Hope and Terror

Greg Bear: Quantico (Vanguard Press; 2007; ISBN 978-1-59315-455-5; cover by multiple persons).

Vernor Vinge: Rainbows End (Tor Books; 2006; ISBN 0-312-85684-9; cover by Stephan Martiniere).

Both these books are similar in their setting (time period, technology level, some plots bits), so I decided to review them together. I had read the Vernor Vinge book previously, but wanted to re-read it after listening too a two-part interview at The Agony Column.

Bear's work follows several veteran and novice FBI agents as they track several seemingly unconnected events. As the plot advances, they realize that they are involved in a terrorist plot of international scale that will attack all the world's religions in a way to cause a severe drain on the world economy as well as have potential repercussions beyond the initial attacks. Set "around" 2020, I read the entire book in one day (and a late night). I found the ending somewhat unsatisfying; the book ends, but doesn't really conclude. Real life is like that, though!

Vinge's book is set a little further out than Bear's book, both in terms of the year (2025) and the technology. This work follows the style that the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke used so many times: toss in dozens of ideas and concepts per chapter, but keep the overall book short. Vinge scatters a lot of stuff in here! For example, what is Mr. Rabbit? An AI? Or a multiple personality? Then there's the concept of the "heavenly minefield". Medical technology manages to come up with some amazing cures...but then a patient either misses the cure (because of a difference in the problem they have), lives long enough to develop another (incurable) problem or benefits from the cure only to lose a previously held talent (as happens to one of the main characters).

Computer technology (hardware and software) abounds. There is the method of finding solutions to problems by developing alliances and networks and doing a "Wikipeida-like" attack on a complex situation. There are terrorists with both computer and biological weapons. There are kids who outstrip their parents (gee, sounds familiar).

Bear concentrates less on the computer technology, but shows some interesting crime-fighting devices. His book centers around the biological threat and he shows how relatively easy creating such a threat might be. Easy. And scary. Very, very scary!

Vinge, in the interview says that his book is not a utopia. But, it is not a dystopia, either. There is both good and bad here, pain but hope as well (again, like real life). I'm not sure if I'd categorize Bear's book as a dystopia, but, overall, it is more negative than Vinge's work.

Both highly recommended reads.