Rainbows End: A Novel with One Foot in the Future

The odd future described by this book is both depressing and hopeful. It is a world in which humans regularly retreat into virtual reality, often corresponding to their chosen `belief circles,' as an interface to the real world and yet they remain curious, productive and creative. There are large `Big Brother' governments but they are mostly benign. There is very little privacy and yet people seem to respect one another's individuality. There is an ever looming threat that terrorists will use real weapons of mass destruction against civilians but people in general seem to honestly abhor violence. People group themselves into belief circles with complex mythos based on various things from Terry Pratchett's Discworld to something that sounds much like Pokemon but these seem to be viewed more as matters of taste than uncompromising religious "truths" so there remains room for compromise and agreement among their followers.
This juxtaposition of positive and negative extends to the characters. It is told from multiple points of view, primarily that of Robert Gu, once a renowned poet and a complete jerk in his personal life who is being successfully treated for several aging related illnesses including Alzheimer's. Once he begins to regain his mind, he starts out as the SOB he used to be but he grows into far more empathetic person. The antagonist, Alfred Vaz, is attempting to develop something that sounds very much like mind control but he is doing so in an effort to protect people and create a more peaceful world and he is honestly upset when Gu's granddaughter is endangered because of events that unfold ultimately from Gu's efforts to stop him.
The book requires some work on the part of the reader. First of all the virtual reality aspect often makes it difficult to tell what is "real" and what isn't. It also isn't a simple good guy versus bad guy adventure tale. The characters are more complex than that and they grow and change through the course of the book. And there are a few loose threads left hanging, most notably who or what is "Rabbit?" But I hesitate to call these flaws. This ambiguity is part of the theme of this book and Vinge's merging of dystopian and utopian views of the future make this an interesting and thought provoking read.

Rainbows End is a departure from Vernor Vinge's other award-winning works (e.g. the Zones of Thought series) in that it is a near-future extrapolation of current technologies, and explores the potential ramifications of the combination of miniturization and information technology. In the relatively near future (the main protagonist was born a decade before me!), everyone "wears" technology - shirts have computers and net-accessing programs built into them (and they also act as antennae-receivers). Contact lenses supply the visual interface, while slight muscle movements send commands to the computer (e.g. to look up something, to change a view, etc.).

Into this future lands the main character of the story Robert Gu, a former well-regarded poet who had descended into Alzeimers for year but is suddenly cured with a modern medical breakthrough. It is a wise move to have such a character because it allows Vinge to introduce us to the brave new world of technology through the eyes of someone just learning about it himself.

Of course, an entire culture has grown up around the ability to use the contact lenses to supply an alternate reality. Vinge mainly uses fictional worlds as his "belief circles", e.g. the Scoochies (reminded me of Pokemon) and the Library Militants (a fantasy world); Harry Potter's universe also puts in an appearance. In any case, wearers can superimpose graphics onto reality so that they appear to be walking through a fictional world, created by the fan community based on the works by these seminal authors. The use (and abuse) of this technology, and the tone with which the novel is written, gives it a cyberpunk feel, although if William Gibson is the equivalent of the Sex Pistols then in this analogy Rainbows End would be Green Day - less edgy, and modernized to appeal to a more general audience.

There is also the dark side of miniturization that allows terrorists and banana republic dictators access to enormously powerful and easily hidden weapons. Robert Gu's family are career military (USMC), high in the counter-terrorism ranks, using Just-in-Time Teaching (JITT) to keep up with technology and the bad guys. The JITT is perhaps the most interesting invention, a technically illegal procedure that allows, for example, someone to become fluent in a foreign language in a matter of days, but the mental/biochemical stress leaves the trainee brain-damaged to a greater or lesser degree (some just suffer personality changes, others are institutionalized in Veterans' Hospitals).

Thus, we have neophyte Robert, his techno-brilliant granddaughter, and his son/daughter-in-law (her parents) the marines. The pieces seem disparate at first, but Vinge cleverly weaves together these characters and their various skills to form an intriguing and ultimately action-packed finale where nothing less than the future of humanity (as we know it) is at stake. It is a very satisfying novel from a plot and science perspective - every innovation feels like it's not that far from what we can do today. The only problem I have with the book is that the characters are entirely unlikeable - Robert is a horrible father and a vain and pompous colleague. Miri, the granddaughter, is bubbly but pushy and cocky. The other main characters are similarly unlikeable in various ways, and I couldn't help but root for the bad guy to succeed because he was at least polite and well-spoken. It's not a big problem, because like a traditional cyber-punk, it's not what the novel is about so much as how it is about it (and the characters play a secondary role, mainly serving to be representative examples of "society"), but it did cause me to drop one star and give the novel 4/5.

Horrible! First, I find his writing style, sentence structure, and thought flow unreadable.. My initial impression was that it must have been written in a foreign language and was just badly, badly translated. Second, it reminds me of the garbage they force you to read in so many college lit classes. That tedious boring crap the profs actually think constitute worthwhile reading.

The only people I can imagine liking this book are those who think Sheldon Cooper is the normal one and spend their lives dreaming that some day they might get a date with a woman half as hot as Amy Farrah Fowler.

My analysis . . . . Characters that are uninteresting and unlikable. A premise I can't imagine appealing to anyone other than adolescents. Written as if Kurt Vonnegut, John Barth and Gary Wolf collaborated to intentionally write a really bad book that only phony literary critics and P-N-P puck heads would proclaim-N-proffer as great literature.

I wish I could get my money back. But even more, I wish I could get back the time I wasted reading this worthless poc.

Another terrific sci-fi adventure from Vernor Vinge, who once again makes the virtual world of tomorrow come stunningly alive. Aging poet Robert Gu, his granddaughter Miri, and the rest of their family become embroiled in a plot to deploy mind-controlling YGBM (You Gotta Believe Me) technology. The first half is much stronger than the second, more action-oriented half, as Vinge uses the setup to give us insight into the personalities in this very unusual family - their dreams and trials all very familiar, but strongly influenced by new technology. The major innovation is the wearable web interface, which I trust is in development somewhere at this very moment, but there are plenty of other interesting ideas presented in this vision of the not-too-distant future.

Rather unusual for sci-fi is the way Vinge makes a point of keeping his technology flawed. They can cure Alzheimer's, but the cure isn't always perfect. There's a web interface that you carry around in your clothing, but it's not as user-friendly as one might hope. This seems like an element of realism - no technology is ever perfect, but just the best that can be done at the time. And while amazing marvels are possible, there's often a price to be paid or a risk to be taken, and this is part of life, too. Not many futuristic sci-fi novels are subtle enough to recognize these essential truths.

Once the action gets started the story becomes a bit messy. There are so many opposing forces at work, creating diversions and switching to contingency plans, etc... that it's hard to keep track of who's trying to do what to whom. But Vinge's careful character development keeps us deeply involved up through the final pages. No matter how you feel about the science, the level of energy, suspense, and just plain fun is so high that nothing less than 5 stars will do.

"Rainbow's End" is the story of a reawakening curmudgeon, a madman's plan for world domination, and a not-to-distant future where the equivalent of mental telepathy exists thanks to computing advancements and where books are destroyed to preserve them.

Vinge writes clearly and simply so that the book is almost an easy read. I use almost because there are a few set pieces that the author must have clearly developed in his mind and then not noticed that there were lacuna when he transferred the ideas to paper. The result is that occasionally I understood what was going on, but never quite figured out why it took the form it did.

In this book Vinge often tries to be slyly humorous, and often succeeds, whether it is in the subtitle ("a novel with one foot in the future" which must surely be meant to be followed by "and the other on a banana peel") to a character taking the form of a rabbit who, like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps "coming and coming and coming".

Although I gladly devoured the book, I must confess that I really dislike one of Vinge's recurring plot devices, which is the use of adolescents as major characters. With the possible exception of Cleopatra, I've seldom found such an important role for teenagers in history. It's almost as if Vinge was trying to lure teenagers into an interest in his books by giving them such an important role.

It's obvious from the beginning that the main character will be transformed by his experience in the book, but I never quite understood the reason for his transformation. I also found the ending an attempt to wrap up things too nicely, while at the same time leaving a few strings untied, perhaps in anticipation of a sequel.

"Rainbow's End" won the 2007 Hugo Award, although two other nominees "Blindsight" and "Glasshouse" seemed more interesting to me. On the other hand, despite my criticism, the book was an enjoyable read.

Rainbows End is worth your time if you are interested in the impact of technology on society. The plot and characters are just compelling enough to keep you turning the pages, but the real gem is the author's compelling vision of near-future technology and its effect on government, warfare, and everyday life. Almost every page has a nugget of insight into the future. The new world is complex, but the story serves to introduce it gradually enough so that it's no more bewildering than it should be. Vinge's vision is intentionally ambiguous, simultaneously chilling and hopeful.

Unfortunately, Rainbows End will fail to meet the lofty expectations of Vinge fans. His best novels (A Fire Upon the Deep and its sequel A Deepness in the Sky), contain not only inspired visions of technology, but also superb plots and characters. Rainbows End does not keep that standard of greatness. However, even when not at his best, Vinge is still worth reading.

The author of three previous mystery novels, author Peter Webb gets personal through this autobiographical portrait, with the backdrop of wartime, poverty, family crises and personal redemption.

As a kindergarten student in Essex, England, during World War II, a vivid memory is being fitted with a gas mask. The device frightened Webb and other students so much, that replacement masks were devised with the external appearance being cartoon characters.

And this battle with the oftentimes macabre masks of reality sends his young life spiraling in the immediate post-war years. His father leaves the family and his mother is hospitalized with a series of mental breakdowns, while Webb enters in an endless cycle of dead-end jobs.

But it's through a stint in the Royal Navy and getting focus on the future with his wife, Dawn, that leads to the greatest sojourn of all; planting roots in a new country, Canada, and setting out on a plan that includes a bevy of goals, which would have been pure fantasy in previous years.

Ultimately, the pursuit of an arc of special spectral colors after the storms did not end for Webb. By never giving up on his dreams, Webb found personal and professional solace, over the rainbow.

In "Rainbow's End," the author Peter Webb tells his personal life story, from early childhood through retirement. He grew up in England during the Second World War. His personal experiences were greatly affected by this war and issues that he had to deal with concerning his family, especially his difficult mother. His story takes us from England to around the world when he was in the British Royal Navy. From there he immigrated with his family to Canada. His career in Canada continued to allow him to travel around the world.
I found Mr. Webb's story to be very interesting and enjoyed his willingness to share what he learned from his life experiences. He openly discusses the good and the bad events and what he learned from them. His insights about the places that he traveled to, and the people that he encountered through out his whole life were also very insightful. This autobiography offers much to the reader, because in addition to reading of his travels and experiences, Mr. Webb also imparts a great deal of the wisdom that he learned along his life journey. I think that we can all benefit by learning from others stories. I definitely recommend reading "Rainbows End." I think it will make a wonderful gift for people who are armchair travelers or enjoy autobiographies.

RAINBOWS END (2006) is set in San Diego (my hometown) in the "near future", and follows the exploits of a diverse group of individuals struggling with "pre-Singularity" advanced technologies - which include "wearable computers" and "super-advanced wireless networks" which allow individuals to "overlay virtual reality" onto reality. And there are the impacts of at least a portion of the aging population being able to be "rejuvenated" and "reintegrated" to varying degrees of success.

The problem is that the book is a bit of a chore to get through, due to the complex nature of the plot and sheer number of characters to keep track of. Additionally, the Library "Riot and Genre Clash" scene, which forms a big background part of the story, is a bit mediocre IMHO.

In the end, we really don't know what the "Rabbit" character really was (a "failed Singularity"?), or what really becomes of him(it?)... which, of course, leaves open the possibility for a sequel.

I rate it 3.5 - round it to 4.

The setting is 2025 where wearable computers, with virtual reality contact lenses, pervasive networking, and multi-level shared virtual reality overlays on physical reality are commonplace. When you walk through a public space you can see it raw (boring!), with a minimal level of added signage from the VR, or with one of a wide range of choices of entertaining overlays.

To introduce us to this new world, Vinge uses the plot device of a cured Alzheimer's patient. He is returning from many years of dementia, so he must learn all about the brave new world from scratch. He also gets to interact with various other out-of-it seniors. Alas, neither he nor they are very sympathetic characters.

The main plot is about a complex mixed physical and virtual raid on a San Diego genomics plant. The main organizer is a member of Indian intelligence trying to cover his own tracks. But he unwisely hires a mysterious figure, known as Rabbit, to act as his local agent, and all does not go according to plan...

Well written, with many entertaining and thoughtful ideas. But this is no "Darkness in the Sky".

The more you're interested in gee-whiz new technology for its own sake, the more you'll like _Rainbows End_. If you're hoping for a rip-roaring brain-expanding gripping adventure a la _A Deepness in the Sky_, you may find it less rewarding. Vinge is a first-rank writer, but here he gets a little too caught up with the gosh-wow aspects of his subject--to the detriment of his story.

Vinge, of course, is very well known for his notion of the "Technological Singularity": the hypothesis that soon technological change will be so overwhelming that we can't even imagine what will come next. _Rainbow's End_ is a brave attempt to look twenty years closer towards that cliff. It makes interesting speculation.

It's only partially successful as a tale, though, because:

1) The changes Vinge posits in society and technology are quite extensive, and he has to spend a good deal of time explaining them. He does it well, and his ideas are interesting and plausible, but it's still something of an essay instead of a narrative. The characterization, in particular, is a bit hit-or-miss.

2) I wonder whether Vinge overstates his case for the upcoming "Singularity." (The assumption that change is inevitably, monotonically accelerating is certainly arguable. Have things changed more in, say, the 80 years since 1926 than in the 80 years before that date?) I'm not sure that the Singularity *won't* happen, but I'm not sure that it *will* either. I think I'd have enjoyed the book a little more if I were.

3) Certain details of the story--e.g., the exact nature of Rabbit and of the "YGBM" McGuffin--are treated rather sketchily. Some readers will be annoyed by this; others won't care.

Still, this is a very good book. It's a likely Hugo nominee. It's interesting, it's plausible, it's exciting. The menacing aspects of all that gosh-wow new tech are shown in an understated but very effective fashion. (People in the book refer to "Chicago" the way we say "9/11". Nice touch.) The villain is an interesting character; you may even find yourself sympathizing with his point of view.

I don't think it's Vinge's best work. In twenty years, though, I might change my mind.

So I started this book on the recommendation from a friend and sci-fi fan and I had high hopes after the first couple of pages. As many have stated, the book starts off great, very exciting conspiracy stuff with mysterious characters. Unfortunately the rest of the book is not so exciting. The characters are not very exciting nor interesting or even very likable...not even in that way you often really like a bad guy if the character is written well. Anyhow, I finished the book, but I don't really know what happened to the original conspiracy/terrorist threat story, I'd really lost interest in the book so I might've just missed it. The funniest thing I noticed while writing this was the tagline below the book title "a novel with one foot in the future." Really? What future...as groundbreaking as tomorrow? My standards for this type of statement are high...the bar was set for me when I found out Neuromancer was published in 1984. So, I would read this book, it's good enough and I will try another of his award winners, may a bit skeptically this time though...

Some novels you read for entertainment value and soon forget. Others stick with you, haunt you, seem to be whispering in your ear for years afterward. Scary as that may sound, Rainbow's End is like that. As I read this book years ago, I kept thinking, Vinge is right--this is how the future WILL BE. Computers that we wear. An omnipotent network that allows total connectivity--except where the nodes are scarce. The ability to roll back the clock via genetic treatments. The power of social networking that makes the hive the force to be reckoned with. High school what grad school used to. Technology invading the most intimate privacy. And none of that has anything to do with the riveting plot and imaginatively drawn characters. Just saw an article the other day for computers that are contact lenses. Vinge's sci-fi is coming true. Bit by bit. Must read this again. Brilliant. And profoundly scary.

I do not understand the rather negative reviews this book has. To my mind it is excellent -- way better than "A Deepness in the Sky" and almost as good as (though not at all like) "A Fire upon the Deep". It describes in a satisfyingly complex way a world beginning to accelerate towards Vingean Singularity, with all its glories and terrors. The choice of Robert Gu, a "retread" ex genius poet as the central character is very effective, providing the reader with a link to the more comprehensible point of view. And unlike most SF protagonists, Gu is hardly a one-dimensional cut-out. He's a real SOB, for whom one can't help feeling some sympathy as the story unfolds and we see his painful adjustments to his new status.

The book starts with a bang, describing the discovery of and the initial responses to the newest Bad Thing, which turns out to be "YGBM". No I won't spoil the joke by unpacking the acronym, but I thought the obvious sly reference to ICBM quite funny. Which brings me to another aspect of "Rainbow's End": it kept me chuckling throughout, without being overtly jokey -- a pretty rare achievement. Just the brilliantly cheeky idea of shotgun-sequencing of the "librareome" is an absolute hoot to anybody minimally acquainted with Bioinformatics.

All in all, one of the best SF books I ever read (and I've read *far* too many!).

Until Alzheimer's took him Robert Gu was a multimillionaire world-renowned poet. However when a cure is discovered for his Alzheimer's he comes back to a world that is both familiar and strange, and he finds himself changed in ways that are both amazing and distressing. Convinced by his family to attend remidal technology classes at the local high school he is reluctantly dragged back into life around him when he is offered something he can't refuse but whose acceptance will mean a betrayal of everything new he has come to value.

This is a story that is a combination of a thriller and personal discovery story as someone who thought he knew everything finds out that he probably didn't know the most important things about life. I have to say I really enjoyed this novel. Its been a while since I read anything by Vernor Vinge but this was an entertaining read that kept me easily entertained till the end of the story.

Three broken hearts. The world hadn't been kind too them. They'd found such terrible tragedy in their lives, yet there was hope - like that found in a rainbow...

Jill lived alone, secluded down a long road in a cottage where she painted and kept to herself. Her face was disfigured from tragedy that happened. The tragedy hadn't only affected her, but others she loved very, very much. Her life was once filled with hope, joy, and beauty. But now she was a site and was stared at. She frightened children, so she stayed isolated as much as she could.

Keith had been roaming around the country for the past year. Tragedy had hit him so deeply that he'd lost his faith in God. He once felt God's blessing on him, but after loosing everything two years before, he now hoped to make it through the rest of his life. Some days he was only breathing while others he felt the raw ache of the life that had been ripped from his grasp.

A storm brought these two together. Neither wanted anything to do with the other, but over months and months, the two slowly came together. But God sent them an angel to make His matchmaking more powerful: it was in the form of a six year old little boy who had had nothing but tragedy in his life.

Kyle hid as he spied on Jill. Jill slowly and cautiously befriended him, but when Keith was around Kyle would run away. Then slowly, Keith too won his favor. The boy's heart, already scarred beyond comprehension, took another blow when he was left all alone. Jill and Keith took them in, giving him all the love they could.

Three hearts found tragedy, and in time...in God's time, came together to offer each other the healing they needed. Three hearts soon became one.

This was a touching story! I enjoyed watching the healing process of these three broken people. I loved how they each came to terms with their pasts and accepted hope for their future!

I think there was too much "thought process" and not enough dialogue. It made for a long read in my opinion. I would have loved to see more dialogue between Keith and Kyle, Keith and Jill...I just felt I was hearing the same thing over and over at some points.

The religious aspects of this was wonderful! I enjoyed reading how they both turned to God and relied on their faith in Him to get them through a hard time...

The lack of more dialogue is what caused me to put this book down a year and a half ago. Just stick with it. It gets more interesting further into the book...

There is a sea change coming, and the first signs of it are right before your eyes--literally before you eyes at this very moment. The Internet is poised to become an omnipresent part of your life, and not just while your sitting at a computer. By 2025, according to Vinge, we will all be "wearing" Internet devices embedded in our clothing and accessing them through contact lenses. (Bluetooth technology gone mad.) The Net will be with us all day, every day, everywhere we go, and will part of everything we do. Our jobs will depend on our proficiency with using this tool, and those old geezers among us (that is, any of us who were literally not born yesterday) will find it difficult to survive in this brave new world.

In Rainbows End, a group of technologically backward senior citizens becomes pawns in a plot to use the Net as a delivery system in a "You Gotta Believe Me" (YBGM) mind-control conspiracy. I found the basic premise for this novel (an ubiquitous Net and the havoc it could wreak on society) to be both believable and fascinating. Yes, the premise is very similar to that of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, but Vinge's story takes a deeper look at the effects of technology on everyday people, and that makes this book something special. I really enjoyed Rainbows End. It is the kind of story that makes you want to spend hours just pondering the concepts presented.

There are a few flaws in the novel. For instance, I didn't really believe that a functionally illiterate 5th grader can become a world-class poet in 12 weeks by getting help with his homework from a old curmudgeon. (Well, you won't believe it either.) There is certainly much more techno-babble than seemed necessary. The book could have used an editor with an old-fashioned pair of scissors to cut out about 50 pages of padding. And no explanation is ever given about how "You Gotta Believe Me" mind control technology would work.

But, even with the flaws, you gotta believe me, you want to order this book from the store right now, right this minute before it wears off...I mean. . .you want to order this book and send your credit card number, expiration date, and social security number to Pseudonymous the Younger...]

Vernor Vinge is an author whose works often deal with the concept of the "technological singularity," a point in the future where the rate of technological advancement becomes so great that humanity as we know it will cease to exist. Cool concept, right?

This is the first of Vernor Vinge's books I've read, and unfortunately, it may well be the last. I originally picked it up with high expectations, having heard a lot of good comments about the book. And indeed, upon reading the first chapter, where we are shown a covert mind-control experiment using viruses as the vector of administration, I was hooked. What an awesome idea!

However, it appears Vinge ran out of awesome-sauce early on.

First, let's talk about what Vinge did right with this book.

PROS

- The ideas within the book are pretty amazing. Vinge paints a very realistic picture of augmented reality and what the near future may look like, technology wise.
- Some of the ideas that show up elsewhere in media (artificial intelligence run amok, tensions between superpowers, virtual reality, clinical immortality, etc.) are often presented as Big Bads, but Vinge makes an effort to portray them more realistically, and I think he was successful.
- Likewise, Vinge portrays the negative sides of miracle technology as well. Just-in-time-training is reminiscent of Keanu "I know Kung-Fu" Reeves' character's experience in "The Matrix," but here it's presented with some of the likely side-effects of such rapid learning.
- Unlike recent speculative fiction, Vinge's future world is not dystopian. It's not utopian, either, but it clearly seems to be moving in that direction. It's a nice change of pace, given the recent zombie phenomenon and general lack of optimism about the future.

CONS

- Vinge's ideas, awesome as they are, often sort of fizzle away, never to be brought up again. Mind-control by virus? Doesn't go anywhere. Rampant A.I.? No investigation needed.
- Similarly, some of Vinge's plot points either aren't addressed at all or are addressed poorly. There's a somewhat silly and sudden love story near the end, the main antagonist's fate is never revealed, and Robert Gu's transformation is sudden and not particularly believable.
- Vinge also often confuses technological change with cultural change. While the technologies he presents are believable, the culture in which the characters live is not; many of the characters are millennials, and would remember "archaic" technology like keyboards, mouses, laptops, iPhones, and so on, but there's no indication that they do. Instead, they are essentially fully integrated into this world of augmented reality. Similarly, the oldsters ("retreads"), while reluctant to embrace the new technology, don't seem terribly intimidated by it.
- Characters. This is a problem in a lot of hard science fiction, and to his credit, Vinge's characters are more human than Arthur C. Clarke's or Isaac Asimov's, but they're still pretty papery. Most of them are defined by one or two things (Bob is Robert's son and a marine, Alice is Miri's mom and a marine, Miri is a computer whiz and a kid, Robert is a dick and a poet, etc.), and undergo little to no growth. The growth that is presented is either minor or not terribly believable.
- Money. The fact that some advanced medical techniques are expensive is hinted at, and a few of the characters do things to pull a profit, but it's mostly ignored. At times, it seems like all the characters are either rich and can afford whatever they need without even paying attention to cost, or they live in a Star Trek future in which everyone gets everything they need. It would have been nice for Vinge to delve into the effects of rapid technological growth on the economy, even in a passing manner. For instance, it seems unlikely that a mere 12 years from now, just about everyone will be able to afford state-of-the-art wearable computers. It also seems unlikely that people would have enough free-time to coordinate epic "battles" between "belief circles" via augmented reality.
- Robert Gu. I know this is another character issue, but it deserves its own mention. Robert Gu is introduced to us after his Alzheimer's is cured. What we know of him before the Alzheimer's comes completely from other characters--he has very little self-reflection. And everyone says he's a very nasty, malevolent man. But the reader doesn't actually see this--we have to take the other characters' words for it. And it really cheapens his "transformation" later on. We don't really SEE what he did to drive Lena away. We don't SEE the horrible things he put his sister, Cara, through. We don't SEE why Bob should be so hostile towards his father. We don't SEE why Winston has a grudge against him. And because he's the protagonist, the entire story suffers because of it. All we have to go off of is his comically judgmental thoughts early on, and a temper tantrum where he--gasp!--throws a book and calls his granddaughter fat.
- The plot. It's not bad, per se, but it is pretty cliche. Very Tom Clancy-ish. Except in the future. And with the unlikely pairing of very old and very young people. And the library thing. That was a little weird, and it wasn't explained very well why Google Books wasn't sufficient.

This wasn't a terrible book. I didn't once think about stopping before it was finished, and it did keep my attention. But it wasn't anything special, either, and given that it won a Hugo, I would have expected something far more intricate, with better developed characters and more focus on following through with the great ideas that were introduced.

I would recommend this book if you are unconcerned with character and the larger social implications of progress. But if, like me, you are, then go with a book from Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, or Greg Bear.

Keith's wife dies and he has trouble dealing with it. He decides to take a long cross country trip to help his grief. Jill was badly burned a few years earlier. She tried to go out and act normal, but people stared at her. She finally moved into a remote section of an island in the northwest. Keith was driving on the island and stopped to look for a hotel for the night. There was an event that brought in many people and no rooms were to be found, so he kept driving. Finally stopping at a small store, he asked if anyone could take him in as there was a bad storm going on and rain was coming down in buckets and he didn't want to camp out for the night. The clerk suggested a house at the end of the road where there was a small cottage next to the house. He drove to it and asked Jill if he could stay in her cottage. She wouldn't open the door as she didn't want to be seen, but told him he could stay there. He finally saw her the next day and did not react to her facial scars. He liked it there and they finally made a deal for him to stay longer. She would cook one meal a day for her. He helped her around the place although she was independent and said she didn't need his help. As time passes, they both begin to heal from their pasts. Good story and an example of hope to others with problems. Simple living and good writing from a Steeple Hill book.

This book is my favorite Vinge novel with its compelling characters and fascinating depictions of a possible future defined by increasing technological progress manifesting in ubiquitous electronic communications and virtual reality overlays. Despite the tech heavy future depicted what truly interests me about this novel is the intertwined characters all of whom strike me as real. There are no obvious archetype characters as each has their flaws to the extent that these flaws drive much of the story. Love the protagonist formerly a sadistic poet who thanks to the miracles medicine is working towards not being. A self centered jerk.

TL:DR sweet tech and cool characters

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge was one of this year's Hugo nominees - the winner, in fact, though it was the one I liked third best out of the five. I thought that this one was a lot of fun and had some potential - but seriously lacking in depth. In the near future, they have discovered a way to bring back Alzheimer's patients to full health - but then the former patients have to go back to high school to get the remedial high tech skills to be able to function in society.

Robert Gu, a former world class poet, is one of those former patients. While he was renowned for his poetry, he was a complete creep to his family, to say the least - emotionally abusive and a first class arrogant jerk. But now he has to start over, with less than the skills of a high school student. And then he gets sucked into an international conspiracy involving UCSD and the high tech labs associated with it - by a mysterious being named Rabbit.

Will Robert ever be able to be a poet again? Will the challenges Robert faces turn him into a nicer, better person? Is Rabbit the avatar of a real person, or is Rabbit an artificial intelligence, a sort of God for a new culture and new society?

Fast paced, fun, and fluffy...

No, this is not a 'Zones of Thought' book. However, it is a Vinge book and lives up to the high standards he has set for himself. The author expertly examines current social and technological trends and extrapolates them marvelously (and believably) into the future. There are plenty of people who do that, but none nearly as well as Vernor Vinge. More importantly, he knows how to write, and craft a story so interesting, you don't want to put the book down.

There are plenty of themes that resonate with 'A Fire Upon The Deep' and 'A Deepness in the Sky' including a gripping prologue filled with dire consequences, interactions of levels of access with high and low technology.

Vinge has chosen an interesting protagonist to introduce the audience to his world - someone stricken with Alzheimer's who is completely cured. So, we have a unique individual - someone mature, who must rapidly acclimate himself to a world where physical existence is extended with hallucination, and everyone is a consumer, author and manipulator of media - and reality.

I wish Vernor Vinge were more prolific, but quality takes time. Rainbow's End is highly recommended.

The main character is a former professor at UCSD -- just like the author -- though a poet, not a computer scientist like Vinge. He is Robert Gu, apparently the leading poet of our time (that would be now). But as of about 20 years from now, he has been in a nursing home for years, with Alzheimer's (or some other form of dementia), and other maladies of old age. But he has been cured -- indeed he has hit the jackpot in the "heavenly minefield" of 21st Century medicine.

Robert's son and daughter-in-law, it turns out, are highly placed individuals on the U.S. side in the Great Powers' continuing war against chaos -- against the possibility of various varieties of WOMD being wielded against the whole world. One other key individual is Alfred Vaz, an Indian intelligence head. He and two of his colleagues from Europe and Japan have uncovered a plot to deliver a "YGBM" virus in a clever fashion. YGBM means "You Gotta Believe Me": that is, mind control. They recruit a helper, who they meet only in virtual space, called the Rabbit, who will assist them in infiltrating the biolabs near UCSD where they suspect the virus is under development. The kicker is that the man behind this project is Vaz himself -- but he, of course, will use this power only for good -- he sees it as the only way to control the bad guys in the world. So he needs to play his colleagues and the Rabbit very carefully. But the Rabbit's abilities in the virtual world are quite remarkable.

Inevitably, Robert Gu, his son and daughter-in-law, and his granddaughter Miri, become enmeshed, without their knowledge, in all this plotting. But the story is only partly about Alfred Vaz's machinations. It's also about Robert coming to terms with his new quasi-youth: his new abilities, such as an interest in electronics, and his terrible losses, such as his ability to write poetry. But he may have lost something else: it seems that in his prior life he was a prime jerk, driving away his wife and all his colleagues with simple nastiness. His son mostly hates him, certainly distrusts him. But has he changed?

All this is SFnally fascinating, very scary. And there is a lot of SFnal neatness about virtual environments: everyone is tied into the net, and sensors are everywhere, allowing virtual "overlays" to be ubiquitous.

The novel is interesting in the way that it's not quite clear who the heroes are -- well, no, it is clear: Robert Gu and Juan Orozco and Miri Gu are the heroes. But they have been coopted to work for bad guys. Maybe. Or sort of bad guys. And anyway lots of the story is not about that plotty stuff, but rather about Robert dealing with his new "youth" and his lost poetic talents, and Miri dealing with family issues, and Juan dealing with his own relative poverty and poor education ... in the end, the novel is quite satisfying as a look at pretty believable characters in a somewhat believable alternate future (I can't help but thinking that this future doesn't make sense starting from now, but maybe from 20 years ago ...). And then behind it all lurks a very scary, and only partly resolved, big story about a future balanced between terrorist chaos and even scarier order imposed by mind control. I think this is a surprisingly subtle triumph from one of the field's best pure SF writers.

One of the most useful books about the near future I have read, and the clearest vision of ubiquitous computing ever put forward. Get used to it, this is my future and that of many of my contemporaries.

Thank you Vinge for another amazing piece of work, and one which addresses my life and the scepter of the Singularity. Only a few decades away now, buckle your seatbelt and enjoy the ride.

Vinge paints what I am sure is a 90% accurate picture of the world of the 2020s or thereabouts. I am not sure about AI and YGBM's, but everything else in this book seems on target. Ubiquitous computing and biotech, collaborative uberthink, garage WMDs, and the participatory panopticon are already coming into existence. Books like this, though about the future, help us to guide that future toward a safer and more beautiful vision.

I'm going to give it 5 stars because the world is so well presented, and the ideas are very strong and volubly told. But I agree with other readers that the story is weak and I found it very hard at times to relate to the juvenile high school setting, or to take seriously the belief circle battle at the library.

I began reading Rainbows End ready to be amazed.

The story is set in 2025 San Diego. We follow
the famous poet Robert Gu.
Now cured of Alzheimers, but missing all
recent changes in technology.
Which we are now introduced to
through Robert's experience.
So far so good.

We learn that everyone is plugged into the net on a constant basis
via wearable computers with contact lenses for output display.
Through your contact lenses you can "google" in midair.
There is a complete visual overlay on the "real" world,
allowing everyone to effectively "live" in whatever fantasy world they desire.
And the DHS - departmentment of Homeland Security - logic
is deeply embedded in all hardware.
Athletes are on drugs ...etc.

Its all very neat and all very likely,
but not very exciting, and not very amazing,
actually. This is more
like today than 17 years out in the future ....
I wanted to be excited about this book -
but in the end I was not. I am afraid.

-Simon

If you are interested in near-future sci-fi without the "low-life" dystopic elements of cyberpunk, you will probably like this book. Vernor takes today's social media culture and projects it into the future where special contacts that can augment reality are ubiquitous. I enjoyed this book because I really enjoyed being immersed into the world that Vernor creates and found his ideas fascinating. Some of the ideas presented are over the top and I felt that parts of the story dragged on a bit, but I'm still really glad that I read this book.

Even though I have been reading science fiction for a long time, I had never read anything by Vernor Vinge. However, the store repeatedly suggested him to me, and I had purchased, but not yet read, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge for my Kindle. However, I came upon Rainbows End at a hardbound clearance counter, bought it, and read it immediately. I really loved it. My only real criticism is that Vinge throws out many interesting ideas and fails to follow up on them. To my mind, the book begs for a sequel. I think five stars should be reserved for classics, so I gave Rainbows End four stars- but I think it is great, great science fiction. If Vinge's other novels are really better, as the hard-core fans seem to think, I am very excited about reading them.

The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

Historically, I've been quite the fan of Vernor Vinge, especially his earlier works, so when I heard that Rainbow's End was released, it immediately made it to the front of my to-read list. The book is set in the near future, in a world where augmented reality and ubiquitous connectivity is as much a part of day-to-day life as the telephone is today. The plot is a complex, perhaps convoluted story that's described well enough in other reviews that I won't bother going into it here.

Vinge does a great job of putting us in this world, and exploring the effect it has on the people in it - its nuances, that 'haves' and 'have nots', risks, and so forth. But I think the book was mostly about the world it was set in, with the plot line being almost an afterthought.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the book, and recommend it. But don't worry too much if you think you're having a hard time tracking all the details of the story - that's not what its really about.

While not a 'space opera' similar to Vinge's other work this still communicates the sense of awe and wonder as only he can in a not-so-futuristic world. Therein lies the book's real charm: the places are real (Snake Path / Geisel Library at UCSD?) whereas protagonists could well be our sons & daughters being born today. Also we could be the "medical retreads" back from a near-death disease thanks to the latest wonder-cure.

As a computational bio-scientist myself I can laugh at some of the themes ('Outsourced to SanDiego research labs' being my favo[u]rite) as well the publicity seeking of Universities: so what if the students are having a good-natured war on campus if people are watching - including next year's intake? Just bill the clean up against the publicity / marketing budget code!
The cultural references to Rowling / Pratchett fantasy worlds - not to mention the neo-religious passion of their supporters - are hilarious as is some of the phraseology such as "There were a dozen a research trends that could ultimately put world-killer weapons into the hands of having a bad hair day." even if the sentiments expressed are downright scary. Honest: You Gotta Believe Me!

A school teacher friend of mine recommends this book as required reading for all new teachers because it highlights the pressures both staff and students are under to keep up with changing times - Fast Times presumably, at Fairmont High.

Vinge fans looking for a mind-blowing space epic like A Fire Upon the Deep will be disappointed; this book is a different animal, more similar in tone and feeling to the haunting slowness of Marooned in Realtime (though ultimately a bit more lighthearted and optimistic). Rainbows End is a story about old age, for the protagonists, but also for the human race. The technological ideas (reality augmentation, wearable computers) are not as mind-blowingly original as some of the stuff in Vinge's earlier works, but the depiction of a culture that has fully adjusted to the internet is, as far as I know, unrivaled in modern literature. As for the plot, it's more of a portrait of several people's lives, with a loose story framework draped on top in Vinge's trademark minimalistic style.

Bottom line: if you're looking for something thoughtful, this is a good read. From Vinge, we should expect no less.

The three main character in this book have all had heartbreaking setbacks in their lives, and each one of them handles this in a different way. Jill Whelan has retreated to Orcas Island, off the coast of Washington State, after her traumatic experience. There she meets Keith Michaels who is bitter and angry after an injustice is done to him. They both become concerned about Kyle, a young boy whose trauma is so deep that he cannot speak.

The San Juan Islands are a marvelous setting for this book about rebirth and redemption. The plot is very predictable, but the characters are well-drawn and likeable and the story makes for a pleasant read.

This was an unusual novel for me. On the positive side, it was unquestionably Vinge's most prescient work to date. I felt my understanding of the near future, and even the present, was increased. He points out that groups of humans with very high "interaction rates" start to look like something which are really a lot more than the sum of their parts. This is already happening in the world today with new types of political power using social networking sites and largely emergent organization. Vinge paints this in vivid hues. The near-future realism and the described consequences were breathtaking (in the sense of both fear and awe). So it's now an essential part of my bookshelf.

But... the author puts you through a lot of work. Unlike his earlier novels, this one is set in the near future. In a far future setting, a lot can be swept under the rug of "advanced technology". Here, everything is supposedly a small extrapolation from the present. The changes have to be related to the present, and they are so radical that the exposition is very slow. Also, some of the key ideas in the book are presented almost like a shadow puppet theater... there are a lot of little and not-so-little explanations that are only implied by the text. Sometimes, the hints are annoyingly vague and minimal, and I wish Vinge had found a way to make these a little more explicit.

And by the way, the title of the book is "Rainbows End", plural noun/verb, not "Rainbow's End". The distinction is even referred to in the text.

In reading some of the reviews, I think the store has messed up and put the wrong reviews with the wrong book. I usually expect "Love Inspired" books to me mushy love stories. But this one is not that way. It's a book of struggles and forgiveness. One of discovery and love. It may be predictable. But isn't it sometimes nice to know how a book may go, but you just enjoy the journey. This book will leave you thinking about it long after you turn the last page. Is there bitterness and hatred in your heart? Don't you deserve to feel that way? As the saying goes, "Let Go and Let God." A lesson for us all.

The Fast Times are at UCSD, not Fairmont High.

This book starts well, with some seriously technlogical espionage and security problems beeing looked at. You could call it an 'S' start, Strossian, or Stephensonian perhaps.

Unfortunately, after that, when the major part of view character, the recovered Alzheimer's patient is introduced, things slow down. He basically has to go back to school after years of being no compos mentis. His son and wife are involved in the security industry mentioned previously.

In the middle of this, a conspiracy about lowish level mind control lurks.

In earlier life he was a spiteful acclaimed poet, and now has to learn basic stuff like new computer operating systems. This part drags on a bit too, or more than a bit too long.

There are some entertaining references to be fond - a homage to Border Guards with kids playing 'Egan soccer', and major Pratchett gameworlds, etc., including a failed game 'Zones of Thought', so happy to poke fun at himself, too.

The part of the book that has the most important consequences doesn't generally get enough time, so that prevents this rising above the level of average to be good.

One of my favorite Vonnegut quotes about writing is 'if a sentence doesn't move the plot forward or flesh out a character then remove it', and Vinge could have used this advice.

What we have is an overlong and clunky standard spy novel with some less than credible cyber-punk ornaments. If this book was paired down to short story, most of the characters could be described in a sentence (removed completely) without any loss of substance. This is a good example of what sloppy writing in the sci-fi genre.

Vinge has created some amazingly well-detailed alien cultures in his other books (notably A Fire Upon The Deep (Zones of Thought), and A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought).) and the Gu family likes in a strangely alien culture on near future Earth. I really enjoyed the well fleshed out, but fairly unlikeable, Gu family and was intrigued by all the technology they introduced. It's quite a plausible tale in many respects and enjoyable through and through. Vinge writes some amazing visuals in a classic tale of technology and its social impact.

Not as ... comprehensive as Fire Upon the Deep or Deepness in the Sky - but - it is pure Vernor Vinge - an amazing layering of the life of an awakening old man and poet into a world where writing and reading are obsolete - everyone is immersed in technology - and while he struggles to catch up and while books are being shredded - he is also trying to share his skills with a young student who is actually interested in this dying art. Of course there is tons of conspiracy and way more going on than this - but I loved this part of the story which is nearly lost under the levels of noise and actions and technology.

"Rainbows End" is certainly a very interesting story. Even more interesting than the story is that the technologies Vinge's describing aren't all that far away. They're definitely reachable in our lifetimes. One of the best things in the book is the mechanism Vinge uses to draw us into the story: using main character who, for one reason or another (illness, burn-out, mindset, etc.), failed to keep up with the changes in society/technology. By doing this, he introduces us to the new world through the eyes of people with our own precepts. For a twist, these people were from the top strata in their own fields in their prime. Now, they're relegated to starting over in a voc-ed high school class.

My only reason for giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 stars is that the ending is a bit weak. There's no indication of it in the book, but because of the ending, I'd guess that this is the first book in a series. Many of the issues are adequately resolved in the book (at least temporarily), but the really big ones are just left hanging. But, overall, the book is definitely good reading.

About 20 pages into the book it becomes clear that Vinge is an exponent of the Singularitarian school of thought and that he is determined to ram it down our throats in the guise of fiction. The setting of a society on the brink of a singularity clearly takes center stage, to the extent that the characters exist only to highlight it from different angles. There is a cliche air about every one of these characters, including a 2010 Nobel laureate who now struggles to pass a simple high school class (oh how far society must have come!), a wunderkind whose technical brilliance and planning is matched only by her inability to actually see any of these plans to fruition, and a Mysterious Stranger (no, really, that's his name) whose knowledge and manipulative ability over other characters is so great that his creditability as a character is utterly ruined.

The setting, on the other hand, is wonderfully fleshed out. Wearable computing and augmented reality have become ubiquitous. Real books are on the verge of extinction. Security has become so pervasive that digital certificates are embedded into low-level electronic components. Medicine has greatly advanced, but not uniformly.

What saves this novel from being a disaster is that it is actually a fairly good spy novel underneath the trappings of sci-fi. There's one plot twist after another, and the reader can never be sure just how much the characters really know or what their motives are. At the same time, this wasn't "what I signed up for" when I purchased the book.

While trying to escape life and horrible circumstances, Keith finds himself "at the end of the road" and hopefully his journey. He is on a journey to find his way back to God and find peace in his life. During a horrible storm on a holiday weekend where there are no hotels or places to rent, he is led to "the widow that takes in strays". Jill has a cottage on her property that has seen better days, but it is a safe haven from the storm for her late night visitor seeking refuge. Jill is a widow who takes in strays, but in the light of day, Keith realizes she is a young woman who has isolated herself from the public eye and is battling her own scars.

This is a poor book and a major disappointment from Vinge, whose work I have liked in the past (e.g., A Fire Upon the Deep). Basically, this novel is an attempt to tie virtual reality to a teenage bildungsroman/romance, with a silly conspiracy about digital media thrown in for no apparent reason, along with some nonsense about oldtimers turning to teenage wonderkids for education and sharing their wisdom in return.

In fact, none of the plot elements or characters are there for any good reason that I could tell; the characters are uninteresting; the setting is rudimentary and boring unless you're fascinated with San Diego college campuses. The writing is seriously burdened by the complexity of tracking what's real and what's virtual -- and that is further overlaid with a absolutely unnecessary and laborious psuedo-markup code of the author's invention that does nothing to further the characters, the writing, the setting, or the plot.

I would have thrown it away after 50 pages but I kept thinking, "gee, I liked the other book I read by Vinge", "it won a Hugo award", and "surely it must get better." It doesn't get better. If you're over the age of 20 -- unless your favorite STTNG character is Wesley Crusher -- I'd suggest not to bother. And if you've started it and are undecided after 50 pages, stop reading and spend your time elsewhere.

In 2025 in San Diego Robert Gu recovers from Alzheimer's, but much of the world he once knew has changed dramatically since he originally fell into his fog state a few years ago and he even doubts his once highly recognized skill as a poet. He lives with his son, but struggles with the new information age in which virtual and real seem part of the same double helix; feeling like a toddler, Robert realizes that even his teenage granddaughter appears more knowledgeable than him.

To help him adapt to using the equipment properly, the septuagenarian Chinese American attends remedial technological classes at the nearby Fairmont High School. However, as Robert tries to learn how to properly use his gadgetry, he soon finds himself entangled in a remonstration by retired University of California at San Diego faculty disputing the replacing of the library by online databanks. That soon leads the bewildered poet into the milieu of a conspiracy to create a deadly biological weapon.

This is a well written character driven science fiction that is at its best when readers observe the world through the mature but awed Robert. When the story line spins into the conspiratorial murky weapon of mass destruction it loses some of its strength though it contains a lot more action. Overall RAINBOWS END is a solid futuristic tale starring a wonderful hero struggling to adapt to a brave new world.

Harriet Klausner

Vinge's protagonist, Gu, is trapped in extremes: a recovering Alzheimer's victim who was a world-class poet; a brilliant student in a high school with problem children; an employer of words and paper in a world of electrons. His destruction of the car, only to discover that its innards are not "user" manipulable is, in fact, a direct parallel to the destruction of the university library's innards (= books and documents) through the ubiquity of electronic access. (It is no accident that the book destroyed by Gu is the Cantos of Ezra Pound.)

The spy-story, world-domination plot is mere framework, the reflection of the virtual society is the substance.

Why else do the spooks employ a white rabbit?, Rev. Dodgson.

Looking through these reviews, I see that Mr. Vinge seems to have disappointed some of his fans, especially those who are most familiar with A Fire on the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Those are classic (albeit much improved) space opera, set in a remote future with an entire galaxy for a canvas. Rainbows End is something different.

I admit I was a bit turned off by the reviews billing this as a Singularity novel; although I've always liked Vernor Vinge's work, including his most explicitly "Singularity" stories (assembled in Across Realtime), I've never been a believer, and the Singularity cultists can be tiresome. But there's no preaching here, or not enough to worry about; instead there's an old-fashioned story suitable for all ages. Vernor Vinge has returned to his roots -- stories for very smart children, and the adults they turn into; stories like Tatja Grimm's World and the Witling -- and now he's a much better writer than he was then.

So what's this story about? Two classic plots, intertwined.

1. Robert Gu is one of Fortune's darlings, and bears more than a passing resemblance to his semi-namesake, Robert Frost: A brilliant (and successful) poet whose brilliance is recognized by everyone. He's also an insufferable jerk, inflicting emotional pain on all around him. Alzheimer's disease leaves him dependent on his son, who tolerates him - barely - but does not love him. But Fortune smiles on him again, and a cure is found. It doesn't work on everyone, but it does on Robert, and not only is he restored to health and sanity, but even to youth. This isn't entirely welcome, as Robert Gu is cruel and dangerous; the emotional weight of the story comes from Robert's journey to redemption.

This story is a familiar one: The hostile, reclusive old genius is re-awakened to his own humanity by two children -- his brilliant granddaughter, Miri Gu, and the slightly older Juan Orozco, misfit and budding poetic genius.

To complicate matters, Robert has lost the Muse -- as a consolation prize, though, Fortune has given him technical brilliance, so he is quickly able to understand the strange new world he finds himself in -- and even, haltingly, to begin to help others.

2. The other plot thread: A misguided bureaucrat, with the necessary share of Bond-villain megalomania, has a plan to rule the world, for its own good, through mind control. A trickster artificial intelligence becomes involved, with unknowable motives. Robert and his friends (the first he's ever had, really) are co-opted by the AI; they think they're protesting the destruction of books at the UCSD library, and they are, but they're also being used.

To complicate matters, Robert's son (also named Robert) and daughter-in-law (Alice) are Marine Corps officers responsible for stopping just this sort of thing. Eventually Robert Jr. is forced to place his father and granddaughter in terrible danger, to save San Diego (and, incidentally, the world). Will they survive?

Well, yes. The book's suitable for kids. (No sex, a bit of swearing, and almost no violence except for the final battle scene.) But it's a moral tale, so Robert (Sr.) won't escape unscathed, physically or emotionally, either.

Incidentally, the setting is another reason I liked the book so much: San Diego, my hometown, seems to have been overlooked by popular culture, at least in comparison to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Shanghai, Moscow, or even smaller cities like Miami and New Orleans. The Gu family lives in Fallbrook, of all places, and most of the action takes place there or at the University of California San Diego campus, especially in and around the library. Read & enjoy!

all the other comments have hit the reasons to like/hate the work, maybe because I read this while my fatherin law was suffering with Alzheimer's it reach me. I like to think some day we can call these folks back, true no one in the book was what I call loveable, but they seemed real to me and as always his views on the impact of tech feels so right. I also give it points as he placed in time, 2025 so he had to reflect on what is now happening and make a leap to what he wanted.

I checked this book out because I totally dug Vinge's other novels, A Fire Upon The Deep, and A Deepness In The Sky. Hereafter I will refer to those as "the good ones." Rainbow's End is not a good one. It is bad. Bad enough that I didn't finish, and I even finished Spin, which I hated and found utterly boring, so that should give you an idea.

I could not bring myself to care about the characters, especially the "protagonist" who would more aptly be described as a "total jerk." There are too many of them, as well. The antagonist fares no better: I can't believe that his duplicity would go undetected and I don't even buy his reasons for doing what he does. There was no action in the first two hundred pages, nothing to care about, and that's where I stopped reading.

This book started off interesting. Vinge's vision of the near future is fascinating and seems reasonable. Then the plot nose dives into a ridiculous comic book style, save the world storyline. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if Vinge was able to bring the reader along but instead he destroys any chance we have of enjoying this novel by making it far too convoluted. It becomes more and more obvious as the pages move on that this book is going to require a little more attention than it's worth. Vinge leaves us uninspired, uninterested, and thinking about our laundry instead of the plot.

Although to outsiders it may seem like a single, monolithic genre, fans know that science fiction is actually a whole bunch of subgenres: new wave, cyberpunk, military science fiction, science fantasy and space opera to name a few (which often overlap). Of all these subgenres, perhaps "hard" science fiction is closest to sci-fi's roots, with its heavy emphasis on the "science" part of science fiction. Done well, hard sci-fi has a real "gee-whiz" feeling to it. Vernor Vinge's hard sci-fi novel Rainbows End will make you say "gee-whiz"; unfortunately, it will also likely make you say "who cares?".

Taking place in 2025, Rainbows End is a complex story that has its central character Robert Gu, a seventy-five year old famous poet who has had his youth and Alzheimer's-plagued mind restored to him due to the wonders of modern medicine. Part of getting acclimated to this new world is going to a sort-of high school where Gu learns how to handle the information technology of the era. For example, now people wear their computers in their clothes and contact lenses. Books have become passe.

Gu gets entangled in a plot involving various intelligence agencies and a mysterious figure appearing as and named Rabbit. There is a battle, primarily virtual, that involves YGBM (for "You Gotta Believe Me") technology that threatens vast mind control. How Gu, a generally obnoxious fellow who gets along poorly with almost everyone, including his relatives, fits into this plot you'll have to read about to understand.

Vinge has written about a world that is filled with all sorts of wonderful things but comes off unbelievable. I understand that technology and culture will be quite different eighteen years from now, but I can't imagine it will be like Vinge envisions it. It is hardly credible that in less than a generation, books will be practically discarded. Yes, they are being electronically recorded, but what happens when the power goes out or the system crashes (personally, I've never had to reboot a book). And even if the kids of 2025 don't like books, there will still be many adults who would refuse to replace them with more technologically wonderful items. Then again, Vinge's world is not filled with the brightest people; they can access all sorts of information, but at the price of not actually knowing a lot.

But the real problem with the book is that it is boring. Not bad, just boring. After you get past all the gee-whiz technology, there are just some dull characters dancing around in an uninteresting story. While there enough of interest here to merit a low three stars, I cannot recommend this book. For similar, but more well-written stories, try William Gibson or Neal Stephenson.

I have thoroughly enjoyed Vinge's previous work. In particular, his most recent book prior to this one, A Deepness in the Sky, is a tour-de-force -- every word is vital to a story of epic scope.

In Rainbows End (the odd lack of punctuation is noted in the text, awkwardly) Vinge has devoted all his efforts to a story that is designed to be plausible. There are no interstellar ramjets, no coldsleep boxes, no hyperdrives, no Focus -- it's set so close in the near future that Vinge couldn't legitimately get away with that kind of thing. So, he wrote a speculative book about 20 years from now.

It's an impressive bit of work. As other reviewers have noted, Vinge has a pretty optimistic view of the productivity of software writers in the next 20 years -- the ability of basically every member of the population to effortlessly interact with a world-wide shard virtual reality is, well, it's a stretch. The treatment of the displacement of older people is a nice update on Vonnegut's Player Piano.

The early part of the book, really the first couple of (short) chapers, are in my opinion the best part. In it, he lays out the truly terrifying prospect of what might be called weapons of global destruction available to any small group or even individuals. The rampant technology makes everything possible, even (especially?) things are are not good. The detective work of a team of people desperately trying to prevent The Next Very Bad Thing is quite nicely done.

After that, though, for me, the book sort of bogs down -- waiting for a fairly one-dimensional climax. Which is fine, but less than I expected from Vinge's other work. The number of loose ends left hanging after this climax are enormous -- a huge number of the most important characters just disappear in a way that is very unsatisfying. In particular, the identity of the Rabbit character, I feel, should have been at least hinted at a little more strongly -- although perhaps that's my own laziness talking.

I do feel that the working within the straightjacket of the near-term plausible forced Vinge into a box -- perhaps this is the best story that could have been told with that mandate. I'd love to discuss this book with others who have read it.

I have read -- and thoroughly enjoyed -- all Vernor Vinge's previous novels. So I was excited to come across this book, and forked out the hardcover price. But, for me, this was the least gripping of any of his full-length stories (I have also read his short stories, which are somewhat patchy -- this book is certainly better than some of those).

What I enjoyed about this book: Vinge has extrapolated current technological progress to envisage the world a few decades hence; I thought that his predictions were largely reasonable, if somewhat depressing.

What I didn't enjoy: Somehow, both plot and characterization were more flimsy than I was expecting. One of the main characters is thoroughly nasty, and his redemption unconvincing. I also thought the book was brought to rather a hasty close.

If you're a die-hard Vernor Vinge fan, then you will want to read this book. If you've never read him before, I can recommend A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky before you move on to Rainbows End.

Rainbow's End is a heart warming story about regaining faith and courage to face the challenges in your life. The characters become real as you interlink your struggles with theirs and hope for a better future emerges. Each new twist and turn gradually pulls Jill. Keith and Kyle closer to each other and to God. The details are wonderfully written with clarity and vividness and you are absorbed into their world. Truly an inspiring and uplifting work.

The three stars here are only because of the imagined world, which in some ways is incredible. Let me start by saying that I'm a huge Vernor Vinge fan, and I only hope that those of you who picked up this book first, will not let that bias you against his other, far greater works, such as Fire Upon the Deep. Rainbow's End starts with a fantastic concept, but that's it. And as someone else pointed out, this concept was already laid out in Vinge's earlier short stories. Here are my issues with this book, in no particular order (SPOILER ALERT):

1. It is incomplete. It doesn't even have an ending, and ALL major plot threads are left dangling. We don't know who Rabbit is, who the Mysterious Stranger is, if they are the same or separate entities (at one point we go into Rabbit's thoughts and he seems to be under the impression that the MS is a different entity than he). We don't know what happens ultimately to the YGBM thing, because of the highly annoying plot device of Gu and Miri losing their memories. We don't know what happens with Vaz. Basically we don't know anything; the whole book is a set up for what should be a revelation or series of revelations, preferably with a twist, and instead we get nothing, compounded by the highly annoying memory loss. Obviously this is meant to be incomplete, and Vinge means to write a second book, but I object to this tactic. Basically, I felt used.

2. The plot is very ill-paced and often obscure. Now, I'm not a stupid person (I hope), but there were many points in which I had absolutely no idea what was going on. There were several points during which Gu would think, "He now realized why....(someone acted or said something) and Vinge would leave it at that. But I had no idea why. Whole scenes were highly confusing, over-explicated, and above all, self-indulgent. I actually skimmed at several points because it was just so pointless--I would go to last line in the chapter to see what 'revelation' he made, and often it was trite, such as "the library chose.'

3. IT is very uneven and the world drawn is highly incomplete. Vinge's choice to focus on libraries, academia, and a high school, with the political world thrown in, is inexplicable; okay, these are important to HIM, but I refuse to believe that the entire world of the future regards these settings as important. Why are we stuck in academia? Where are the people who spend all their time doing drugs and escaping into mindless cyber reality? The various 'realities' he chooses are uber-geek. Where's the porn, the drugs, the stupidities? I refuse to believe the new world will be populated with kind, geeky people who are a bit socially awkward, are white, Asian, Indian, and Latino ONLY (no AFrican Americans here, no Jews, no non-geeky whites) , and who care only about things like libraries, books and high school, with some high level politics thrown in.

4. I didn't care about the majority of the characters and/or they seemed ultimately irrelevant to the plot. Miri was the most appealing, but I had no understanding why she was so faithful to her abusive grandfather. Simply saying, "You're my grandfather!" doesn't cut it. Both parents were not believable to me, and I never really understood them; I was on the outside most time, looking in. The whole 'secret' about Lena was particularly disturbing to me. Why not just say, "Don't contact me." Having the whole family conspire to lie to Gu and tell him his ex-wife was dead was really disturbing and dysfunctional, yet the author seemed to think it was natural. Basically, I had a very very hard time caring about mostly everyone. Gu was at first repulsive; but his Scrooge-like 'transformation' was not believable. Worse, the false dichotomy between art and science as embodied by Gu, was just that--false. His final realization - wait, maybe I can have both! - was inane and silly.

5. Character motivations were murky and seemed to serve the plot needs rather than the other way around. The entire book is driven by the library issue (one which is declared unimportant by the end), but the characters' investment in this 'book burning' is not really clear. At the end, Gu 'realizes' he's been manipulated and also he didn't really care about the library issues at all, but, like a child, ran from play thing to play thing. Well, then, if it's basically irrelevant, why should we be stuck with this the WHOLE book? The whole high school device - Gu has to go to high school, teams up with the not-so-smart student for a project, who in the end, redeems him - was mystifying. I simply cannot believe that in this world, they would insist Gu go to vocational high school, with young people, homework and grades. It is far too degrading and unnecessary. (Also weird.) If he needed training in computers, I would think he would do this at home in a tutorial (I'm sure the system would have tutorials; come on), or in a community college, or in the stores that supply these computers, such as we do now in, say, an Apple Store. (Which reminds me--business was sorely lacking in this world. Where are the businesses? The people who create this technology?) It felt to me that Vinge had created this high school in his short story, Fast Times, and then wanted to use it again in this book, so he set up his characters so that they HAD to be there. Character actions followed plot/setting needs, rather than the other way around. The result was that motivations, as I said, were very murky, whole scenes were unnecessary (almost all the high school scenes), and basically it felt like nothing was at stake.

Robert Gu is recovering from Alzheimer's. It's 2025 and he has entered the future. Turns out his son pretty much hates his guts because Robert, a legendary poet, was a complete jerk before Alzheimers took him under. He was one of those geniuses that uses his intellect to bully those less gifted. Now he's awake in a world he is learning to live in and has to go to vocational school or get shunted off to an old folks home.

On the other side of the world a super secret spook is working on a super weapon in order to save the world by taking it over. He enlists a virtual whack job that calls himself Rabbit in order to pepuate a fake investigation of his big weapon.

The mean old poet, a teenaged classmate, his granddaughter and a bunch of old fogies that are trying to fit in get in the middle of what turns out to be a fight for human existence as we know it, Hugh.

People are all connected via wearable computers and the ubiquitous internets, there are no secrets, except the ones you try really hard to keep and buildings can sometimes walk.

An excellent serious SF story.