Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: May 02, 2006
Sale Popularity Level: 68238
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Rated by buyers 
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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 yesterday 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
Rated by buyers 
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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 subsequent 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.
Rated by buyers 
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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 very first two hundred pages, nothing to care about, and that's where I stopped reading.
Rated by buyers -
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.
Rated by buyers 
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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 very 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.
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