Customer Reviews

Darwin's Blade: A Novel of Suspense

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

I must say, I'm stunned at the volume of negative reviews of this book posted here. I, too, am a huge Dan Simmons fan, and I think this is the best book he's ever written.

First off, Darwin Minor is a great character. Practically emotionally shut down by horrific events in his past (which I won't reveal for those of you who plan to read the book), he has found a measure of comfort in the writings of Marcus Aurelius, the second century Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. One could do worse. For me, it's refreshing to see a modern hero whose life is built on SOME foundation (even if, as a Christian, I think its a wrong one), rather than the typical post-modern alienated protagonist who has no access to any tradition.

Second, this is a very funny book. I found myself laughing out loud in a number of spots. Like Jonathan Franzen said in a recent interview, I don't trust a writer who isn't funny. Simmons' depiction of antagonist Dallas Trace, a thinly disguised representation of noted legal blowhard Gerry Spence, besides being hilarious, makes me want to be sure I never get on Simmons' bad side.

Third, Sydney Olson, the female lead, is also a terrific character. Tough, intellegent, beautiful--and, here's the real kicker--believable. A modern woman, but not hide-bound by feminist claptrap. Yes, perhaps larger-than-life, but isn't that what we want in our heroes and heroines?

Fourth sprinkled throughout are a number of wonderful minor characters, especially W.W.D. DuBois, the brilliant and sardonic black lawyer. Also great are the Larry (it's "Lawrence") 'n' Trudy comedy team, who pose as accident investigators but in reality, we come to see, are perfect foils for the protagonist.

Fifth, there's a deep sadness that leaks through the edges of this novel. I don't know if it's intentional or not--maybe it's simply a product of Mr. Simmons' own somewhat austere and problematic philosophical orientation--but it gives the story a gritty texture that only enhances its appeal.

OK, the story's not entirely without problems. I could make no sense of the equations relating to one of the accident investigations. And there was too much detail for most readers regarding firearms, ballistics, the effects of wind on bullet speeds and trajecteries, etc. But I don't recall anyone getting too hacked off at Michael Crichton when he pulled out that fractal crap in Jurassic Park, and nobody seems to complain about the anal-retentive qualities of Mr. Foucault or Mr. Pynchon or Mr. Eco.

I have a theory about what the diehard Simmons' groupies don't like about this book. It's a little cartoonish. Their Literary Genius is having a little bit of fun. Also, many of the naysayers seem to have little familiarity with this genre; their critical remarks often take book and author to task for not writing another Carrion Comfort or Hyperion.

I for one would love to see a whole series of Darwin Minor books. He's one of the sharpest blades out there.

Although it pains me, I must admit that this book is not destined to enter the pantheon of Dan Simmons' great works. The talented and award winning author of such great novels as the Hyperion saga and Carrion Comfort has created his most pedestrian and simplistic work to date.

The novel centers around an accident investigator name Darwin Minor. He is the quintessential renassaince man: he has a razor sharp mind, photographic memory, incredible powers of deduction, and untold wealth; he is an excellent car driver and pilot of gliders (sailplanes), a veritable uberman who can go for days without sleep, who has better than 20/20 vision, and is an excellent sniper as well. Although Darwin is an interesting character, he is simply too good, and therein lies the problem. In creating such a super man as a protagonist, Mr. Simmons paints himself into a corner, whereby most problems that face our hero are handled with cool and professional ease and leaves little suspense. To further aggravate the problem, Mr. Simmons failed to create an equally compelling and able antagonist, and thus we have superman again mere mortals.

The novel pits Darwin against a web of criminal activity that involves the Russian mob and other unsavory characters in a complex plan to milk millions from the insurance companies. Reluctantly at first, Darwin is recruited to help the authorities solve the problem by a female investigator named Sydney. She is the only other character in the book who can keep up with Darwin, and I'm not revealing any crucial plot secrets in declaring that they will be attracted to one another. She is erudite, intelligent, calm under pressure, a great marksman(woman?), and has wit and charm as well. Obviously they were meant for one another.

In writing this novel, it becomes extremely apparent to the reader that Mr. Simmons has devoted a lot of time researching for this book. However, the research sometimes gets in the way because Mr. Simmons chose to include too much of it into the novel. For example, if Darwin Minor is driving his NSX, the reader is exposed to all the nuances and capabilities of the car; Darwin is flying his glider? Then we must know the make, the model, the flight characteristics, the geography of the area where he is flying, etc. I'm not disparaging Mr. Simmons work, and I will gladly admit that a lot of the information was enlightening and interesting, but the meat and bones of the novel should not be these technical details, no matter how well they are exposed and interwoven into the narrative.

Without a doubt, Mr. Simmons is a talented wordsmith, and this book is a page turner. However, the plot is pedestrian at best, with the supporting cast barely being developed; the situation is not gripping or compelling. The only thing that keeps the book moving along is Mr. Simmons skill with words and his ability to entertain the reader. But beyond that, the book has little value and comes as a disappointment, specially since Mr. Simmons has shown time and again that he can weave words around great ideas and plots to create true masterpieces.

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The first 100 pages of this book are nothing more than:

1) A commercial for Acura.
2) A retelling of internet urban-legend humor.
3) Ranting by the author about other people's grammar usage.

Point number 1 is mildly annoying. Do I really need to read an overblown tribute to the NSX and its "luxurious rubber mats?"

Point number 2 is particularly annoying. It is as though the author sifted through the "best" of the funny urban legends floating around the internet (including the since-debunked "Darwin Awards" and the "Funny things people write on insurance claims") to fill up his book. In one particularly egregious case, his protagonist has an hour before a meeting and goes to sit in on a court case. The events he witnesses are essentially the retelling of a joke. What does this diversion have to do with the book's plot or characters? Nothing at all. It's as though the author only had enough material for a short story and had to pad it with tired humor to reach novel size. I fully expected to find a chapter that started with "Dar walked into a bar and sat down next to a rabbi, the Pope and the Dalai Lama. The rabbi turned to the Pope and said..."

The third point is again mildly annoying. Novels shouldn't be used as a platform for petty grandstanding on the part of the author.

I finally gave up when I realized that I had read a third of the book and almost nothing had happened. Don't waste your time.

This was my first Dan Simmons novel. Also my last. After reading several reviews I was anxious to give him a try. What a let down. Darwin Minor is a thinly drawn caricature of the ultimate Renaissance Man. Unexplained wealth; art, music and classics lover; war hero; grieving widower, owner of every trinket known to man. What a guy! Is this book supposed to be a satire? The plot devices Simmons uses to introduce all of the bizarre insurance claims are just too strained. He uses several of them to launch into social commentary about everything from Princess Diana to the Challenger tragedy. Where he lost me for good, however, is when he tries to make Darwin into super Marine. He puts him in an improbable situation and even has the brass to name a supporting character Sgt. Carlos in reference to the legendary Marine sniper, Carlos Hathaway. His Marine references, though, are all wrong. He refers to himself and fellow former Marines several times as ex-marines. Wrong. He calls Marine utility uniforms fatigues several times. The army wears fatigues. His worse error is in scripting a conversation with a serving officer where they constantly refer to his service with the 7th Marine Regiment. In casual conversation, two Marines would say "7th Marines" or even just "the 7th". Seventh Marine Regiment is superfluous and uninformed. I won't even bother to get into the improbability of Darwin driving out of Camp Pendleton with a sniper rifle and 3000 rounds in the back of his vehicle! If you want credible sniper reading, give me Bob Lee Swagger anyday. This blade slices too thin, leaves no meat in the story.

I've been reading Simmons since I heard about him interviewed by Harlan Ellison on a LA radio show called Hour 25. That was right after Song of Kali came out. Since then, he was written all sorts of horror and science fiction and, more recently, mysteries.

While his previous foray into mysteries, The Crook Factory, was more of a WWII spy novel, this one is a modern day crime thriller. As always, Simmons shows why he is one of the better writers. This is a well-written suspense story with bits of humor that he usually doesn't show (the exception being Fires of Eden).

Unfortunately, I cannot give this five stars. The loss-of-one-star flaw is his use of a lot of anecdotal stories that are familiar to anyone who's been on the internet for a while: he incorporates various urban myths and "Darwin Award" stories into his novel, and besides the lack of creativity in this area, I knew the punch line to these stories long before they were over.

From the excerpt in the back of the book, it appears Simmons will go back to horror for his next novel. This is, to me, his strongest field, and it will be nice to see how he returns to his original genre.

This book is very disappointing, especially considering Mr. Simmons' talent. The main character is unbelievable: rich, intelligent, expert with a gun, mysterious background, etc.. As I was reading this, I felt like the author was showing off his talent in a book that he was probably obligated to write.

With the inclusion of a lot of "urban legends" Mr. Simmons comes across as smug, as if he's somehow laughing at his audience, not with them. If you find yourself forced to read a book by this author, make this one your last choice.

Before Darwin's Blade I thought Dan Simmons could do no wrong regardless of the genre that he chose to write in. This one is a big disappointment. It never takes off, the story never gells. But what turned me off the most is Simmons' contempt for the reader, for anyone less of a genius than himself. His constant referring to his specific preferences of weapons, food, furnishings, anything wears thin quickly. The hero (presumably Simmons image of himself) is so much smarter than the rest of the mere mortals in this book. But instead of this working in a fun way like a James Bond type character I found myself wishing he would just be humbled, but knew there was no chance of this happening. Simmons needs to take a step backward.

This is a very poor novel from Dan Simmons, totally lacking in depth or originality. It is less a novel than a collection of all those e-mails that have been circulated to you countless times about Insurance claims ("the tree jumped out in front of the car") and Darwin Award stories (stories of people whose stupidity leads to a horrible, if amusing, death). It appears to be a mere accumulation of 'facts' picked up from bar-room conversations and e-mails.

The characterization is lazy and lacking in depth. The hero of the story (and he is a real 'hero') was a Vietnam vet (he doesn't like to talk about it), his wife and child were killed in a plane crash and he is emotionally scarred by this (he doesn't like to talk about it), he drives fact cars, has a PHD, worked for NASA, has a vast collection of books, knows all about guns and ballistics (although he doesn't 'like' guns), and is an expert in crash reconstruction, which he can whack together into a computer simulation at the push of a button. Wow! This guy is something else!

The plot is even cornier. When an attempt is made on Dar's life by the Russian Mafia, he is assigned a tough ex-FBI agent to act as bodyguard - female, of course, whose past is just as sketchy and unoriginal (she looks like Stockard Channing - how's that for lazy characterization?). What follows is predictable and embarrassing - and no amount of self-knowing dialogue ("Isn't this just like a bad film plot") makes it any less corny and cliched. They even run through the old 'You know how to whistle, don't you?' routine! Dreadful.

You could possibly just accept this if the plot was in any way engaging or exciting, but any chance of moving the story along is interrupted by more attempts of Dan Simmons showing off how much research he has done. Dar unnecessarily walks over to a court-house and sits in on a joke court case, which does nothing to advance the plot. When we do get going and find a lead as to why the Russian mafia want to assassinate Dar (jeez!), the two leads decide to take a break and go plane-gliding. Why? At this point, 130 pages in, I bailed out.

Along with The Crook Factory (where facts were lifted verbatim from Cuban travel guides), this is another case of Dan Simmons showing how much research he can do and how his 'facts' are true and realistic. Realistic they may be, but it makes for a very boring read. From the author of the highly imaginative and non-realistic Hyperion Cantos and Summer Of Night, this is very disappointing.

I can't believe this is the same person who wrote Carrion Comfort and Hyperion. It's simplistic, full of cliches. It is like reading a rejected script for a Julia Roberts/William Hurt movie. It's clear Dan Simmons did his research -- too clear, in fact, because I couldn't help but feel that he laid in a lot of technical tidbits about accident reconstruction clumsily amongst a poorly executed action novel. The only reason I didn't give it one star is that it did make me laugh at a few points. Very disappointing, considering that (excluding Fires of Eden) I have loved everything else he has written.

This book was delightfull to read, I found myself putting it down at the intial scene of an accident and trying to figure out what happened before I read on. Once again Mr Simmons educates the reader, in an engrossing and fascinating style. Darwin's blade also scared me half to death, I'm driving much more carefully now, and the first thing I did after finishing it was to hand it to my newly driving teenage son. If you read LoveDeath and liked Entropy's Bed at Midnight you will love this Novel.