Count to Infinity concludes the Eschaton Sequence, picking right up where The Vindication of Man left off, with Menelaus Montrose in what seems to be absolutely unsurvivable circumstances. Yup, Montrose is dead, dead, dead; beyond any hope or reach of rescue and reviving. And yet…!!!! The guy is just too stubborn, too persistent to let a little glitch like death at the hands of his frenemy Del Azarchel deter him. After all, he has a Happy Ending to achieve, and merely imagining it is not an acceptable substitute for attaining the real thing.

Across galaxies, millennia, and despite every kind of interference, Menelaus is resolved to be reunited with his beloved Rania. For her part, Rania has labored to bring peace based on comprehension and insight to the denizens of the space-time continuum. She accomplished her goal; but will Menelaus ever come to a place where ambition and rivalry do not swerve him from the course of true love?

This series is more than a dazzling, playful romp through grandeurs of galactic intelligences, as if Mark Twain, Douglas Adams, Newton and Carl Sagan had gotten together to brainstorm a narrative. Throughout, Wright has weighed and considered religious ideas, tossing them like golden balls in the hands of a supreme juggler. In this last book the concepts increasingly take front and center. At a profound level, it has a quality of an Apology in the classic style. Whether or not you are sensitive to this undercurrent, the storytelling is magnificently inventive. It is as the collective human consciousness were a trampoline, and Wright is inviting you to jump on it — and then he launches you.    ~~ Chris Wozney

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