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Rating: 
Summary: Thinly veiled Libertarian propaganda
Review: A previous reader gave a decent plot synopsis, so I won't repeat that and will get right on to my review:The point of this book seems to be that any taxation at all is wrong, that any rules by any government are wrong, that all government wants to do is take your money and send you to war, and that everything would be all hunky dory if the government just got out of the way. While the utopian ideal of a society where everyone is equal and gets along well with everyone else and everything works perfectly without any government interference is very nice, it's not practical or realistic. Utopia isn't possible. I forced myself to finish this book despite frustrating propagandizing. Some scenes appeared to be designed just to espouse Libertarian philosophy. The reason I gave it two stars as opposed to one is the interesting use of laser art as a new art form. Schulman does a great job of describing the way the art is performed and the complex culture that develops around it, from high society performances in auditoriums (much like classical music and symphonies) to pop culture gigs in bars (much like pop music and garage bands). I also felt that Schulman didn't understand women very well, and his protagonist was two dimensional and unbelievable. Her views are sexist while pretending to be feminist (in that very Heinlein way) and she was completely annoying. If you're a Libertarian, you probably would like this book, but I don't like books that are thinly veiled propaganda, even when I agree with their point of view. It detracts from the story and is bad literature in my opinion. The award this book won was the Prometheus award solely to acknoweldge Libertarian science fiction. Interestingly, of the 50 or so award winners over the years, only one has been a woman.
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Summary: Visions of the future
Review: 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.
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Summary: A thought-provoking, scary view of the future
Review: 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.
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Summary: A response to some reviews
Review: 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.
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Summary: A response to some reviews
Review: 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.
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Summary: A Strange World, Yet Deeply Real: COULD HAPPEN!
Review: 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!
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Summary: The acclaimed novel of political correctness gone wild!
Review: Praise for THE RAINBOW CADENZA ''The Rainbow Cadenza' is much more than merely a well and complexly plotted novel. It is also a novel of ideas -- ideas about art and commercialism; politics; economics and technology; and human psychology. It is that rare thing, a genuinely intellectual thriller.' --Jeff Riggenbach, San Jose Mercury News 'The book left me feeling for three days that I wished I'd been born without a penis.' --Larry Niven, to the author '[I]n The Rainbow Cadenza, J. Neil Schulman has touched yet another nerve. The damn book haunted me for days after I read it. ... J. Neil Schulman has given us not only a fine story but a great deal to think about -- perhaps especially if we think ourselves sexually unprejudiced.' --Poul Anderson, Reason Magazine 'An original and thoughtful book which raises questions that have not appeared in fiction before.' --Gregory Benford 'An intensively interesting evocation of complex psychological realities. Imaginative and original. Mr. Schulman is a remarkably gifted writer.' --Nathaniel Branden, author of The Psychology of Self Esteem and My Life With Ayn Rand
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Summary: The World Was Finally Politically Correct!
Review: The People Who Care have remade the earth in their image, and it's an earthly paradise. War, hunger, racism, nationalism, random crime and violence, and most diseases have been conquered. Humanity is joined together under a single, popularly-elected world government. If you even want to find a gun anywhere on earth, you'd probably have to look in a museum. Technology is tamed to the needs of humankind, rather than despoiling the earth. Gay men and lesbians are not only just tolerated at the fringes of society, but are among its most powerful and respected members. Gay marriage is an institution as normal as any other marriage. Women are more politically powerful than at any time in human history. Abortion is freely available to any woman who wants it. The First Lady is Head of State. So why isn't everything perfect for everyone? Who are the new underclass called Touchables, and why are they hunted for sport? What social problems has cloning human beings created, and why are clones treated as inferior? Why do men outnumber women seven-to-one? And why are teenaged women being drafted into government service for three years? This 1984 Prometheus-award-winning novel is the story of Joan Darris, a brilliant young artist in the medium of laser concerts. Is it her destiny to play music for men's eyes, or to make herself a plaything for their desires? Why does her love for her mother threaten to subject her to three years of legalized rape, and why does her family--the very politics on Earth in her time--tell her it's her duty to comply? How does the murder she witnessed at five years old make legalized rape seem the lesser of evils twelve years later--and how does the lingering horror of that murder threaten not only to rob her of her artistic triumph but threaten the life of a man she loves but who can't give himself to her without betraying everything he believes in? Joan Darris's world is an Earth with Marnies who hunt Touchables, with Gaylords and Ladies, with televised trials that sentence resisters to death in microwave ovens--an Earth that has eliminated war, but which has found new outlets for violence. Like the cautionary tales of Orwell and Huxley, the philosophical novels of Ayn Rand, the realistic speculation of Heinlein, the satiric fiction of Anthony Burgess, The Rainbow Cadenza uses the device of futuristic fiction to ask fundamental questions about the personal, political, and religious values to which we dedicate our lives, and to shed light on the problems we face today. The Rainbow Cadenza has been controversial right from its very beginning and remains controversial today. When submitted in outline to Playboy Books, it was turned down by an editor who wrote in her rejection that "sex is too essential an element to the story being told; we're looking for otherworldly science fiction with some sex thrown in." The Rainbow Cadenza may well be the only book ever rejected because the sex wasn't gratuitous. After appearing in hardcover from Simon & Schuster and winning the Prometheus Award, Baen Books withdrew an offer to reprint it in paperback after Schulman refused to edit out the book's most controversial sex scenes--scenes which set up the character conflicts for the climax of the story. Is this book just a cheap science-fiction soap opera? Or one of the best novels ever written? It's been called both. Some women say it's the best book they've ever read. It leaves others cold. How will it affect you? You'll have to read it to find out. The Rainbow Cadenza has been out of print since 1986. Now, Pulpless.Com is making J. Neil Schulman's novel of political correctness gone wild available once again. This new Pulpless.Com edition includes eight afterwords exploring various themes used in the novel--including an updated afterword by Ivan Dryer, CEO of Laser Images, Inc.--as well as an encyclopedic glossary of the inventive language used in the novel!
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Summary: The Rainbow Cadenza
Review: Yes, it's an interesting, creative, thought provoking book. The problem is that it portrays the Wiccan religion as an authoritarian means of oppression, which is ridiculous to the point I would have laughed out loud if I had not been so disgusted. I've been a Wiccan for 18+ years, and I have found Wiccans to be the most independent people I have ever met, who often have a real suspicion of authority, coercion and control. The idea of Wicca as an organized sanctioned 'state religion' is also silly, as Wiccans tend to prefer small autonomous groups - just getting a couple of these groups to cooperate for a large festival can sometimes be a daunting task because of the level of independence displayed- think of 'herding cats'. Also, sex in the Wiccan view is sacred and should NEVER be forced or coerced. Forced sex is *obscene* and an insult to the Goddess. I don't care what they did in the ( Patriarchal ) ancient world, modern Wiccans would find the idea of forced prostitution to be appalling. I was present at a gathering where a newcomer voiced a similar view in a discussion, and he was shunned for the rest of the gathering. Wiccans revere females, I cannot concieve of a supposedly Wiccan state religion limited the number of female births and oppressing those who are born!
I'm sorry an otherwise thoughtful and well written book was ruined by this basic lack of understanding of a minority religion- and the author claims to have talked to Witches? Whoever he talked to is probably foaming at the mouth at having their teachings so distorted.
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