Outside of a Dog: Vinge, Vernor: Rainbows End

David Tate

David Tate wrote on July 21, 2007 at 12:27 PM:

I was actually relieved that Rainbows End was not ambitious on the scale of A Fire Upon the Deep or A Deepness in the Sky. I'm not often in the mood for such heavy books these days, and when they miss they miss badly for me.

That said, I enjoyed RE with reservations. Most of those reservations have to do with [rot-13] gur oyvgur nffhzcgvba gung creinfvir vzzrefvir iveghny ernyvgl, vapyhqvat gnpgvyr vyyhfvba, vfa'g gung uneq -- juvpu V guvax vf syntenag penc. Pbagnpg yrafrf naq fzneg 'cebcf' pna'g cbffvoyl jbex gung jryy, ng gur grpu yriry fubja, naq ynfref rireljurer unir qenjonpxf.

But, that said, I did enjoy the book.

Kate

Kate wrote on July 21, 2007 at 3:53 PM:

David: I'd seen some comments along the lines of yours before, and frankly I just don't care. The precise point in time where the story is located, and the plausibility of the predictions about that point of time, interest me very little, because I don't read fiction for a crystal ball.

David Tate

David Tate wrote on July 21, 2007 at 6:24 PM:

Kate: Fair enough; I'm hardly one to complain that someone isn't taking science seriously enough, and I certainly didn't mean to imply that you (or anyone else) should like RE less than you did. I love Lee & Miller, for heaven's sake, so realistic tech can't be that important to me.

For me, though, there's a difference between near-future tech that feels possible but unlikely, versus near-future tech that feels impossible. I guess I would say that near-future settings come with a tacit guarantee that the near-future setting follows from the current present with minimal miracles required -- or, at least, with only The Big Miracle that introduces that novel's particular McGuffin. Chronoliths from the future? No problem, in the service of a good enough story. Pbagnpg yrafrf gung bireynl ivfvba-dhnyvgl vzntrf ba gurynaqfpncr nebhaq lbh? Nope, I can't buy it, unless they're the whole point of the story. And, as you noted, Vinge had already used up his miracle quota in the social setting.