Darwin's Radio

ISBN: 1-7887-4087-3 Order from: Recorded Books

This very interesting speculation about genetic change features plausible-sounding science and decent characters, but suffers from viewpoint hopping, too much politics and a weak plot.

Reviewed by David on October 15, 2000

Genre: Science Fiction (Near Future, Biology, Epidemic, Politics)

Synopsis: In a few years time, a new decease, starts to spread in the US. After some flue-like simptoms, women of childbearing age start having miscarriages or strangely deformed stillbirths. Dubbed Herod's Flue by reporters, the frightening decease appears to be related to ancient mechanism inside the Human "junk DNA", and was described a few years earlier by a brilliant young biologist, Kaye Lang. As Kaye and other scientists race to understand the decease, other events indicate that it may have been striking isolated villages in the Near East for decades. Even more puzzling are the controversial paleontological discoveries. The evidence suggests that the virus hiding in our own genes may have been a part of human heritage for millions of years.

Full Review: This is an unabridged recording of Darwin's Radio.

Bear presents a fascinating theory. In a seemingly plausible method, the relationship between retroviruses, reproduction and evolution may be more complex and more startling than anyone had predicted.

In this book of politics, science and romance, however, the non-science elements are less enjoyable. The build-up, jumping between three viewpoints, seems so slow as to be ponderous. Endless observation of politics, scientific and governmental, gets in the way of what is, after all, fascinating and relatively obvious (in the book) discovery. The various characters, including the heroes, behave with frustrating denseness. In particular, even the spunky, brilliant Kaye sometimes behaves in such a weak, vacillating or emotional matter as to invoke in reader a desire to shake her.

Some of the politicians and scientists are portrayed in as caricatures.

The ending of the book seems rushed and anticlimactic, and while the genetic theory sounds plausible, some of the specifics seemed over the top.

On the whole, this is an entertaining book, especially for its basic ideas. However, it would have benefited from a tighter plot, less build-up, and a better ending.

Overall: 5.5; Plot: 4; Characters: 5.5; Style: 5.5; World-building: 5; Originality: 7;

ISBN: 1-7887-4087-3 Order from: Recorded Books