Rainbows End: A Novel With One Foot In The Future

by Vernor Vinge

book data

817 ratings, 3.59 average rating, 159 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		17%
4		39%
3		32%
2		9%
1		2%

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published

May 2nd 2006 by Tor Books

binding

Hardcover, 368 pages

literary awards

Hugo Award for Best Novel (2008), Locus Awards for Best Science Fiction (2007)

isbn

0312856849 (isbn13: 9780312856847)

description

Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remebers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cur...more

[close] Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remebers 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 he's starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his son's 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 access - through nodes designed into smart clothes - and to see the digital context - through smart contact lenses.
With knowledge comes risk. When Robert begins to retrain at Fairmont High, learning with other 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.
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 Robert's 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.
As Robert becomes more deeply involved in the conspiracy, he is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow retrainees feel compelled to join protests against the change. With forces around the world converging in 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. [close]

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08/09/08

Kris rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

In the near future, a victim of Alzheimer's has been cured and rejuvinated. Robert Gu must now use his 90's oriented brain to navigate the world of the 2020's. So, like many of the elderly in the latter decade, he goes back to high school.

Among other things, he must learn to understand how to "wear." To wear is to use internet-ready computers embedded into one's clothing and contact lenses. (The I/O for these devices consists for the most part in subtle movements of the eye...more

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07/28/07

Res rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: didnt-finish, locus_poll, sff

Read in August, 2007

The one where a Rip van Winkle figure is cured of Alzheimer's and has to figure out how to live in the future, and apparently gets involved in some sort of plot involving mind control technology.

I gave it fifty pages, and every single one was an effort.

This book has tons of ideas, large and small. As a portrait of the niftiness and danger of the future, I suppose it's reasonably good, though it's rather slow and didactic compared with the pleasant breathless hurtle of cy...more

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10/12/07

Jamie rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: sci-fi

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: nobody

From reading the back of the book, I thought there was a good premise here. But the execution was boring, the characters uninspiring, and the interaction uninteresting. :/

I was hoping that this would be similar to Stephenson's Snow Crash, which I loved, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Whereas Snow Crash has interesting, believable characters and interaction, plus a strong plot, this book's plot is loose and, for one word, boring. Not to mention the environment being so fak...more

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08/26/08

Tim rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: good-at-first-loses-flavor-like-gum, great-idea-poor-execution, science-fiction, yellow

Read in December, 2008

I'll start off with something positive to say about Rainbows End. The best things about this novel are the ideas about technology and what the world could look like in an even more networked future where information is the form of currency. However, this isn't a new idea at all, here's a quote from Gravity's Rainbow regarding information, "A tragic sigh. 'Information. What's wrong with dope and women? Is it a wonder the world's gone insane, with information come to be the only real medium...more I'll start off with something positive to say about Rainbows End. The best things about this novel are the ideas about technology and what the world could look like in an even more networked future where information is the form of currency. However, this isn't a new idea at all, here's a quote from Gravity's Rainbow regarding information, "A tragic sigh. 'Information. What's wrong with dope and women? Is it a wonder the world's gone insane, with information come to be the only real medium of exchange.'" So, while there are these great ideas in the novel, they're not always the most original.
Now, let's talk about the writing. It was terrible. The language was dull and workman-like. I'm sure there are people who will say, but this is science fiction, what do you expect? And to those people, I say that's no excuse. A good novel should have good writing, it can be held together by concept alone. If you buy into the whole genre fiction/pulp fiction argument, that it's not supposed to be good writing, well that's unfortunate. I'm not asking for something amazing, but at least compel me to read your book. At page 150 I started skimming, wanting to see how the novel ended. At the end, there was no real pay-off. Who cares? That's how I felt. So what?
Part of the problem with the end of the novel comes from the beginning of the narrative. The most interesting characters rarely show up. There is an international crisis where some group of people might have access to powerful technology. Three intelligence officers from major countries are combating this problem. These three are the most interesting in the novel. Then it digresses into cliche child characters who are overly bright and a poet cured of his Alzheimer's and in a young body trying to make sense of the world as they are duped into working for the intelligence officers. Who cares about class projects? So what about a man waking up in the future? None of it is terribly interesting.
My last complaint about the writing, is that if you have a character who is an award winning poet of national significance, your writing should at least be better than mediocre.
I haven't read anything else by Vinge, I've heard his other novels are really good. My advice for this one is walk away. (less)

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04/25/08

Mark rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: hard core scifi fans only!

I have enjoyed in my life reading Sci-fi, with Philip K Dick being amoung the strangest (movies Total Recall, Minority Report, Blade Runner, Scanner Darkly, and Paycheck being among the best of his works), but right up there have been the works of Vernor Vinge. None of his have been made into movies, and to be honest, this one isn't his best. However, if you want to read The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime, you will not be disappointed!

Rainbow's end is in the not too distant fut...more

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09/26/07

Talkswithwind rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: hardsf, sf

Read in September, 2007

A book set in an indeterminate period somewhere between 2020 and 2040. This is a nice character driven book that also explores concepts of what a future would look like. In this future computing is nearly ubiquitous and government surveillance is universal, if they know to look. Meanwhile, the world is a much more creative place.

This was a very nice book. A variety of backgrounds allow the reader to explore different aspects of the world. From net-savvy kids, to recovering Alzheimer...more

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07/08/07

Sophia rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: 2007, own, sff

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: Fans of cyberpunk

I loved Gibson's Neuromancer and I liked Stephenson's Snow Crash, and this is basically the same thing for the current generation except it leans a little more towards the techno-thriller side, like Michael Crichton if he were actually a good writer and knew more about his subject than what he'd just dug up via research. Vinge is a mathematician and computer scientist, so his vision of 2025 rings a helluva lot more true than many others.

The major drawbacks to this book are a lopside...more I loved Gibson's Neuromancer and I liked Stephenson's Snow Crash, and this is basically the same thing for the current generation except it leans a little more towards the techno-thriller side, like Michael Crichton if he were actually a good writer and knew more about his subject than what he'd just dug up via research. Vinge is a mathematician and computer scientist, so his vision of 2025 rings a helluva lot more true than many others.

The major drawbacks to this book are a lopsided plot (the kind that starts off big and then the author seems to realize they've bitten off more than they can chew) and broadly-drawn characters (though he earns back major points for the fact that only two of them are white, and none of the major characters are). Those are literary complaints; from a SF worldbuilding POV it's entirely satisfactory.

Robert Gu, genius poet, wakes up from a decade of Alzheimer's to find himself restored to the peak of youth in a world gone completely digital. This allows Vinge to explain a lot of things to us via Robert, but because the story is intercut with a number of POVs he also does my favorite kind of speculative writing, forcing the reader to understand everything in context.

The speculation is really rather brilliant. Most people "wear" -- their computers are literally embedded in their clothing and their monitors are contact lenses. This allows them to both compute through body movements instead of keyboards (though a keyboard interface is available for older people) and to view the world exactly as they want...or as various corporations and public entities want. Cameras are everywhere, both for the benefit of the consumer and the government, and everything from forklifts to buildings depend on the link between physical reality and the wireless network to function.

The tech-spec is perfect, but I'm even fonder of the social ramifications. Robert Gu gets stuck in vocational high school to catch up, but he's not the only "retread"; older people who have simply slowed down have to do the same, even those who were brilliant and successful in their earlier career. Children are the masters of technology, and the adults in the book rely on them. Best of all, "belief circles" are fandom all growed up -- they fight for the right to theme public buildings, engage in massive-scale RPG-style interaction, and even create their own characters and storylines (for fractions of pennies which are automatically sent to the copyright-holders, be still my fair-use-loving heart!)

The plot is, as noted, kind of a mess, and the book whimpers to a close, but getting there was fantastic. This also feels like the kind of SF that's normative, not just predictive, and I'd be curious to hear industry takes on some of the tech.(less)

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07/12/07

Ron rated it:

bookshelves: scifi

Read in June, 2007

Vernor Vinge continues to delight with well-plotted and offbeat SF. Rainbow's End is a tale about loss, growing old and getting a second chance, and how that affects bad family dynamics, along with the usual gobs of interesting speculation about the future. I didn't quite follow the motivation of the main character's changes of heart during the middle of the book, but by the end it came together reasonably well. The greatest strengths of the story are in the utterly believable future world Vi...more

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11/06/07

Henrik rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: those who like sci-fi with good sci.

This is high-quality science-fiction, and I don't say that lightly since there is so much mediocre stuff out there. Vernor Vinge was a mathematician and professor of computer science before becoming a writer of science fiction. As such, his work in this novel, and others I've read, carries the weight of scientific and technical plausibility. His characterizations are workable and consistent.

This novel is of the near future in a thoroughly wired society which we can contemplate occur...more

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12/05/07

Karl Kindt rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: 2008

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: computer nerds

The back-cover blurb says, "In the grand tradition of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson...," but more accurately should read "...William Gibson and Tom Clancy." This has some startling yet realistic glimpses of the future of the Internet, Web, and wearable computers. At times the slangish dialogue borders on Gibson-inscrutable, but Vinge is kind enough to provide a main character from our era who sees things much as a modern reader might. If this wins awards (which it did......more

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03/28/09

Pam rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

Read in February, 2008

Ever wonder what it will feel like in 2025 - just before the predicted singularity? Well Vinge takes you on a disconcerting, roller coaster ride through the future. A recovering Alzheimer patient (wonders of future medicine) is trying to learn to live again in a world that he doesn't recognize. His pre-teen granddaughter is the most facile with the technology; she, like everyone else, wears her technology in her clothes and contacts. Literally you become one with your computer allowing it to tra...more

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01/17/09

Terran rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

Read in May, 2007

I was prepared to dislike this book, given that Vinge is hardly one of my favorite authors. (E.g., see my reviews of A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.) But this was a gift from a graduating student, so I felt obligated to try.

I was surprised and gratified to discover that I actually rather enjoyed this book. For one thing, it was the closest that Vinge has come to interesting characters. It's also set in the relatively near future, at the precipice of The Singularit...more I was prepared to dislike this book, given that Vinge is hardly one of my favorite authors. (E.g., see my reviews of A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.) But this was a gift from a graduating student, so I felt obligated to try.

I was surprised and gratified to discover that I actually rather enjoyed this book. For one thing, it was the closest that Vinge has come to interesting characters. It's also set in the relatively near future, at the precipice of The Singularity, which is an interesting area to play in.

Broadly, the story concerns the interactions of a few people in this society of exploding technology. The nominal A plot is about efforts to discover and foil a group of bio-terrorists who are attempting to develop The Next Very Bad Thing -- a bio-weapon, whose intent is slowly unfolded through the book. There is the requisite high drama denouement, in which the protagonists race against time, all odds, and FedEx to foil the Big Bad's plots.

More interesting was the plot surrounding an ex-Alzheimer's patient who has been renewed by the astounding gerontological technology of the day-after-tomorrow. The book traces the course of his almost complete rebirth, rediscovery of self, his struggles to cope in the strange new world that has emerged while he drifted in hazy clouds of mental deterioration, and his discovery of the changes in self and personality wrought by the disease and recovery. I found this thread -- the development of his character and self-discovery and his struggles to find a new relationship with his family -- to be the most interesting, plausible, and compelling parts of the book.

One sour note was a protracted and (naturally) absurdist homage to Terry Pratchett (and another author whom I'm afraid I don't know). That sequence, involving a massive, partially VR/partially LARP conflict between fervid adherents of the two authors around and within the Geisel Library at UCSD, was fun as a standalone sequence, but really didn't fit into the greater structure of the book. I found it distracting and somewhat annoying.

The technology of the near-Singularity of the book's day-after-tomorrow setting is interesting and semi-plausible. It's largely from a computer scientist's perspective (naturally), so it prominently features "if this goes on" kinds of extensions of existing information technology: omnipresent access to information networks, computers and displays embedded in clothing, tiered access to essentially infinite computing resources and information banks (which baddies are constantly using to try to whip up The Next Very Bad Thing), etc. I see signs of an educated reader of cutting-edge CS research poking through: randomized algorithms and computer vision technologies used to scan books at high speed, massive genetic sequencing and computationally-guided parallel genetic experimentation, and so on. Children are trained in internet search more than in any other single skill.

The part that I find implausible is Vinge's assertion (seemingly common among SF authors) that mere access to infinite amounts of information will make children creative geniuses. For example, we have high school students who solve key technological problems for developing nations as a matter of course. I just can't buy it. High school kids will, I think, still mostly be obsessed with sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and will spend rather less time being techno-wizards. And even the ones who want to be techno-wizards will find that it still takes a great deal of time to become expert enough to make a real impact. It simply takes time to see enough designs and play with design spaces enough to be able to put together elegant and powerful things. Ideas that are easy enough for HS students to put together are also easy enough for professional engineers and technologists to put together, only the latter have access to a substantial background of good design ideas and experience, not to mention considerably deeper pocket-books.

This facet of the story reflects a deeper meme about The Singularity that I find implausible: that the exponentially growing technology of society implies that individuals are growing in capability exponentially quickly. This idea, while attractive, is psychologically implausible. Humans simply take a certain minimum time to learn new things and become proficient in new skills. (For example, psychology and neuroscience have shown that humans can really process and store only roughly 1-3 bits of information per second, it takes 2000-5000 repetitions of a physical action to become truly fluent in it, and it takes something like thousands of hours of practice to become expert in a skill.) Until you're re-engineering the human brain itself, you're simply not going to change the average rate at which people become experts. While I'll agree that having access to more powerful technology does provide a great deal of leverage to increase an individual's capabilities, what that individual can really do with that technology is still band-limited by their personal expertise, which takes time to develop.

So, rants aside, my final assessment is that I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable I found this book. I am indebted to my former student for having picked it out, because I almost certainly would not have picked it out for myself.(less)

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06/08/09

Seth rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

recommends it for: nerds and scientists.

Based on the back of the book, Rainbows End sounds like a fairly standard issue Clancey-esque technothriller. You know, the author blows some shit up, learns his characters some life lessons, wows us with some nifty idea about them newfangled computers and their intarwebz, and calls it a day. In this particular near-future technothriller, people have computers... that they wear! Intelligence personnel and civilians alike teleconference... with holograms! People have personalized video-stream...more Based on the back of the book, Rainbows End sounds like a fairly standard issue Clancey-esque technothriller. You know, the author blows some shit up, learns his characters some life lessons, wows us with some nifty idea about them newfangled computers and their intarwebz, and calls it a day. In this particular near-future technothriller, people have computers... that they wear! Intelligence personnel and civilians alike teleconference... with holograms! People have personalized video-streams... uploaded directly to their retinas! And so on, with all sorts of little cute-notion-for-a-silicon-valley-startup type ideas. Which is perfectly fine, except we're talking about Vernor Vinge here. Computer scientist and academic as well as novelist, he's one of the few people whose predictions about the future course of technology are worth listening to. He won the Hugo twice in the 90s for his epic space operas, and, more importantly, he won it again for this book. Given the novel's pedigree and its acclaim, it should be a meaty Big Idea novel, not breezy beach reading!

Turns out, though, that Rainbows End really is a Big Idea novel. It's Big Idea just isn't the sort that most readers would actually care about. I suspect readers with no background in computer science or the cognitive sciences might not even notice the idea at all, despite its bigness, because it's the kind of idea you would expect to find in an academic journal rather than a popular novel. Where most novels are about people, or at least about exciting or wacky and dramatic ideas, this book is all about information processing systems. Specifically, this book explores the notion that through global networking, the planet and the people on it will become a massively interconnected, decentralized parallel processor capable of effortlessly solving problems that would be hopeless to any individual. Sexy, huh?

What does that mean, exactly? Think of how right now whenever you need to figure something out, you google it, or wikipedia it, and find the answer that someone else already found and dumped on the internet. Now imagine all 6 billion people on the planet all instantaneously and simultaneously solving each others' problems, and maybe that will give you a bit of an idea. Or maybe that made no sense. Which leads me to what is the book's strongest point: all those cute little ideas I mentioned above are not just cute little ideas, but more like examples meant to illustrate the central theme of the book: the tremendous creative power of decentralized, interconnected parallel information processing systems. Vinge takes that very abstract idea and makes it tangible with dozens of examples of both what these systems might produce and how they might produce them.

Then he goes to far. Specifically, he takes his theme to its apex by proposing that this massively interconnected global parallel processing system will give rise to that old sci-fi bogeyman, the self-aware artificial intelligence. Which, as far as I can tell, is a dumb idea. I can see why one might think something like this -- most cognitive scientists would say that the human brain is itself a massively interconnected, decentralized parallel processor, in which hundreds of components work simultaneously to somehow produce... well, us. But that doesn't mean that if you simply take any parallel processing system and make it big and complicated enough it will eventually become self-aware. Furthermore, it's not entirely clear what self-awareness actually MEANS to begin with. Does it refer to thinking about thinking? To having subjective experiences? Or does it simply mean that it has a human-like intelligence, whatever that means? Because there is absolutely no reason that any machine, no matter how smart, should posses anything like a human intelligence, unless it was specifically designed that way. And we're a long, long way from being able to design that.

Oh yeah, also there are characters in this novel, and they do things. This aspect of the book is pretty good, but kind of perfunctory and never surprising. If you're looking for a characters-doing-things kinda novel, you can definitely do better, even within idea/science-centric sci-fi. However, it is one of the only sci-fi novels I have read where the Big Ideas are actually directly applicable to the real world. Rainbows End deserves quite a bit of credit for that alone.

Also, note the lack of an apostrophe in the title. It actually does refer to a place, but it is also a statement about the nature of rainbows. I'm not actually sure what to make of that.(less)

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02/15/09

Splusmer rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

Read in February, 2009

Wish I could give half-stars--I waffle between three and four on this, but dropped it to three more because of one thing that the Vinge does that always irritates me: he greatly over-estimated the advancement of technology/society/whatever (call it a pet peeve of mine). The book style and flow and setting remind me of Tad Williams' Otherland series, albeit not so plodding (that was multi-volume), and the "virtual" stuff wasn't separate fully virtual worlds, but instead overlays over t...more

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01/04/09

Judy rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: sci-fi-fantasy

Read in January, 2007

Robert Gu, a man recovring from Alzheimer's due to improvements in medical science, and his precocious and curious granddaughter Miri "are drawn into a complex plot involving a traitorous intelligence officer, an intellect of frightening (and possibly superhuman) competence hiding behind an avatar of an anthropomorphic rabbit, and ominous new mind control technology with profound implications." (Wikipedia)

I was drawn to the various realities and themes in this complex story...more

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09/17/08

Solomon rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

A cool sci-fi book about an aged poet who—thanks to the wonders of futuristic medicine—returns from the netherworld of senility to find himself unwittingly mixed up in a plot to brainwash the world through a genetically engineered mind control virus activated by subliminal messages.

There's some slow parts in the middle/beginning, but it's worth hanging on.

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02/10/09

Chriswrth added it (review of isbn 0812536363)

Read in March, 2009

I struggled to get through Rainbow's End making the effort because of Vinge's past accomplishments. I appreciate Vinge's characteristic grand scope. His impressive presentation of 2025 technology might be thought of as a boundary for the modern world. If all goes smoothly - the imagined society is pervasively vigilant against globe destroying terrorism - in our real world the most advanced technology we could hope for would look like this. If it were possible to turn the everyday world into a vi...more

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02/05/09

Bookmarks Magazine added it

A multiple Hugo Award?winning author (A Fire Upon the Deep; A Deepness in the Sky) and former professor of mathematics at San Diego State University, Vernor Vinge writes as if he's spent some time in 2025. This novel's setting, contemporary with the author's Fast Times at Fairmont High, is one of instantaneous technology where accomplished hackers wield profound influence. Reviewers applaud Vinge's avoidance of science-fiction traps like information dumps and rootless "techno-bedazzlement"

...more

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03/12/09

Jeffrey rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

Read in February, 2009

Amusing science fiction novel about a future in which books are digitalized via shredding and some of the elderly can be restored to their youth but not necessarily with the same talents as they had originally. The hero is a renowned poet who had advanced Alzheimers but is brought back to something like his former self but without his poetic abilities. Like other formerly elderly individuals, he goes back to school to learn how to cope in a much more intensively informaticized environment. He ...more

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05/07/09

Kat rated it:

(review of isbn 0812536363)

bookshelves: science-fiction

Read in May, 2009

recommends it for: Charlie Stross fans, Neil Stephenson fans, anyone with a love of well-characterized sf

A very, very interesting look at the close future. Masquerading (quite well, really) as a techo-geek thriller, Rainbows End is really a sharp look at the people technological revolution leaves behind, mainly in the person of Robert Gu, an elderly ex-poet recently cured of Alzheimer's. Whole again in body and mind, a mere fifteen or twenty years have left him so far behind the curve on technology that he may as well be a cripple... which in turn makes him a ripe target for a certain interestingly...more

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