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Title: Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear ISBN: 0-345-43524-9 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 05 July, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (216 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: hard sci-fi for the masses...
Comment: This was the first full-length novel I've read from Greg Bear and it is a highly-impressive intro to the author.
I appreciated the short chapters and fast-paced movement of the story. The book contains a handful of plot-lines and many worthwhile characters who help advance the story to ever-increasing levels of political and sociological conflicts. The dialogue may have been kinda phony-sounding and weak in some spots, but they adequately get the character's ideas across.
Even though the book reads well for one that is 500+ pages long, I felt there could have been at least 100 pages cut out here and there without tampering with the meat of the story.
The story however is fascinating if you're interested in human evolution and the politics behind global disease control, but sadly the entire book feels just like a primer for the sequel "Darwin's Children". It seemed like the book was just get started when it ended! Well, I guess that's a good ploy to get me to read part two. And I AM looking forward to it.
Rating: 3
Summary: Novel doesn't live up to its beginning
Comment: Molecular biologist Kaye Lang, a specialist in retroviruses, works in an obscure corner of her field, so she is utterly unprepared for the tidal wave of fame that strikes when her work becomes the lynchpin of a battle against a devastating new disease. Pregnant women around the world are contracting "Herod's flu," a mysterious illness that severely deforms and kills fetuses. As public pressure and hysteria grow, the U.S. government enlists biotech companies and universities in a race to find a cure, with a reluctant Kaye recruited as their figurehead scientist.
While efforts focus on finding a vaccine, Kaye becomes more and more convinced that researchers are chasing a dead end. The key, unexpectedly, lies with Mitch Rafelson, a maverick anthropologist who discovered a mummified Neanderthal family. Mitch believes the Neanderthal DNA may contain evidence to prove that the retrovirus "SHEVA" is not a disease, but rather the next step in human evolution. But nobody is willing to listen to him.
DARWIN'S RADIO starts out as an engrossing, fast-paced scientific detective story with well drawn characters. As usual in Bear's novels, the science is strong and extremely detailed (and I REALLY could have used that glossary that I didn't find until I got to the end of the book). The near future settings are vivid, and Bear does an especially excellent job of depicting the biotech industry and its relationship with the American government.
Unfortunately, the end of this novel doesn't live up to its beginning, and Bear's problem is structural. Fundamentally this is two different types of stories sandwiched awkwardly together. What begins as a scientific suspense tale about the race to cure a disease, shifts suddenly to a different problem in new settings, narrated at a slower pace. Plot threads developed in the first half of the book are dropped or receive only perfunctory attention, and most characters, including one of the three protagonists, are virtually abandoned.
I can't comment in greater detail on DARWIN'S RADIO without including spoilers, so I'll just say that I found both my suspension of disbelief and my patience wearing very thin in the concluding chapters of this book. And it was frustrating. Bear is an excellent writer. With a stronger ending, this would have been one hell of a book.
Rating: 2
Summary: Poor story line
Comment: I'm going to keep this review short. Just wanted to give a rating so that system is fair, meaning the ratings are not filled with all 5 star people telling you to buy it.
The book meanders through needless details that do not contribute anything to the story. Main characters husband commits suicide, big deal. They find neanderthals with speciation, big deal.
Read Eon by Bear, it is much better and more imaginative.
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Title: Darwin's Children by GREG BEAR ISBN: 0345448359 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Moving Mars by Greg Bear ISBN: 0812524802 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1994 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0765345005 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Blood Music by Greg Bear ISBN: 0743444965 Publisher: Ibooks Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Ilium (SIMMONS, DAN) by Dan Simmons, Homer Iliad ISBN: 0380978938 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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