I started Vernor Vinge's latest novel Rainbows End Friday. The book is dense with Singularity-related ideas. I wasn't surprised. Vinge is the guy who first applied the term "singularity" to the concept of the Technological Singularity.

This review is "Part 1" because I'm reading at a leisurely pace. I'm only about half-way into it.

The year is 2025 and MOSH history is in its last days. The Technological Singularity is just around the corner. The central character Robert Gu is essentially from our time because he's been in the twilight of Alzheimer's for twenty years. He was able to stay, medically, just ahead of the curve long enough to "live to see it." His doctor explains it to him:

"You picked all the right diseases!" He laughed. "Modern medicine is kind of like a minefield made in heaven. We can cure a lot of things: Alzheimer's, even though you almost missed the boat there... Lots of other things are just as fatal or crippling as ever. But all your major infirmities are things we have slam-dunk fixes for. Your bones are as good as a fifty-year-old's now. Today we did your eyes. In a week or so we'll start reinforcing your peripheral nervous system." Reed laughed. "You know, you've even got the skin and fat biochemistry that responds to Venn-Kurasawa treatments. It's not one person in a thousand who steps on that heavenly landmine; your'e even going to look a lot younger."

A person gone that long would have a lot of catching up to do. Actually, it's not just the people that have been gone. People that never went away can't seem to keep up. So we see gifted writers and former university deans in high school remedial classes. The primary skill that's taught is "how to 'wear'."

"Don't worry, Robert. Once you learn to wear, you can learn anything. Right now, you're in a trap; it's like you're seeing the world through a little hole, just whatever your naked eye sees... She pointed at the magic foolscap that was tucked into his shirt pocket. "With some practice you should be able to see and hear as good as anyone."

This "foolscap" is a neural interface. Those who can't wear are considered handicapped. A laptop just doesn't cut it in this future. The only ones that seem to be keeping up are both gifted and young.

Another interesting subplot is the destructive scanning of university libraries.

"...the Librareome Project is someone's idea for photographing and then digitizing the Library. But-" Suddenly he was remembering things from his last years at Stanford "-didn't Google already do that?"

Yes, but copyright keeps Google from being able to share the works online. Apparently there was a legal case in this future that allowed a digital check-out of library material so long as the physical book was not simultaneously available for use.

To my mind, both this legal verdict and the resultant destruction of library stacks is very plausible. Vinge has protests occurring outside the libraries as this is happening. One guy was wearing a tee-shirt that (temporarily) read "Chad is Bad." Again, very believable.

Not only is helpful technology growing exponentially, but WMD has been democratized as well. We are already seeing WMD moving from large nation states, to small states, to terrorist groups in our time. By the opening of this novel a smart guy having a bad day is a threat.

Because of this some people believe that humanity will not survive the 21st century without intervention - absolute mind control technology called YGBM (You Gotta' Believe Me). The struggle of some (or one) to implement YGBM against those who would prefer the risk of freedom is the major conflict in this novel.

This is a future that would probably be more acceptable to Bill Joy than Kurzweil. But it feels like Vinge is getting a lot right.

The book is newly out as a paperback. Check it out: