

Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End fails to thrill - renai42
http://www.keepingthedoor.com/2009/08/02/vernor-vinges-rainbows-end-a-review/

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10ren
I found Rainbows End mindlessly boring; most of the technologies are obvious
extrapolations from today, with nothing exciting or surprising about the
consequences. It's sort of like a fiction writer realizing his character could
have a PC with 1T of RAM.

Great science fiction is about ideas, not technology per se.

I don't usually bother to criticise stuff I don't like, but I loved his two
previous books (Deepness in the Sky, and Fire upon the Deep, and before them,
True Names). Those seem like labours of love; whereas this one feels like it
was to pay the bills. I don't know what's up with Mr Vinge (except he retired
from his comp sci academic position...); I would just love to have some more
of his old output. Not all such wishes can be granted, of course, nor are
necessarily even possible.

~~~
thorax
While I found the book boring, I do like to read explorations of a world where
the "obvious" (to us!) technologies grow and see what aspects of society
change. In essence, that's really what any Sci-Fi book must accomplish
especially if they don't have a good story to tell behind that.

While a lot of the key thoughts weren't really new versus what I was reading
in short stories a decade ago, it did offer some further "what if" scenarios
that are interesting with (especially) the wearables and contact lens UI. In
addition, the (sometimes jumbled) interaction of people with their certificate
authorities and groups was something that wouldn't have been discussed at all
in older scifi-- those are problems we'll need to think about more eventually
and I liked seeing those ideas explored a bit.

Overall, I think I like Rainbow's End more as a touch on a lot of different
near tech since a good bit of SciFi focuses on one or two far-out tech
concepts that become "magic" versus tech.

This one covers a lot of not-so-distant and not-so-magic tech concepts we can
almost see on the horizon:

    
    
      * Wearable computing
      * Augmented reality
      * GPS-guided air-mail
      * Virtual amusement parks
      * Library digitization
      * Networks of trust and authentication
      * Emergent AI (slightly more "magic", but has always been "any day now" in scifi)
      * Ubiquitous software development
      * Auto-pilot vehicles
      * Virtual reality learning
      * Virtual tribes/cliques/social groups
      * ... lots more ...
    

Pretty much everything he discusses (maybe aside from body regeneration?) is
near enough in possibility that you can see how we might get there and it's
interesting to think about the interactions of all of the concepts at once.

While he's not a good story teller, the high number of topics he was tackling
at once made the story something I kept reading. I think it's unfair to give
him a low grade because he didn't come up with lots of "new" revolutionary
ideas-- just exploring the interactions between them is compelling enough that
I'd like young scientists to read this, even if they see a different future
ahead.

I would also like to read more stories of the "near cool" future rather than
_only_ have access to deeper stories like Diamond Age, Ender's Game, and Steel
Beach.

~~~
bensummers
You might like "Halting State" by Charlie Stross.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_State>

<http://www.antipope.org/charlie/>

------
rosser
I mean, gosh. There weren't even any _aliens_!

I didn't find it anything like the ride his previous two were, but I'm not
sure it was meant to be. That's not to defend the book; I definitely think
character took a bit of a back seat to the technology, but in a sense, I think
technology -- rampant and out of control -- _is_ a character.

One thing, speculatively, along those lines: I think (or perhaps merely hope)
Rabbit is another Pham Nuwen. Remember, _Fire upon the Deep_ was written
first; _Deepness_ seven years later. When I read the former, I kept wondering
what Vinge was on about with the crazy reanimated historical dude. Then I read
the second.

Rabbit felt a little like Nuwen like that.

------
ca98am79
This was the first book I read of Vinge's and I didn't think it was that
great. Later I read _A Deepness in the Sky_ and _A Fire Upon the Deep_ , which
I thought were _awesome_. These are the smartest science fiction books I have
ever read. After reading these, I ordered all the rest of his books. I also
really liked _Marooned in Realtime_ and _The Peace War_.

------
Estragon
I was very disappointed with _Rainbow's End_. Even the politics bothered me.
Judging from the prominent role terrorism and the Department of Homeland
Security play in the book, Vinge has abandoned the libertarianism of his
earlier books and become a dyed-in-the-wool Bushie.

~~~
randallsquared
Well, it _was_ a dystopia.

------
MaysonL
I much preferred the novella _Fast Times at Fairmont High_ , which had many of
the same characters and setting.

