Rainbows End

Vernor Vinge's Hugo Award winning, near-future novel Rainbows End paints the landscape of 2025's Southern California in tones that are almost unrecognizable while maintaining the shadows of today's technology. Vinge puts us in a world riding a speeding train of change, with some well-constructed characters as passengers and one wascally wabbit that is the novel's most interesting Big Idea.

Background

The world is in trouble 20 years from now -- technology, both helpful and extremely dangerous, is advancing at a rapid pace. The superpowers of this age, such as America, China, and the EU, are scrambling to keep a lid on things after technology and an increasingly globalized world are in danger of causing some serious side effects. While 9/11 is alluded to in the novel, the characters focus on remembering later, much worse events that have taken place.

In Vinge's world of 2025, almost anyone who wants to get through the day 'wears', i.e. has their senses augmented by computerized clothes and contact lenses that make our mobile phone-communicating, iPod-listening, net-surfing culture of today look trite. People communicate via their wearables much like people do today through instant messaging programs and SMS, except that augmented reality allows people to appear in person, talking with them, and/or as text floating in their vision. Computers and communications technology are not the only improvements -- medical technology has advanced significantly.

The novel's protagonist, Robert Wu, is a recovering Alzheimer's victim who used to be a famous poet and academic during the late 20th Century. The novel alludes to nanotechnology giving his mind back, along with his youth -- the book tells us that he looks seventeen even though he's in his 70s or so. Unfortunately, he has lost his muse but kept his arrogant personality that has alienated him from his family in the past.

Robert returns home from the medical facility to live with his son's family. His son Bob and his son's wife Alice are both employees of the US military, with Alice scheduled to head up security at a genetic research lab located underneath the University of California San Diego campus, where -- incidentally -- Robert used to be a professor.

Eventually, Robert is contacted by a graduate student who wants to interview him about his past literary career. Unfortunately, in a nod to that special group of people who can't help clicking every email attachment that ends up in their inbox, this guy has a penchant for having his gear subverted. In short, the student's clothes get hacked by forces who plan to manipulate Robert and use his family connections to subvert the security of the UCSD genetic labs, unleashing a Very Bad Thing on Unsuspecting Humanity.

A 'Mysterious Stranger' pretending to be the graduate student eventually reveals himself to a suspicious Robert and grants him a Faustian bargain to return his ability to write. In return, Robert must agree to 'help' some old-time UCSD academics in saving the library from being digitized with machines that shred the books in the process. The plan to save the library happens to involve breaking into the nearby genetic labs -- a very convenient detail for the bad guys....

Geekfest

In what I consider one of the prime joys of this book, Vernor Vinge refuses to treat his reader like an idiot. There are no obvious explanatory passages placed specifically to explain what something is and why it's there, except for the bit about JITT victims. Many aspects of the world's technology and resulting culture must be deduced over time by the reader. This is a hallmark of the author's style and helps to keep you in the story. If there is ever something that never fully comes clear, one always has the Wikipedia article to resort to.

At first, I had a hard time believing that a future only 19 years away could have all the trappings that litter this world. Augmented reality is everywhere. Familiar names pop up, such as Google and UP/Ex (which sends packages via some sort of artillery system). Cars drive themselves and the net is pervasive.

However, if we could put ourselves back 20 years, some of what we take for granted today would seem crazy then. But yeah -- the dream of flying cars has failed to come to fruition so I have a hard time swallowing a world where cars handle the navigation on their own. When 2025 comes around, I suspect we might have a chuckle or two when revisiting this one -- and it's also possible we might shake our heads in sadness at the author's prescience.

Rainbows End extrapolates a lot of current issues in technology to show how the future might look. Security, especially in information technology, is paramount in the novel's world. It is against the law to own and operate equipment that does not conform to the 'Secure Hardware Environment'. GNU/Hurd, a free operating system that has been in development for some time now is mentioned as being illegal (at least it gets some usage). Privacy is all but nonexistent in 2025. It's hinted that anyone can at least know where you are if you are near the future's version of a wireless access point, which are everywhere. An organization called the Friends of Privacy even exists to protect people who wish to remain anonymous (or thought dead...).

Wearables have resulted in a world right out of a geek's wet dream. User-controlled content is taken to extremes in 2025, with 'belief circles' being a popular pastime among many people. These are some kind of mix between old-school video game mods and MMORPG's. It took me awhile to grok what was going on with these things until two belief circles went to battle with each other. The participants' dialog was right out a gaming clan forum, except thrust into the "real" world.

The villain in the book presents the Big Idea (the stuff of science fiction that always gets my imagination fired up) in Rainbows End. I won't go into it here because I consider it a spoiler. Sometimes appearing as the graduate student impostor to Robert, and a thinly-veiled Bugs Bunny to his allies, he provides both the mystery to the novel and a good part of the humor.

The supporting characters are well constructed, save for Robert's son and his wife who are more or less glossed over. Miri, Robert's granddaughter, was especially entertaining as the bossy and bright ten year old control freak and it was fun to have the stereotypical Unix-guy, represented by Tommy Parker, who won't give up his laptop for government-tainted hardware.

There are a few annoying bits to the novel. Robert Wu's motivation to regain his muse is a tad clichéd, along with Alfred, the man who hires the rabbit to aid him in his cloak and dagger quest to 'save the world from itself'. Exactly why he feels this way is never adequately explained.

However, these minor flaws don't add up to all that much and in the end, the book deserved its Hugo Award. It would sit comfortably next to any geek's copy of Neuromance.

On an awesome side note, the book is available online at Vernor Vinge's site. Get it while it's hot!