The Rainbow Cadenza

by J. Neil Schulman

Book Overview

The world was finally politically correct. The people who care have remade the Earth in their image, and its an Earthly Paradise. Humanity is joined together under a single, popularly-elected world... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380751232
• ISBN13: 9780380751235
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 419 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Visions of the future

An exciting look into a dystopian future that both shocks and enlightens. Startling social change coupled with brilliant technological innovations transform society in this troubling vision of the 22nd century.

A response to some reviews

I want to add few points because some people here are letting their emotions get better of their brains. One, a young witch was angry at the portrait of Wicca saying that's not how Wicca is supposed to be practiced. That is exactly J. Neil Schulman's point. In most religions throughout history, the common people who practiced their faith tends to be nice, well-behaved people who just want to live in peace. That includes a lot of Christians. But when the state's power structure decided to adopt such a religion because so many people have high opinion of it it begins to corrupt it. The Wicca in the novel is not the Wicca as is today. First of all, the novel Wicca's is the majority relgion and the one the state use as its mask of violence. When a state decided to support a religion, most people will join it for social status, not out or deep beliefs. That's the case with Christianity 300AD. When that happened Wicca become corrupted and independence are stamped out, much like the Gnostics of Church. Most of evil in Christian history happened when it was the state religion. Same thing will happen to any other religion regardless of its origins. That's was one major theme of this book: how the power to stoap on an individual's life and person can corrupt society as a whole. People who don't get it are just not really reading it. They're just nitpicking. Now, I think that the author should has bring up some history to make his theme a bit stronger. But that's a small weakness in one incredilbe emotional work.

A Strange World, Yet Deeply Real: COULD HAPPEN!

J. Neil Schulman has done a masterful job of extrapolating from trends (good, bad, and just plain strange) in our current cultures. If you want to know what the future might feel like - from the inside - THE RAINBOW CADENZA will take you there. Warning: you may never see the present in the same way again!

A thought-provoking, scary view of the future

I do not understand why this book is out of print! I read A Rainbow Cadenza (a winner if the Prometheus Award) about 10 years ago and have always remembered it and recommend it as one of the best science fiction books I have encountered. I am also scared that many of the trends Schulman warns about in the book are coming true. The book is centered on Joan Darris, a lasergraphic composer and performer - holographic laser art has replaced music as the pre-eminent form of entertainment on Earth - and her struggles for freedom and artistic expression. Partially due to the ability of parents to select the sex of their children, males outnumber females 7 to 1 on Earth, and tax breaks for male children have not eased the problem any. The adage "Make Love, Not War" has been taken to its ultimately logical, but ridiculous conclusion: females are drafted into sexual service. Despite her budding talent, Joan is drafted. Schulman combines the concepts of the draft, lynchings, sexual slavery, sex selection of babies, the moral implications of cloning with holographic laser art in an intelligent, entertaining, thought-provoking and well-written book. Even though he is criticizing such aspects of our society, some of his sci-fi examples are becoming all too real. Scientists just announced parents can choose the sex of their baby and cloning is well underway. If you can find this book anywhere, read it and you will not be disappointed.