF JUPITER: Jupiter refuses to ignite the deceleration laser for a fourth burn of the returning lightship of Rania the Vindicatrix. Jupiter attempts to use the energy budget instead to copy itself into the Hyades Concentric at 20 Arietis.
A.D. 51554—Jupiter slain.
Jupiter commits ritual suicide with a solar beam weapon when its avatar on Earth falls in a duel.
(A.D. 51600) Fourth and final ignition of the deceleration starbeam directed at M3. Economic collapse follows the liberal expenditure of energy beyond forecast.
The Summer Kings retreat into fictional dreamscapes. Those not altered by Fox Maidens into Swans soon divaricate.
Judge of Ages, with a picked crew of Rosicrucians of the Brash archetype called the Sons of Cazi, hijacks the starship Emancipation and departs from Sol, allegedly to seek for a lost colony of Houristan at Epsilon Boötis.
Iota Cephei is the Pole Star
At this point in time, 17,000 years remain before the Vindication of Man.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN C. WRIGHT is an attorney turned science fiction and fantasy writer. He has published short fiction in Asimov's and elsewhere, and wrote the Chronicles of Chaos, the Golden Age, and the War of the Dreaming series. His novel Orphans of Chaos was a finalist for the Nebula Award in 2005. This is his fourth novel in the Count to a Trillion series. You can sign up for email updates here.
TOR BOOKS BY JOHN C. WRIGHT
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
The Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
Orphans of Chaos
Fugitives of Chaos
Titans of Chaos
Null-A Continuum
Count to a Trillion
The Hermetic Millennia
The Judge of Ages
The Architect of Aeons
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Part Five: The Armadas of the Hyades
One: A Lost World
Two: Aboard the Hysterical Blindness
Three: The Barefoot Moon
Four: Whitefriars of Tycho
Five: Celestial Hospitality
Six: Pantropy and Terraformation
Seven: King of Planets, Planet of Kings
Part Six: Time of the Third Humans
One: Man Creates Myrmidon
Two: The War of Sol and Ain
Three: The Virtue Cahetel
Part Seven: The Long Golden Afternoon of Man
One: The Starfaring Guild
Two: The Antepenultimate White Ship
Three: The Treason of Jupiter
Four: The Ire of the First Power
Appendix A: Dramatis Personae
Appendix B: Middle-Scale Time Line (Thousands of Years)
About the Author
Tor Books by John C. Wright
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE ARCHITECT OF AEONS
Copyright © 2015 by John C. Wright
All rights reserved.
Cover art by John Harris
A Tor Book
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2970-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-5168-5 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781429951685
First Edition: April 2015