I enjoyed John C. Wright’s Golden Age trilogy and was excited to see that he had a new book coming out, Count to a Trillion. Unfortunately it was bland, padded and not very well done. The Golden Age Trilogy was full of big ideas and wondrous characters and, while Count to a Trillion has interesting characters and big ideas, it never pulls them together in an interesting way. The characters are too broadly drawn and the ideas are interesting, but barely relate to the story at times. Let’s see what went wrong.

Menelaus Montrose is a mathematical genius growing up in a dysfunctional family in the 22nd Century. He lives in the Texas desert and uses his genius to get out of trouble or pull himself inside his head when he gets punished. He later uses his mathematical skill to become a legal gunslinger (literally of course) when he gets pulled into an amazing project. A space trip to a alien artifact known only as The Monument. The monument is like the encoded data from Contact, where (post decryption) humans can learn almost everything that the alien race has encoded. There is also a promise of virtually unlimited energy (which later becomes limited unlimited energy). Montrose then injects himself with a homemade serum which will boost his intelligence significantly and allow him to decrypt more of The Monument. Unfortunately he wasn’t smart enough to debug his serum prior to injecting it and wakes up two centuries later back on Earth.

There is a discussion of politics, economics, etiquette and occasional discussions of what went on during the trip.There’s a princess who magically came to existence with no one talking about her origins until Montrose figures it out. Basically it just kind of limps along for a few hundred pages until the climax happens.

The characters are interesting at times, but generally broadly drawn. Montrose is a Texan, so he talks in a drawl and has Texas beliefs about women and honor. There is a Spanish opponent who has Spanish beliefs about honor. And these are the main things that is brought out about them. They are smart and generally conform to simplistic beliefs about their origin. The ideas fly fast and furious at times and I really liked a lot of the basic concept. But the plot and character issues just made me not like the book. If you can skim for ideas and ignore the plot and characters, it would be good. But otherwise, Not Recommended.