Rainbows EndWriter: Vernor Vinge
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 381
I didn't read this because it won the 2007 Hugo, but it winning the 2007 Hugo certainly moved it up in my stack. And I can't say if, out of all the nominees, it deserved the Hugo or not, because I don't even own the other "Best Novel" nominees, so obviously, I haven't read them.
I was interested in this book before it made the Hugo shortlist, mostly because the cover captivated me and the plot didn't sound too bad either. Its release to mass-market paperback and later nomination was enough to make me pick it up at the store, and I have to admit, I was a little suspicious of this book. All this near-future, internet-related-virtual-reality stuff makes me a little antsy, and I was terrified I would have a similar reaction to this that I did to Charles Stross's
Accelerando, which I ended up not really liking very much.
Fortunately, Rainbows End is far more accessible than Accelerando. Vinge's future made far more sense to me, and I don't know if it's because his prose is clearer, or if because we had a character who was learning all this technology for the first time like the reader, or if because Vinge's future feels far more plausible than Stross's, or a mix of the above. I'm thinking it's a mix.
It's not to say I didn't have moments where I was confused. There were quite a few. Sometimes I had difficulty parsing out the difference between reality and the virtual overlays (like with the climax scene at the library), and sometimes I just had plain difficulty imagining what the author was describing, but the latter is a common problem of mine, so it may just be me.
No cut for this book, as there's not really any details I want to sink my teeth into. I really enjoyed this book though. It's the first SF book I've read that detailed what I consider to be a plausible future in terms of technology, and the repercussions and handicaps of said technology. I love that not a single character gets through this book unchanged or unscathed, though I wish a minor character or two (Bob Gu and Alice Gong) would learn from the events of the novel rather than move on the way they do. I adored Rabbit and the mystery surrounding him, even though just when he was manipulating events and when it was Alfred manipulating events puzzled me on more than one occasion. I really liked Robert, who started out as a completely unsympathetic character in some ways but on the other hand, the reader could easily relate to him.
I think the only thing about the book I wasn't thrilled with was the ambiguity of the ending, of the possibility at large. Yes, that kind of hope is a staple in the genre, but something about it left me vaguely unsatisfied. Vinge certainly provided a resolution on all fronts, even though he doesn't wrap everything up in a pretty little bow. But I enjoyed the book. I can see why readers enjoyed it enough to vote for the Hugo. I may read more Vinge in the future. It didn't hit me on an emotional level, but the writing wasn't anything that enthralled me (but it didn't confuse me, and that's the important part), but I liked it. And the title is rather evocative, especially within context of the novel.
Next up:
The Metatemporal Detective by Michael Moorcock (ARC)