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Darwin's Radio Paperback – March 4, 2003

by Greg Bear (Author)

1,025

Book 1 of 2: Darwin's Radio

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A 2000 HUGO AWARD NOMINEE

Greg Bear's powerfully written, brilliantly inventive novels combine cutting-edge science and unforgettable characters, illuminating dazzling new technologies--and their dangers. Now, in Darwin's Radio, Bear draws on state-of-the-art biological and anthropological research to give us an ingeniously plotted thriller that questions everything we believe about human origins and destiny--as civilization confronts the next terrifying step in evolution.

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 retroviruses, believes that ancient diseases encoded in the DNA of humans can again come to life. But her theory soon becomes chilling reality. For Christopher Dicken--a "virus hunter" at the Epidemic Intelligence Service--has pursued an elusive flu-like disease that strikes down expectant mothers and their offspring. The shocking link: something that has slept in our genes for millions of years is waking up.

Now, as the outbreak of this terrifying disease threatens to become a deadly epidemic, Dicken and Lang, along with anthropologist Mitch Rafelson, must race against time to assemble the pieces of a puzzle only they are equipped to solve. An evolutionary puzzle that will determine the future of the human race . . . if a future exists at all.

A fiercely intelligent, utterly enthralling novel of adventure and ideas, genetics and evolution, a fast-paced thriller that is grounded in the timeless human themes of struggle, loss, and redemption, Darwin's Radio is sure to become one of the most talked-about books of the year.

From the Hardcover edition.

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Book 1 of 2

Darwin's Radio
Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ballantine Books
Publication date

March 4, 2003
Dimensions

6 x 1 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0345459814
ISBN-13

978-0345459817
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

In a world of fragile self-justification, the truth made no one happy.
Highlighted by 75 Kindle readers
“Because SHEVA’s a messenger,” Kaye said, her voice soft, between dreamy and distracted. “It’s Darwin’s radio.”
Highlighted by 60 Kindle readers
Many metazoans—nonbacterial life-forms—carried the dormant remains of ancient retroviruses in their genes. As much as one third of the human genome, our complete genetic record, was made up of these so-called endogenous retroviruses.
Highlighted by 58 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"WOW! What a splendid (scary) notion: a human upgrade! What a superb plot! Darwin's Radio is bloody damned good."
--ANNE MCCAFFREY

"Bear is one of our very best, and most innovative, speculative writers."
--New York Daily News

"Superb . . . Bear's novel is frighteningly believable with a lot of clearly explained hard science, but the personal struggles of the well-realized characters keep everything on a human level."
--Focus

"Bear is a writer of passionate vision."
--Locus

"Darwin's Radio scores a high rating on the thrill monitor."
--Birmingham Post (England)

"Absorbing and ingenious."
--Kirkus Reviews

From the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

AWARD NOMINEE

Greg Bear's powerfully written, brilliantly inventive novels combine cutting-edge science and unforgettable characters, illuminating dazzling new technologies--and their dangers. Now, in Darwin's Radio, Bear draws on state-of-the-art biological and anthropological research to give us an ingeniously plotted thriller that questions everything we believe about human origins and destiny--as civilization confronts the next terrifying step in evolution.

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 retroviruses, believes that a

From the Back Cover

AWARD NOMINEE

Greg Bear's powerfully written, brilliantly inventive novels combine cutting-edge science and unforgettable characters, illuminating dazzling new technologies--and their dangers. Now, in Darwin's Radio, Bear draws on state-of-the-art biological and anthropological research to give us an ingeniously plotted thriller that questions everything we believe about human origins and destiny--as civilization confronts the next terrifying step in evolution.

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 retroviruses, believes that a

About the Author

Greg Bear is the author of twenty-four books, which have been translated into a dozen languages. He has been awarded two Hugos and four Nebulas for his fiction. He was called the "best working writer of hard science fiction" by The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra. Darwin's Radio is a 2000 Hugo Award nominee.

From the Paperback edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Alps, near the Austrian Border with Italy
AUGUST

The flat afternoon sky spread over the black and gray mountains like a stage backdrop, the color of a dog's pale crazy eye.

His ankles aching and back burning from a misplaced loop of nylon rope, Mitch Rafelson followed Tilde's quick female form along the margin between the white firn and a dust of new snow on the field. Mingled with the ice boulders of the fall, crenels and spikes of old ice had been sculpted by summer heat into milky, flint-edged knives.

To Mitch's left, the mountains rose over the jumble of black boulders flanking the broken slope of the ice fall. On the right, in the full glare of the sun, the ice rose in blinding brilliance to the perfect catenary of the cirque.

Franco was about twenty yards to the south, hidden by the rim of Mitch's goggles. Mitch could hear him but not see him. Some kilometers behind, also out of sight now, was the brilliant orange, round fiberglass-and-aluminum bivouac where they had made their last rest stop. He did not know how many kilometers they were from the last hut, whose name he had forgotten; but the memory of bright sun and warm tea in the sitting room, the Gaststube, gave him some strength. When this ordeal was over, he would get another cup of strong tea and sit in the Gaststube and thank God he was warm and alive.

They were approaching the wall of rock and a bridge of snow lying over a chasm dug by meltwater. These now-frozen streams formed during the spring and summer and eroded the edge of the glacier. Beyond the bridge, depending from a U-shaped depression in the wall, rose what looked like a gnome's upside-down castle, or a pipe organ carved from ice: a frozen waterfall spread out in many thick columns. Chunks of dislodged ice and drifts of snow gathered around the dirty white of the base; sun burnished the cream and white at the top.

Franco came into view as if out of a fog and joined up with Tilde. So far they had been on relatively level glacier. Now it seemed that Tilde and Franco were going to scale the pipe organ.

Mitch stopped for a moment and reached behind to pull out his ice ax. He pushed up his goggles, crouched, then fell back on his butt with a grunt to check his crampons. Ice balls between the spikes yielded to his knife.

Tilde walked back a few yards to speak to him. He looked up at her, his thick dark eyebrows forming a bridge over a pushed-up nose, round green eyes blinking at the cold.

"This saves us an hour," Tilde said, pointing at the pipe organ. "It's late. You've slowed us down." Her English came precise from thin lips, with a seductive Austrian accent. She had a slight but well-proportioned figure, white blond hair tucked under a dark blue Polartec cap, an elfin face with clear gray eyes. Attractive, but not Mitch's type; still, they had been lovers of the moment before Franco arrived.

"I told you I haven't climbed in eight years," Mitch said. Franco was showing him up handily. The Italian leaned on his ax near the pipe organ.

Tilde weighed and measured everything, took only the best, discarded the second best, yet never cut ties in case her past connections should prove useful. Franco had a square jaw and white teeth and a square head with thick black hair shaved at the sides, an eagle nose, Mediterranean olive skin, broad shoulders and arms knotted with muscles, fine hands, very strong. He was not too smart for Tilde, but no dummy, either. Mitch could imagine Tilde pulled from her thick Austrian forest by the prospect of bedding Franco, light against dark, like layers in a torte. He felt curiously detached from this image. Tilde made love with a mechanical rigor that had deceived Mitch for a time, until he realized she was merely going through the moves, one after the other, as a kind of intellectual exercise. She ate the same way. Nothing moved her deeply, yet she had real wit at times, and a lovely smile that drew lines on the corners of those thin, precise lips.

"We must go down before sunset," Tilde said. "I don't know what the weather will do. It's two hours to the cave. Not very far, but a hard climb. If we're lucky, you'll have an hour to look at what we've found."

"I'll do my best," Mitch said. "How far are we from the tourist trails? I haven't seen any red paint in hours."

Tilde pulled away her goggles to wipe them, gave him a flash smile with no warmth. "No tourists up here. Most good climbers stay away, too. But I know my way."

"Snow goddess," Mitch said.

"What do you expect?" she said, taking it as a compliment. "I've climbed here since I was a girl."

"You're still a girl," Mitch said. "Twenty-five, twenty-six?"

She had never revealed her age to Mitch. Now she appraised him as if he were a gemstone she might reconsider purchasing. "I am thirty-two. Franco is forty but he's faster than you."

"To hell with Franco," Mitch said without anger.

Tilde curled her lip in amusement. "We are all weird today," she said, turning away. "Even Franco feels it. But another Iceman ... what would that be worth?"

The very thought shortened Mitch's breath, and he did not need that now. His excitement curled back on itself, mixing with his exhaustion. "I don't know," he said.

From the Paperback edition.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books (March 4, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345459814
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345459817
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,333,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #607,788 in Literature & Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,025

About the author

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Greg Bear

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Greg Bear is the author of more than thirty books, spanning thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy, including Blood Music, Eon, The Forge of God, Darwin's Radio, City at the End of Time, and Hull Zero Three. His books have won numerous international prizes, have been translated into more than twenty-two languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Over the last twenty-eight years, he has also served as a consultant for NASA, the U.S. Army, the State Department, the International Food Protection Association, and Homeland Security on matters ranging from privatizing space to food safety, the frontiers of microbiology and genetics, and biological security.

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4.3 out of 5

1,025 global ratings

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Great concept made plausible by good science

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2006

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I enjoyed this clever novel very much and unlike some reviewers think that the hard science is not at all tiresome. On the contrary, the careful explanations of genetics, bacteriophages, evolution and viruses are extremely helpful, even essential, for fully appreciating the story line. For readers who are not scientists, but who are smart and curious, this is a highly satisfying book.

One of the main reasons that I seek out great science fiction like Darwin's Radio is that I believe writers like Gregg Bear are creating a plausible cosmology for the 21st Century. The old religions certainly aren't believable any longer, so for a person who is educated and also spiritual there is not much out there in the way of a reasonant belief system. Religion and science seem to me to be two facets of the same thing. Just different aspects to examine the cosmos and imbue it with meaning. Writers like Bear, Baxter and, as ever, Arthur C. Clarke help us make sense of our high-tech environment and envision a future that is hopeful.

If you are one of those people who wonders "what if?" and believes that there are powers unseen and benign, you should read this novel. It is highly imaginative and highly recommended.

7 people found this helpful

Great Story Based on Well Researched Science

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2023

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Darwin's Radio is a great story with a solid plot fed by a couple of intriguing subplots that come together and tie up very nicely. The prose is wonderful throughout with colorful though concise descriptions that put the reader front and center in each scene. The characters are deep and fleshed out very well with distinct voices. The science behind the fiction is well researched and clearly explained. The only things that took me out of the story were a couple of points in a couple of the main characters arcs where they strayed dramatically out of character without any real setup for the changes. They came back after a time, but these deviations were notable. Finally, the climax was fine, but expected. It also was a bit subdued.

There are a couple bonuses included after the story which really do add quite a bit to the overall experience. There is a short biological primer and a glossary of scientific terms which, when taken together, add context to many of the themes explored throughout the story.

I am looking forward to reading the follow up to this one, Darwin's Children.

One person found this helpful

Randy C. Bissell

excellent value

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2024

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Delivered earlier than expected, in good shape.

Interesting Topic Impaired By Odd Pacing and Characters

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2012

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Modern biologists have long taken the view that evolution happens in small steps over many generations. That notion is challenged with the appearance of SHEVA, a retrovirus so sinister it appears to be killing children in the womb. As more research happens however, it appears that SHEVA may not be a virulent disease after all and that humanity is about to take a large evolutionary step forward in very short order. The government, worried that the children and parents of SHEVA carriers may represent a vector of new diseases, orders that they be quarantined for the good of humanity. A few scientists outside the mainstream think that SHEVA children are not to be feared, but are the next step in human evolution. Can they avoid the government long enough to find out?

The premise of Darwin's Radio really is a good one, but for me, the execution was somewhat flawed. First, the reader knows too much about the SHEVA virus before the primary point-of-view character's in the novel, leaving very little "thrill" to a book that is essentially a biological techno-thriller. For me, the first half of the book was a very technical look at the microbiology of diseases, retroviruses and phages...very clinical and dry. It isn't until 250 pages or so into the book before the brilliant scientists, biologists and virologists begin to catch on to the fact that SHEVA may not be a disease after all, and my general feeling at that point was "thanks for catching up, can we move along now?"

The second half of the book reads a bit fast, as a handful of scientists being to realize that SHEVA may not be just a terrible disease. The government task force assigned to deal with SHEVA takes a hard line toward authoritarianism, insisting that SHEVA carriers, especially expectant mothers and their children should be quarantined while a few former task force members quite or flee in an attempt to understand SHEVA outside the "party line." The 2nd half of the book is more readable and less like a biology textbook but I found the handful of point-of-view characters still being followed at this point over-emotional to the point of becoming annoying. Point-of-view characters ride a nearly non-stop roller coaster between giddy joy and boiling rage and I found myself thinking "these are not the people who would survive in a crisis."

In the end, Darwin's Radio almost reads like two books. The first delving deep in to modern biology and virology, the second an emotional (sometimes overly so) race-against-the-clock style thriller. The premise is good enough to make me want to read the follow up, Darwin's Children, with the hope that it will be a stronger execution of a good idea.

23 people found this helpful

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Kevin Fifield

The best kind of fiction, engrossing read that makes you think

Reviewed in Canada on November 7, 2018

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Bear's ability to draw you into the story and make you care about the characters is never overshadowed by the science aspects of the story. His characters feel like real people. There are no paragons of virtue, not any blatantly evil. Just people trying to figure out their new world.

Client d'Amazon

Greg Bear's best book

Reviewed in France on November 29, 2017

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In my humble opinion, this is Bear's best novel. Much of the science he describes, e.g. the role of HERVs in our genome, or the interbreeding of Neanderthals with Homo Sapiens, was either state-of-the-art at the time he wrote it, or has been proven true (or at least plausible) subsequently.
The intrigue is sufficiently complex to keep you wondering to the last page, and the characters have genuine substance. Contrary to some other Sci-Fi novels, Bear's included, the plot and settings have the kind of adequate balance between actuality and anticipation of a plausible future that makes you think that something like it could really happen tomorrow, or next year, or in a not so distant future. The story continues in a second novel, Darwin's Children, that is quite good too, though not as good as this one. But you will want to read it because it's a damned good story.

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sf_hound

Disease or Evolutionary Sea Change

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2013

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If, as some believe, evolution occurs in rapid bursts, how would humans know when it's happening to them and what would it look like. Bear does a superb job of telling this tale from the top down (i.e. from the point of view of those responsible for the decisions such changes would invoke). The story is tight, compelling, thought-provoking and told with his customary care for the biological science involved. It also strikes me as a far more mature re-examination of many of the themes raised in Blood Dance. If you're a Greg Bear fan, this is a must.

sf_hound

ながぴい

みんなの評価は低いが、俺は好き

Reviewed in Japan on December 23, 2011

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今時珍しいミュータントもの。
不気味な新人類は迫害される、というのが定番。
スランを思い出す。
ただ、この本の新人類は超能力は使えない。
地味なので、あまり売れてないのでは？
でも、わしゃ好き。

この本はおそらく「ウィルス進化説」を取り入れているので、
そういう意味ではトンデモ理論を肯定していることになる（？）

たしか、続編も読んだ。
ん〜、Darwin's Childrenはいらなかったかな。
Stella Novaの運命は未知のままで終わらせておいたほうがよかったな。
"Did we make it again, Mitch?"

One person found this helpful

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scifiharlekin

ein sozialkritischer Wissenschaftskrimi

Reviewed in Germany on April 12, 2002

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Lassen wir mal beiseite, dass der Schreibstil in Ordnung ist und der Author auch in angenehmer Weise fachliche Kompetenz zeigt.
In der ersten Haelfte entwickelt sich das Buch wie ein Krimi mit mehreren parallelen Handlungsstraengen. Allerdings recht konventionell im Muster aehnlicher Romane: sensationelle Funde werden gemacht und Wissenschaftler wittern Ruhm und Ehre. Selbst der 'boese Reiche' der den Ruhm an sich reissen will scheint nicht zu fehlen.
In der zweiten Haelfte tritt das Thriller-Element jedoch leicht in den Hintergrund. Der Roman beginnt ganz nebenbei die Auswirkungen der Entdeckung fuer die Menschheit zu diskutieren indem er die Gesellschaft in zwei Lager spaltet: konservative Ablehnung und nahezu blinde Begeisterung - ohne jedoch in Schwarzweiss-Malerei zu verfallen...
Der Leser kommt auf jeden Fall auf seine Kosten - ohne in den Zwang zu geraten persoenlich Stellung zu beziehen. Das Buch ist spannend bis zum Schluss - der Ausgang ist keineswegs vorherzusehen und die zugrundeliegende Idee faszinierend und gut ausgearbeitet. Fazit: empfehlenswerte kurzweilige Unterhaltung mit Tiefgang als Bonus.

3 people found this helpful

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