Liberty and Culture Vol. 24, No. 4 Summer 2006 Rainbows End By Vernor Vinge Sunni Maravillosa Interviews Tor, 2006, $24 Scott Bieser and Vin Suprynowicz Reviewed by William H. Stoddard Rainbows End is a change of pace from Vernor Vinge’s different approach to intelligence, summed up by one of his recent novels, especially from the interstellar adventures of A characters in an early chapter: “A government crash program? Fire upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. In some That’s twentieth-century foolishness. Market demands are ways it’s a return to the concerns of his classic “True Names”; always more effective. You just have to fool the market into in others it’s an entirely new departure for his writing. cooperating.” Decentralized networks of analysts provide The setting of this novel is Earth in the near future. No operatives and mission planners with real-time solutions to radical new technologies have emerged; instead there has been complex problems. But managing such resources demands continued progress along lines that can be extrapolated from highly skilled people, and strains even their capabilities. current technology and scientific thought. Life extension, ge- At the same time, networking and covert communication netic engineering, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and aren’t the exclusive property of secret agencies. In many parts the amplification of human intelligence through networking of the world, everyone has them, even high school students. are all part of everyday life. Much of the character interac- Much of the story takes place at a high school in San Diego tion in story takes place through the exchange of secret mes- county, attended not only by adolescents but by a number of sages over electronic channels, so that two or three layers of elderly people, beneficiaries of new medical technology, in conversation can be going on in parallel. The effect is rather need of rehabilitation and instruction in the new essential skills. like that of recent anime series such as Ghost in the Shell, Much of this novel is about two students at that school: Miriam where voiceovers and on-screen text displays carry on multiple Gu, a very bright girl of 14, and her grandfather, Robert Gu, narrative tracks. Vinge’s parallel narratives were easy to keep recently successfully treated for Alzheimer’s syndrome. track of, thanks to some simple but ingenious typographic This focus on family life is itself something of a departure conventions—and careful choices of viewpoint. for Vinge; a lot of his previous heroes have been loners, either Part of this novel is about large-scale social effects of this by choice or because circumstances isolated them from social new technology. The political landscape of Vinge’s future Earth is also a close extrapolation from the current world, in —Continued on page 12 much more detail than that of “True Names.” Three super- powers dominate the world: China, the United States, and the Indo-European Alliance (a clever pun!), which includes Inside Prometheus: Japan as well as Europe and India. Despite rivalries, all three mainly want to keep the world stable and prevent the sudden Reviews of fiction by Russell Madden, emergence of new technological threats—either old-fashioned Elizabeth Moon, Harry Turtledove, weapons of mass destruction in the wrong hands, or danger- Vernor Vinge, Tamara Wilhite, and ous new possibilities such as YGBM, “you gotta believe me,” John C. Wright; a psychological technology that allows irresistible persuasion. Sunni Maravillosa interviews Scott Bieser One of this novel’s themes is the methods used to defend and Vin Suprynowicz; against such threats. These include military force, and Vinge shows us a small- Tamara Wilhite on SETI; scale military action in the course of the novel. But much The liquid vision of Æon Flux; more important is intelligence, in both senses of the word: Future Washington reviewed; human and military. Several major characters work for intel- Jim Sullivan on library censorship ligence agencies of various nations. Vinge envisions a radically Prometheus Volume 24, Number 4, 2006 Liquid Vision Æon Flux The newsletter of the Directed By Karyn Kusama Libertarian Futurist Society Paramount Pictures, 2005 Editor (DVD 4/25/2006) Anders Monsen Starring: Charlize Theron, Marton Csokas, Sophie Okonedo Contributors Reviewed by David Wayland Ivar Arnesen Sunni Maravillosa Jim Sullivan In the mid-1990s. MTV carried a William H. Stoddard series of ground-breaking animated TV David Wayland shows under their “liquid television” Tamara Wilhite banner. Alas, MTV’s liquid television dribbled out rather quickly. One of the more interesting shows, Æon Flux, fol- Letters and Submissions: Anders Monsen lowed the adventures of a scantily-clad 501 Abiso Ave female assassin in a far-future city called of course, goes wrong in their mission, San Antonio, TX 78209 Bregna. creating doubt and internal conflict [email protected] Skip forward a few years and we find within Æon, and setting her at odds with Æon Flux adapted for the silver screen in the Monicans. Subscription/Advertisements 2005, starring Academy Award winning It’s from this point in the movie that Libertarian Futurist Society beauty Charlize Theron. The feature events veer from a visually stunning movie 650 Castro St. Suite 120-433 film version assumes many of the same with an interesting plot, to a visually Mountain View, CA 94041 characters, background, and the general stunning movie with a baffling plot. For [email protected] idea from the TV show, and adds its own make no mistake, the effects in this movie gorgeous vision, along with slightly more as well as the scenery, design, and people LFS Online: all result in colorful eye candy. http://www.lfs.org than a hint of unique confusion. In the movie, humanity 400 years in In terms of libertarian elements, we Membership — the future survives a devastating plague find the resistance, highly trained and Basic: $25/yr. ($30 int'l) by retreating into a walled and pristine organized, allowing its agents significant Full: $50/yr. city. Æon’s character describes this sce- bio-modification and virtual-reality com- Sponsors: $100/yr. nario in a weary voiceover, and hints munication seemingly absent from the Benefactors: $200/yr. that something is rotten in the city of ruling forces. The Monicans’ goals are Subscriptions: $20/yr. ($25 int'l) Bregna. People disappear for unknown unclear; they want to disrupt the gov- All memberships include a one-year reasons, and inhabitants suffer from ernment, and take out Goodchild, but subscription to Prometheus. strange memory flashes of events they nothing else matters. Any initial desire to never experienced. In response to the cheer on the Monicans from a libertarian Classified ads: 50 cents/word, 10 perspective quickly fades. percent off for multiple insertions. autocratic rule of Trevor Goodchild, who Display ad rates available. All checks organized the city of Bregna 400 years For want of a story, the director in- payable to the Libertarian Futurist ago, a resistance group emerges, calling stead focuses on the surface beauty, and Society. itself Monicans, of which Æon is their I came away feeling cheated. The same foremost agent (guessing that this is a play stress on visual effects were a major part Prometheus © 2006 the Libertarian on mnemonics would be incorrect; the of the animated series, but I expected Futurist Society. The LFS retains source is the original animated series, in more coherence from a feature length a non-exclusive license to repub- which Monica was an anarchist sister-city film. Watch this movie if you want to lish accepted articles on its Web of Bregna, but this is neither explained see stunning cinematic craft and design, site; all other rights revert to the nor alluded to in the movie). but the story itself did not carry the same contributor. Letters and reviews The Monicans send Æon and Sithan- weight. The movie’s release prompted are welcome. Bylined articles are dra, an agent who has modified her feet MTV to package and release the original strictly the opinion of the writer series on DVD for the first time, and that and do not necessarily reflect the into another set of hands—one of the opinion of the LFS members. strangest visuals of the movie—to as- alone might prove more interesting that sassinate Trevor Goodchild. Something, this version. Page 2 Volume 24, Number 4, 2006 Prometheus BOOK REVIEWS Engaging the Enemy find this book something of a disappointment; it’s much more By Elizabeth Moon about the legalities of warfare and ownership than about Del Rey/Ballantine, 2006 warfare itself. Readers of Prometheus may well find Moon’s Reviewed by William H. Stoddard treatment of these issues fascinating. The subordination of violence to law is the primary theme of this series, and Moon provides a variety of situations that test various ways of doing Engaging the Enemy continues Elizabeth Moon’s new this. She also offers readers the pleasure of watching competent Kylara Vatta series. Previous volumes have explored the con- people do their jobs under pressure—a classic science fictional flict between mercantile and military ethical values, through theme, and one with literary antecedents from Kipling’s stories the adventures of the protagonist, Ky Vatta, a young woman back to Homer’s Odyssey. This series has continued to hold pursuing a second-choice career as a merchant captain after my interest; I’m hoping that the fourth book will show Vatta her expulsion from her home planet’s naval academy. Over actually “engaging the enemy” in a big way. the course of the series, the scope of the conflict has steadily widened, from the purely personal issues of the first volume to the small merchant and privateer fleets of the third.