Rainbows End

Mass Market Paperback, 400 pages

English language

Published April 3, 2007 by Tor Science Fiction.

ISBN:
978-0-8125-3636-2
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4 stars (57 reviews)

From the back cover:

World famous poet Robert Gu missed twenty years of progress while he nearly died from Alzheimer's. Now, when he awakens in San Diego, in the year 2025, with his mind and health restored, reality's a shock. Books are just about gone. Computers are old news, replaced by "smart" contact lenses that connect him to the Internet via his clothes and wireless nodes just about everywhere. Buildings look low rent -- unless you're wearing. Then, they look like whatever you want. Even he is different. He's seventy-five, but his treatment has made him look almost a teen. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in the new Digital Age.

As Gu tries to catch up with his future, a mysterious stranger draws him and other innocents into a conspiracy that could have disastrous consequences. Before he knows it, he's in so deep that even his high-ranking …

9 editions

A Futuristic Rollercoaster of Mixed Emotions

3 stars

I picked up Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End with a sense of excitement, expecting a hard-hitting, technological thrill ride with the kind of Gibson-esque flair that I absolutely adore. And while the novel certainly had its moments of brilliance, it left me with mixed emotions.

From the moment I read about the young-again poet, Robert Gu, I was intrigued by the concept. It seemed like an interesting twist on the usual sci-fi tropes, and I couldn't wait to immerse myself in Gu's journey. However, as I dove further into the novel, it became clear to me that Vinge was combining elements of a coming-of-age story into his futuristic narrative, which didn't quite suit my preferences. I felt a little out of step with these elements, as I'd been hoping for a more hard sci-fi experience.

As I continued reading Rainbow's End, I was initially captivated by the undercurrent of a global …

Imaginative and fascinating, but complicated

4 stars

This book has tons of imagination. Set in a world where the line between reality and the digital is blurred, the ideas are extremely well thought out, creative and realistic. It's overall pretty engaging and fun to read. But good luck telling anyone what this book is about in less than a minute - it throws a lot at you, and the plot can be tough to follow at times. It's possible that if I had put in the time and effort to really understand it, and figure out its mysteries, I would think it's a masterpiece. This book is best suited for people who love grappling with tough plots and mysterious characters, but even if you just like science fiction it's probably worth a read.

Review of 'Rainbows End' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I liked this more than A Fire Upon the Deep, at least in the beginning when it was very idea-centric. I still don't actually find Vinge's adventure-storytelling mode super compelling, and basically once they started the Librareome expedition I got monotonically less and less interested in reading.

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Subjects

  • Science Fiction And Fantasy
  • Fiction
  • Fiction - Science Fiction
  • Science Fiction
  • Science Fiction - General
  • Fiction / Science Fiction / General
  • 20th century
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • Patients
  • Poets, American

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