Set in the year 2025, Rainbows End takes place in a world in which computers are worn and virtual reality and reality are mixed via contact lens displays. As personal computing has advanced, so has the threat of apocalyptic, technology enabled terrorism.

The plot line goes something like this: an aging poet (made young again by medical advances) is brought back to life from the depths of Alzheimers. Reunited with his family, he begins transitioning to the new, technology driven world in which virtually everyone makes money from online affiliances, and virtually every student studies computer programming.

Meanwhile, a high ranking, rogue government official is preparing to launch a horrific mind controlling technology, that in his mind, would allow him to save the world from the inevitable doom which technology advances have enabled.

When a probe gets too close to the rogue official's plans, he prepares a distraction by using the aging poet and friends as his pawns. There's also a mysterious rabbit figure who seems to exist only online, but with incredible hacking ability (this character is way more interesting than he sounds here)

I won't spoil it, but the plot is good enough to keep it entertaining. What makes the book however are Vernor Vinge's descriptions of the technologies that will shape life two decades from now. Vinge is a computer scientist, and it shows.

Rainbows End is recommended for anybody in the tech / Web 2.0 industry.