Rainbows End

This is a quasi-DNF, because I've got the last fifth of the novel to go but it's starting to drag, and the protagonist is worthless. It has the feeling of something quickly edited and put to market (perhaps the author needed to fufil a contractual requirement?). Who knows, it's ancient history now.

It's main point of interest is Vinge's take on the proliferation of augmented reality and mesh network technology, and sadly I find his observations pretty plausible - namely that the infrastructure becomes a theatre of war for state actors, which leads to network balkanization and the subordination of all private ownership of technology to the demands of state (the novel has a tinkerer character who has managed to assemble a PC whose CPU isn't 'in thrall' to the Department of Homeland Security). It's sobering to compare the world in the novel to our current-day situation of nation-states hoarding (and protecting) software vulnerabilities for exploitation, zero-click malware vendors like Pegasus, automated-decision defense systems, etc.

I wanted to give this novel more than three stars. The author explores a number of interesting ideas about the intersection of technology and society in a seemingly utopian near future. Written a decade ago, and predating the ubiquity of smart phones, social media, massive international cyber crimes and the seeming end of privacy, the book seems prescient in many places, although perhaps already dated in others. My real problem with this book is that the narrative is plodding, the plot thin, the character development one dimensional, the dialogue wooden, and the resolution anticlimactic. I don't normally write bad reviews of books I've read, but this one was so frustrating, since it could have been so much more.