Rainbows End

February 27, 2006
Set in San Diego, Calif., this hard SF novel from Hugo-winner Vinge (A Deepness in the Sky
) offers dazzling computer technology but lacks dramatic tension. Circa 2025, people use high-tech contact lenses to interface with computers in their clothes. "Silent messaging" is so automatic that it feels like telepathy. Robert Gu, a talented Chinese-American poet, has missed much of this revolution due to Alzheimer's, but now the wonders of modern medicine have rehabilitated his mind. Installed in remedial classes at the local high school, he tries to adjust to this brave new world, but soon finds himself enmeshed in a somewhat quixotic plot by elderly former University of California–San Diego faculty members to protest the destruction of the university library, now rendered superfluous by the ubiquitous online databanks. Unbeknownst to Robert, he's also a pawn in a dark international conspiracy to perfect a deadly biological weapon. The true nature of the superweapon is never made entirely clear, and too much of the book feels like a textbook introduction to Vinge's near-future world.

April 1, 2015

As a contemporary of Ray Kurzweil, Vinge shares his vision of the inevitability of humanity's supertechnological future. This winner of Hugo and Locus awards is set in a 2025 in which Alzheimer's disease is treatable, augmented reality is commonplace, and humanity is on the cusp of being rendered obsolete by the Singularity.

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