Where It All Goes Down
San Diego (and Virtual Space) of the Future
We are Living in a Material World (sort of)
Physically, most of the story takes place in or around San Diego, especially at the University of California, and most especially at the Geisel Library.
The world of the future isn't totally different—there are lots of similarities with our world. There are cars—but they are self-driving. There are school buildings—that are computerized and built to withstand earthquakes (4.112). There's some postal service called UP/Express (an offshoot of UPS?)—that delivers items by "launcher" and something that sounds a lot like a drone (4.17).
One big change that Robert notes is that no one has permanently-printed physical books anymore. (We cover that in "Symbols," so mosey on over.)
Also, Chicago has been destroyed (13.1). No more deep dish pizza for you; sorry. Like we said, there are a bunch of changes to this world.
Avatar (No, Not The Blue Tiger-People)
But a lot of the action doesn't just go on at the library or at home, but on the internet of the future. Except maybe we should call it something like an extra-net, because so much of the digital world is around these characters at all times. The biggest case of this is the belief circles and their virtual reality overlays.
When Robert is driving (in a self-driving car), he can access any of these overlays and change what his environment looks like (15.202). Even Pyramid Hill amusement park is only partly physical; the other part is all virtual (4.33).
Of course, because this is all new technology, Robert isn't super-happy about it. So when Robert is dragged, kicking and screaming, into the future, he tries to drive out into the natural world, beyond any computers or internet. Unfortunately for him, the internet is everywhere:
And finally he had reached the beginning of nature. A little voice spoke in his ear, announcing that he was leaving the tagged section of the park. Beyond this point, only "low-rate emergency wireless" was guaranteed. Robert walked on, across the unlabeled wilderness. So this is the closest thing to being alone these days. (8.16)
As Robert learns, being alone and away from the network is not an easy thing to find in the future. Which brings us to—
Social Changes (and Social Status Quos)
Technology changes many things, including the social world.
Here's an incredibly tiny example of how technology affects society: Just imagine you're wearing contact lenses that connect to the internet. Now you bump into someone in the street and you've forgotten their name. Well, you can just use the facial recognition of your contacts to bring up their Facebook page. Voila—now you not only know their name, but you know everything else they put up about themselves.
In the future setting of Rainbows End, we hear how old people run the country (8.25); but we also hear how hard it is for everyone to keep up: "My brother is all unemployed and depressed, and he's only twenty. It's hard to keep up" (10.6).
There may be big corporations like we're used to… sort of. When Robert gets hired by a company because of his synchronization hack, we get this hilarious sentence:
In a way it was a traditional firm. It was old (five years old), and it had three full-time employees. (35.30)
We guess the implication is that a lot of smaller firms use mostly temporary and contract/affiliance work instead of full-time employees.
And yet, even if the employment landscape has changed a lot, we get to hear a lot about how things haven't changed in certain social groups. So, sure, the kids play a weird game called Egan soccer, but they're still playing a game together. Or even if there's a campus protest at the Geisel Library over digitizing the books—and even if some of those protesting are actually only virtually present—let's recognize the similarity: people still protest at colleges in 2025, just as they did when Robert was a teacher and student.
This mix of new changes in the future and old similarities makes it easier for us to read this book. Because we can read something new and maybe have trouble understanding it—what's a Librareome Project? What's Egan soccer? What's an affiliance?—but because Vinge situates a lot of these changes in a world that we might recognize, it's easier for us to pick up on what the new stuff is.
Or possibly: by using lots of present-day material, Vinge makes the futuristic stuff stand out more. What do you think?