Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Eleven members attended the discussion of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End. One reader emailed their comments. All but one member had read Vernor Vinge before. Everybody started the book. All but 2 people finished it, and the rest were planning to finish.

Overall people thought it was a multilayered book, even though (to quote one reader) when you read it it does not feel like a book with layers. The majority of the group felt the story was entertaining. However, everyone seems to have taken something different away from it.

Some people did not think that the technology portrayed in the book brought up any unique concepts, but others were impressed how convincingly Vernor Vinge extrapolated from existing technological trends. One reader said he had just read in the news that Google and Linden Labs are collaborating on “something like that”

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The Last Mimzy by Henry Kuttner

Eight of us of us gathered at the North Village library for this meeting, and another submitted comments by email. Our topic was The Last Mimzy, a collection of classic short science fiction and fantasy by Henry Kuttner. This is a reissue of the earlier book The Best of Henry Kuttner, retitled to tie in with the recent film The Last Mimzy, adapted from one of its stories. About half of us had read Kuttner previously. Everyone started the book, and four finished.

The book starts with “Mimsy Were the Borogoves,” the basis for the recent film. It involves bright children finding toys from the future. The Lewis Carroll thread that imparts the title to the story is well-done. One person was impressed that such a good story could be inspired by a few silly sentences from Jabberwocky. Those of

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