Rainbows End
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 military son and daughter-in-law are clueless. His only hope -- the world's only hope -- is that his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri and her secret friend, Mr. Rabbit, might be able to keep the worst from happening....
Stats for nerds
112recommend
337mentions
238people
2007–2026years
42% recommend52% neutral5% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Which books did you read at least twice? Please give author, title, and how often you have read it.
For me the (probably incomplete list) is:
Connie Willis: Doomsday Book (three times)
Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, Anathem, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World (twice or three times)
Frank Herbert: Dune (three times)
Tolkien: Lord of the Rings (three times)
Stephen King: Salem's Lot, The Shining, It (three times each)
Stephen King & Peter Straub: The Talisman (twice)
Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon The Deep, Rainbow's End (each twice)
Tracy Kidder: The Soul of a New Machine (twice)
Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove (twice)
Ross Thomas: Chinaman's Chance (twice)
William Gibson: Neuromancer, The Peripheral, Agency (each twice)
- mr. vernor-vinge's "Rainbows End" is oddly prescient ! Highly recommended nevertheless.
- Another AI-infused, Metaverse-infused future book is Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End.
We are not so far from it anymore.
- Literally Rainbows End. Vinge was an oracle.
It's a real shame that no one ever got that book in front of Hayao Miyazaki's eyes.
- Vernor Vinge wrote a book that had this as part of the plot.
The book you are looking for is Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. Published in 2006, it features a fictional undertaking called the Librareome Project.
Facebook ·Artificial Intelligence News Key Details from the Novel The Process: Physical library books are fed into industrial machines that shred the pages and blast them through a camera tunnel at high speeds. The Technology: High-resolution cameras photograph the flying paper shreds, and software uses the unique tear marks to piece the text back together (similar to shotgun sequencing in genetics). The Conflict: The story depicts public protests and pushback from people who want physical, analog books preserved rather than violently digitized and destroyed.
- Once again, see Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge. Foresaw exactly this. Written in 2006, takes place in 2025.
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