A review of Vernor Vinge’s sci-fi novel, Rainbow’s End—Alzheimer’s and technology

This is another Hugo Award-winning hard science-fiction book. Set in the near future, the role of technology itself is fascinating, compelling, and troubling. Vinge is a retired professor of mathematics from SDSU, which is where the novel takes place. He knows the technology well—well enough to predict its impact on society ten years on. And I don’t think he’s too far off. Big data, wearables, VR technology, state surveillance, and so on—Vinge takes where we are now and extrapolates with masterful perception and understanding. The world he creates will be both familiar to the reader, yet also alien as technology redefines what it means to be human.

Yet Vinge avoids the problem of the technology overshadowing the characters and leaving the reader on the outside. He does this in a brilliant way—the main character, Robert is a famous poet who had contracted Alzheimer’s. He had “lost his marbles,” as Robert describes it. He was also an arrogant jerk, to family, friends, and strangers.

But technology has come to his rescue. Medical advances have allowed a restructuring of the brain and body. He is slowly “cured,” but the cure comes with a price: he has lost much of his talent. Living with his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, he attends school to learn the basics of technology and its interaction with the subjects of education. This setting allows the reader to experience this “brave new world” alongside a character who is just as confused, appalled, and out-of-place as the reader.

Those elements alone might be enough for an interesting and compelling novel. But the plot is far more intricate, involving international intrigue, State surveillance (and a son and daughter-in-law at the heart of it), double-agents, a granddaughter trying to help her grandfather, old colleagues fighting the destruction of a library with real books, and more. The subplots, surprises, and twists, and reveals are well-done. The characters are complex, and they do not remain static throughout. Vinge, while exploring the role and impact of technology, has also used it to address the human condition.

Vinge does not usually see fit to explain the technology, and this can sometimes leave the reader confused and unclear. Yet the context usually clarifies what is going on. The plethora of characters, the sub-sub-plots, and the twists and turns can also leave the reader unsure of what is going on, and who is doing what. That may be intentional on Vinge’s part: like Robert, we are bewildered and lost in a new world—another element which addresses the human condition of a future grounded in technological advances that have changed society drastically.

The novel is not for everyone. It is heavy on the technology, though always through the characters words and actions. The complexity of the plot(s) might perplex some readers. But if you are okay with being lost at times, along with Robert, the journey, and the result is well worth it.

Vinge’s prose is easy to read and compelling. His vision of the (not-too-distant) future is both exciting and concerning, and the question of how we will define being human in that world is one we should all consider.