Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End
One and a half stars. More than just disappointing: actively bad.
I took two attempts to get through Rainbows End, and it took me a while after finishing it to figure out why I didn't like it: it doesn't deliver on its promises. In the prologue, European intelligence services have detected someone experimenting with a highly advanced and incredibly subtle form of mass mind-control. The opening chapter follows this up with a meeting between other intelligence agencies as they decide what action to take, and reveals some of the secrets behind the threat.
It's a great teaser opening...to a different book.
The rest of Rainbows End is a moderately interesting treatise on the future of education, learning, and knowledge management, fronted by an unlikeable protagonist, and ending with a fist-shaking "I would have got away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky kids" moment. The unlikeable protagonist mellows, and everyone learns a valuable lesson about love and understanding.
Not Vinge's finest hour.
Comments
Russell W
Wed May.21.2008 15:17
Well said! I had a similar gripe about Rainbows End, i.e. unlikeable protagonist. And until I read your review, I'd forgotten completely about the beginning of the book--what a wild goose chase. And I don't know if you've ever visited the UCSD library, but the idea of it walking around--even after serious earthquake proofing procedures, was just silly. Sometimes I think he wrote the whole book just so he could depict that (since he taught there).
One thing I did like though: the mobile internet nodes. That's an unusual idea.
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