I mentioned back in November that Vernor Vinge's latest novel, Rainbows End, would be available on May 16th. Unless of course you're the Instapundit, in which case you've already got a copy. Sure wish he'd hurry up and finish it...

At any rate, they've moved the date up by a couple of weeks. The new release date is May second. Which means it's a fair bet that Professor Vinge has already started working on the sequel to A Deepness in the Sky. My hope is that he'll take his time and do it right.

While we wait, here's an early review of Rainbows End. Excerpts follow...

Rainbows End (no, there's no apostrophe) is not a Singularitarian novel. In some ways, it reads as a riposte to some of the technotopian visions imagined by the more ardent followers of the transhumanist and extropian movements that eagerly embraced Vinge's concepts. It also quite handily reframes many ideas bandied about by the 80's cyberpunks...Wearing computers is perfectly quotidian here, their owners permanently logged into their VPN's, firing silent instant messages back and forth to friends and family...Where walking around with your brain jacked into some "net" made you an edgy rebel in the cyberpunk lexicon, in Rainbows End you're just another consumer...

Vinge also challenges the transhumanist dream of radical life extension, not dismissing it so much as pointing out that it too would entail challenges and consequences to be overcome. The novel's protagonist is Robert Gu, formerly a poet laureate and great man of letters, felled by Alzheimer's. A successful series of revolutionary treatments not only cures Robert of the disease, but restores much of his body to a youthful vigor. He has what everyone dreams of, a second chance. But immediately there are problems...