Horror Book Reviews
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Title: Rainbows End |
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Review of Rainbows End
- Four time Hugo Award winner Vernor Vinge has taken readers to the depths of space and into the far future in his bestselling novels A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Now, he has written a science-fiction thriller set in a place and time as exciting and strange as any far-future world: San Diego, California, 2025.
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Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and heâs starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his sonâs family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless accessâthrough nodes designed into smart clothesâand to see the digital contextâthrough smart contact lenses.
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With knowledge comes risk. When Robert begins to re-train at Fairmont High, learning with other older people what is second nature to Miri and other teens at school, he unwittingly becomes part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to use technology as a tool for world domination.
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In a world where every computer chip has Homeland Security built-in, this conspiracy is something that baffles even the most sophisticated security analysts, including Robertâs son and daughter-in law, two top people in the U.S. military. And even Miri, in her attempts to protect her grandfather, may be entangled in the plot.
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As Robert becomes more deeply involved in conspiracy, he is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for the UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow re-trainees feel compelled to join protests against the change. With forces around the world converging on San Diego, both the conspiracy and the protest climax in a spectacular moment as unique and satisfying as it is unexpected. This is science fiction at its very best, by a master storyteller at his peak.
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Comments for Rainbows End
- Posted on 2008-06-29
A disappointment, but only by comparison
Perhaps I came to this novel with expectations set too high. I recently discovered Vernor Vinge and devoured a Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep, both of which I highly recommend and will probably read again several times. So learning that Vinge had written something dealing with events closer to our time intrigued me, and I launched into Rainbows End ready to be amazed.
This is a good book in many ways, but in comparison with Vinge's other work I found myself disappointed. It is set in the near future and concerns the efforts of an aged poet whose Alzheimer's has just been cured to reintegrate himself into this brave new world. Along the way he becomes an unwitting pawn in a plot by malevolent forces attempting to manipulate public opinion by means of technology.
Some of this works on the level of a dramatized extrapolation of where computing might go in the next few decades. Robert Gu, however, is an unlikeable character, spiteful, manipulalative, and bitter at the world. He is a well drawn and I found the sections of the book exploring him and his eventual "redemption" interesting if unpleasant.
My problem with the book is that it seemed to try to be several different novels at once and that the parts did not fit together terribly well. As I said earlier one aspect of the book is a look at where the information age is going. Vinge taught computer science near where I live for many years and I found the "prediction" aspect intriguing. The super thriller spy plot involving mind control technology could have been interesting if it had been better explored, and if the other aspects of the book hadn't gotten in the way. However, we get very little information to whet our dread as to what might happen should our hero's fail.
But I suppose in a way my biggest disappointment involves the villain. The "bad guy" Alfred Vaz is trying to control the world in order to protect us all. Yet we never really find out anything about him. This struck me as a tremendous missed story opportunity. Most "evil" people believe or have convinced themselves they are acting for the greater good. A story about a good man committing evil acts for what he believes are valid reasons might have been interesting. Especially if we had gotten to know some of the events that shaped him and how he thinks. Instead he is a complete non-entity as far as the story is concerned. In comparison with the Machiavellian manipulations of a Thomas Nau or Lord Steel this aspect of the story is weak.
Overall I liked this book, but found it disappointing in comparison with Vinge's other work.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-06-25
. . . And the other foot kicking me in the face, over and over.
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.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-05-23
Not up to his usual standards, or at least my expectations.
I'm a big Vernor Vinge fan with Fire and Deepness being two of my favorites. The Peace War series is well done also.
This has left me cold though. It just isn't moving fast enough, and has me just disassociated enough, that I'm having a hard time caring what is next.
The characters aren't that likable and the storyline is moving so slowly, that I just can't bring myself to pick the book back up. Combine that with a storyline that is somewhat hard to follow with libraries being destructively digitized and people not being able to keep up with the current technology and I ended up not finishing this one.
Which is really surprising considering HOW MUCH I like the novels mentioned at the beginning of this review.
Score: 2
- Posted on 2008-05-21
Tomorrow's Science, Youthful Energy, and Family Fun
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.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-02-14
Dystopia or Utopia?
This book is on the required reading list for my science fiction literature course. At first, I couldn't put it down. The plot thickens, you learn to love and hate various characters, and much of Vinge's imagined future is both exciting and disconcerting. Unfortunately, there's a certain point where the book seems to just begin repeating itself. I had a hard time getting through the last 100 or so pages. The conclusion wraps up nicely, but I wish that there hadn't been so much extraneous information mucking up the story. My favorite part about the book is the fact that I could never seem to decide if I loved or hated the main character -- he was that complex. All in all, a good read, especially for an academic course.
Score: 4