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Jun 16, 2009

Ninja Sock Puppet rated it:

I keep my teeth pretty clean. Though I don't floss as often as I should, I rarely worry about plaque. So you can understand why the prospect of reading an entire book about plaque had me wondering after my sanity. How good could it really be? But with a name like Darwin's Radio, it had to be awesome. Maybe something about how plaque is really a mechanism for evolution and we'd be toothless neanderthals without it.

What's that? Oh, PLAGUE. Sorry.

I don't understand micr More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2011

Stef rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 21, 2008

Mina rated it:

The first 200 pages or so of this book are incredibly engaging and interesting. I wasn't put off by the science talk, though there was too much of it -someone who truly understood it would probably find a lot of holes in it, and someone who didn't get it beyond the basics didn't really need to read so extensively about it- but after the first half, the book starts taking a plunge south. I stopped caring about the characters at some point in the middle, the female lead turning into quite a trope More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2007

Dan rated it:

Darwin’s Radio is a pleasure for someone who loves hard science fiction, as I do. Here’s the premise: SHEVA, a retrovirus long-buried in our genes, suddenly awakens and begins to attack pregnant women, forcing them to miscarry after three months. But that’s just the beginning – after the miscarriage, these same women spontaneously become pregnant again, this time developing a fetus that’s not quite human. The federal government, led by the science establishment, after first denying the truth, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 28, 2008

Katie rated it:

I liked it. I started it as an audiobook for a long weekend drive up to Eugene and I liked it enough to check out the book and finish reading it once I got back-I thought about finishing it through the cds but that would have taken too long and I HAD to know what would happen. It's really like two books in one. The first part has lots of science and a slower pace, then the book starts to go down an entirely different and unexpected path, raising some interesting ethical issues along the way. More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2008

Lightreads rated it:

A CDC disease chaser discovers a virus that seems to be asymptomatic in everyone but pregnant women, and mass graves in Georgia (the country) and a newly discovered family of forty thousand year old mummies suggest this isn’t the first outbreak. And our heroes -- that CDC disease hound, a successful biologist, and an anthropologist with questionable ethics -- begin to suspect it isn’t an outbreak at all.

Okay, so it’s not actually a ‘read a textbook instead’ science fiction book. I me More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 30, 2008

Tara rated it:

This book was fabulously engaging and well-orchestrated. Despite setting and character shifts at the end of every chapter, it was never difficult to track where on the timeline and geography of the novel I was. The scientific precepts of the book, while fantastic, are not unbelievable and deal with what the author calls subspeciation. The tenet of the book is that evolution is a force of its own - that the human genome gathers information and stores it in what we call 'junk' DNA [ha! biology! I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 23, 2011

manuti rated it:

Otro más leído casi del tirón. Además muy apropiado en los tiempos que corren de gripe A o porcina o nueva gripe. En este caso se llama gripe herodes, y ya os podéis imaginar el porqué.
Una novela que el Times colocó como la 2ª mejor entre las 10 novelas de ciencia-ficción de todos los tiempos. Para hacer la reseña he mirado varias críticas y la mayoría son buenas, y yo creo que se merece 4 estrellas, además me han entrado bastantes ganas de leer otra novela suya: Música en la sangre que cre More...

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Aug 16, 2011

Daniel rated it:

La encontré entre una pila de libros que me prestó mi padre hace algún tiempo y que tenía por olvidado. Con el gancho de ser ganadora del premio Nébula (dicen que es el equivalente al Óscar) y finalista del Hugo n el 2000, pues que me di a la lectura gustoso.

El libro es un thriller bstsellereco que llora por la miniserie. La historia es simple y a causa de esa simpleza, el autor arroja toda su capacidad de novelista sobre el lector y desborda con una cantidad abrumadora de spam.
More...

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Jun 25, 2011

Fred rated it:

Disgraced archaeologist Mitch Rafelson follows a pair of relic hunters across a glacier to a cave in the Alps that contains an impossible secret.

Biologist Kaye Lang investigates a mass grave near Geordi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and makes a startling discovery.

Officials at the CDC struggle to comprehend a strange new disease killing expectant mothers and their babies.

Three events more intimately related than anyone might imagine. Something is rewrit More...

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Mar 22, 2011

Paul (formerly known as Current) rated it:

Beautiful, brilliant, and conveniently well-off scientist is able to move from the realm of science into that of parenthood successfully surviving suburban unrest fueled by fear and religion and circumventing the worst aspects of totalitarianism. Other characters, rather lost in the background.

An enjoyable story, strongly driven by the social effects of a new virus on the US (and in an adhoc manner, the rest of the world)--this story skirts around the edge of many "outbreak" More...

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Jan 12, 2011

Lis rated it:

Young women are getting a virus, which causes them, if they are pregnant, to miscarry. But then they get pregnant again--without sex. Immaculate conception, apparently. Meanwhile, an investigator for the Centers for Disease Control, looking for a disease scary enough to preserve CDC's funding so that it will survive to fight the next big threat, finds evidence of strange massacres that have occurred in different parts of the world over the last fifty years: massacres of pregnant women and their More...

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Jan 08, 2011

Jason rated it:

A very detailed and hard Science fiction book especially in the first half. Very engaging story line and a interesting look into evolution and the social implications of what could happen in today's time if there was a new take on the human race. As good as the science fiction part of the book was written I found myself wanting more on the social implications and how the government responded to the crisis. How far would any government go to protect the existing human race to the potential thr More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 13, 2010

Julia rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 10, 2010

Jeff rated it:

There had never been any physical evidence found of how speciation occurred in the human race. Had Neandertals slowly evolved over millennia into Homo Sapiens Sapiens or had evolution jumped directly to the next step in one generation?

Now actual physical evidence had been found in an ice cave in a remote section of the Swiss Alps. That evidence would not only prove that evolution could and would, in stressful times, give birth to the next evolutionary stage but would also give modern More...

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Nov 13, 2009

Tom rated it:

A mass grave in Russia that conceals the mummified remains of two women, both with child--and the conspiracy to keep it secret . . . a major discovery high in the Alps: the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family--the newborn infant possessing disturbing characteristics . . . a mysterious disease that strikes only pregnant women, resulting in miscarriage. Three disparate facts that will converge into one science-shattering truth.

Molecular biologist Kaye Lang, a specialist in retrovi More...

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Sep 12, 2009

Patrick rated it:

There is a significant amount of science revolving around evolution, genetics, virology, and mutation. Bear crafts a magnificent story about these subjects as they apply to the mass population and how we as humans might react to biological issues. What would humans do if the homo sapiens species was threatened? What kind of politics would unfold in the local and national level? These are some of the most important issues that Bear addresses and chronicles. It is interesting to read about the har More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 17, 2009

Ceridwen rated it:

I started this one, because the actual book I'm reading is too hard to read when I'm sleepy. So I'm kind of cheating on my actual book, but it's okay, because I still really love it, I'm just looking for something dumb but pretty that won't ask me too many questions. Richard recommended this to me because he knows I'm a sucker for plague narratives. So I start in, and the book is written is in that SF style that's this odd mixture of perfunctory yet florid. The absolute pinnacle of this sort of More...

7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Mar 06, 2011

Kathy rated it:

Actually 3.5, were that possible on GoodReads.

I really enjoy science fiction with lots of science, and especially evolutionary concepts, so this book appealed to me immensely in theory. In practice, I found myself skipping huge amounts of text so I could move the plot along. The science behind the concept was intriguing and well developed, but the rest of the story dragged on longer than I thought necessary. For those who like their scifi with indepth descriptions of every character More...

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Dec 25, 2009

Kim rated it:

This might be the most engaging sci-fi book I've read in months or possibly years.

Although I had to fight my inclination to edit the book as I read (lots of extraneous details that hinder rather than help, and some clunky habits), the story was compelling enough to keep me reading at a rapid clip.

In present-day end-of-the-millennium, a massive challenge to the accepted theory of gradual evolution threatens the entire human population's ability to understand itself. Bear's More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 27, 2009

John rated it:

While doing some driving around, I listened to the audio book of Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio, a bit of sci fi that I've had on my shelf for some years but never got around to reading. Well, it was a fine way to pass the time.

Here we have a collision of scientific worlds. A rogue archealogist finds a pair of neanderthal bodies high in the alps... along with a homo sapiens child... which seems to be theirs. Meanwhile, a strange virus emerges from deep within our own genes, causing women t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 15, 2009

Angela rated it:

The story begins in the new Republic of Georgia (Russia), where Dr. Kay Lang is called in to evaluate a mass grave nearby. What she sees there soon becomes controversial enough that the UN is ordered to leave.

Mitch Rafelson is climbing in the mountains with his ex-lover and another man, to seek out a cave they found with ancient mummies. What he finds there will open a controversy wide enough to guarantee his reputation will remain scarred.

Christopher Dicken is a virus More...

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Jun 08, 2010

Tulara rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Feb 20, 2009

Mara rated it:

There is a lot of hard-core science in this book, far more than was probably necessary. I got the basic idea, but a lot of the exposition bogged me down. Still, the explanations for the biology seemed good, and were realistically included, usually in the context of a scientist explaining something to a politician. But since there were a lot of politicians involved, there was a lot of explaining that needed to be done. So, in addition to trying to figure out all the science, one also has to keep More...

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Mar 07, 2010

Judy rated it:

I finished this book about a month before I wrote this micro review. It won the Nebula Award in 2000 and it is totally great. Science, medicine, government, business, politics are all involved in a story about anomalies that begin to show up in pregnant women and babies and look to certain scientists like some kind of evolutionary step but to government like a kind of virus plague similar to AIDS.

The heroes are two scientists with excellent minds. Kaye is a geneticist and Mitch an arch More...

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Sep 17, 2009

Steve rated it:

Good story, but a little bit of a difficult read because of all the hard science. The heavy biology involved in the story slows the pacing, and unless you've a MS in Biology, you'll find yourself reading passages without absorbing their technical meaning. I had to just go with the flow of those passages and almost assume it all made scientific sense, which, given the author's reputation and the book's numerous awards wins (Nebula Award and Endeavor Award in 2000) and nominations (Hugo Award), More...

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May 02, 2011

Emma rated it:

Another one from the book swap and I am glad to say that I quite liked it. Ordinarily, science fiction isn't really my thing as I either haven't got the imaginative capacity for it or simply can't engage with what's going on or a combination of the two. That said, I have always loved John Wyndham and this book felt, to me, much more of that school of science fiction - rooted in reality and taken just a step or two further and so not requiring significant 'suspension of disbelief' to make it be More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Klytia rated it:

Spesso la domenica pomeriggio la tv trasmette quei film che io chiamo le "catastrofi della domenica": sono film, talvolta a basso costo, con una regia ignorante fatta di zoom compulsivi, cambi di inquadratura repentini e salti di scena con poco senso.
L'intera razza umana è sempre minacciata da qualcosa, le persone sono una massa di ignoranti isterici; i politicanti ottusi per i quali la soluzione è spesso la legge marziale, con fucilate sulla folla e campi di concentramento, quan More...

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Dec 05, 2009

Mike rated it:

This was written a while ago, you could see that the author had a lot of potential, and I love some of his later books, but this one was disappointing. Too much gossipy fluff dialogue, and way too much feminism, the male and female roles are so lopsided and the men are judged so harshly I started skimming those sections so I could find the story again. With good books I soak up every word, I only resort to skimming if I'm tempted to stop reading the book. This book was sort of worth finishing, b More...

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Jul 07, 2010

Hugo rated it:

Although it was less "sci-fi"-ish than I expected, one could say that it was somewhat of a Childhood's End for the 21st century.

It's rather heavy on the molecular biology in parts, but not disturbingly so. Although it starts out a bit like a science thriller like Jurassic Park or The Andromeda Strain, it soon delves deeper into the science and the story itself slows down and becomes more of a relationship drama towards the end, which I found a bit disappointing.

Othe More...

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