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cjrayl's review against another edition
4.0
I'm waffling between a 4 or a 5. I can't help but think that I am reacting to the end of the book when wanting to give it a 5. Overall, the book exemplifies the author, Greg Bear's, excellent writing and construction of story. In this particular case, the story is loosely based on some scientific possibilities and while it is part of a series (*&^%#$%%) it worked well as a stand alone. Great back matter and I loved the whole premise. The story's almost 20 years old but does not appear to date itself. I enjoyed it.
apatrick's review against another edition
2.0
This is probably hard to understand without reading Darwin's Radio first. It's also pretty depressing. I was looking forward to seeing what Bear had imagined for this new species -- what they're like, what kind of impact they would have on the old-style humans, how their new mutations would work. There's not much of that in this, though, and the little there is is at the end of the book. First we have to slog through what's new with Kaye and Mitch, and there's a strange, out-of-left-field religious aspect that pops up. Dude, if you don't really believe in science, don't read science-fiction.
ambern's review against another edition
4.0
While this can certainly be counted as another tour de force by Greg Bear, it does not quite match the sheer intellectual power of the first book in this series, Darwin's Radio. This book follows the continuing story of the Rafelson family - Mitch, Kaye, and their superior daughter, Stella Nova. Stella was among the first of a new species of human and was born towards the end of the first book, but this book begins 12 years later and is centered around her story and what has become of the new "virus children".
One of my main dislikes of the book were the time leaps. If I was to draw out the sequence of this book, it would rise to fever pitch twice before plummeting back to a starting point. Bear basically continues to increase the suspense and draw out the story, only to pull back at the last moment and shoot forward three years to see the aftermath of that event. While this technique could be successful in some cases, I believe it falls flat here, especially since after the time jump, it often takes several chapters to get back into the flow of the story. This jerky exposition creates a disconnect with the story, which did not allow me to fully immerse myself in Bear's world for most of the book.
Another problem is the seemingly random instance of God, which is never fully explained and is not necessary in the least to making the rest of the novel a comprehensive story. However, as always, Bear's science is flawlessly elegant and well-explained, even to those of us without extensive biological backgrounds (namely, me). Before reading this series I knew nothing about retroviruses or the various schools of thought on the function of viruses. While I am still not interested in biology, Bear creates a wonderful synergy between the reader and his subject matter.
All in all I would recommend this book to the discerning scifi reader. While it takes some heartiness to get through a thick Bear novel, it is worth it in the end as long as you stop periodically to reflect on his revelations.
One of my main dislikes of the book were the time leaps. If I was to draw out the sequence of this book, it would rise to fever pitch twice before plummeting back to a starting point. Bear basically continues to increase the suspense and draw out the story, only to pull back at the last moment and shoot forward three years to see the aftermath of that event. While this technique could be successful in some cases, I believe it falls flat here, especially since after the time jump, it often takes several chapters to get back into the flow of the story. This jerky exposition creates a disconnect with the story, which did not allow me to fully immerse myself in Bear's world for most of the book.
Another problem is the seemingly random instance of God, which is never fully explained and is not necessary in the least to making the rest of the novel a comprehensive story. However, as always, Bear's science is flawlessly elegant and well-explained, even to those of us without extensive biological backgrounds (namely, me). Before reading this series I knew nothing about retroviruses or the various schools of thought on the function of viruses. While I am still not interested in biology, Bear creates a wonderful synergy between the reader and his subject matter.
All in all I would recommend this book to the discerning scifi reader. While it takes some heartiness to get through a thick Bear novel, it is worth it in the end as long as you stop periodically to reflect on his revelations.
tagra's review against another edition
4.0
This book is pure emotion.
I don’t actually know how I feel about it. There are parts of it that are probably some of my most favourite scenes I have ever read, and I highlighted a whole bunch of shit just because I really really liked the way it was written. And there are a bunch of parts that made me squint my eyes and scratch disapprovingly at my chin. I spent a whole day reading this book practically non-stop and felt like I was loving every minute of it, until I got to the end, where I stepped back and looked at it as a whole and thought to myself “....... I’m not sure that I liked that.”
But that’s a Greg Bear novel for me, I suppose. It happens every time.
The first book was exhaustively researched and it was a comfortable stretch to believe that the things proposed could happen. This book does not feel quite as tight. The first book spent a lot of time etching out every minute detail, and this one seems to spend a lot of time skimming over those. I’m quite willing to suspend belief for the sake of plot, especially when creating a new species, but learning and behaviour is my pet field of study and I feel like there are some huge holes in the development of the society of the children. Not to mention the religious element that was introduced. It almost feels like the first book was meant to be hard scientific fact and then he wanted the second book to come at it from the other angle to provide contrast, which is a nice idea in theory, but the way it is presented just doesn’t jive with me. I put comments in several places saying “I hope this is explained a little bit better later…” and then I had a moment of hope when Kaye gets all the scans done, but nope, that was just a distraction too, as if it’s trying to explain that there is no explanation so just get over it. It’s like we go from hard facts and figures to watching the book wave its hands spookily and then conclude with “A God did it." (Well. Maybe. Because that's not confirmed either.) Unsatisfying.
The time skips are especially bad. I’d be reading almost breathlessly, racing ahead to get to an anticipated point where two plotlines would collide and I could see the result, annnnnnnnddd *poof* 3 years later. That thing happened during those three years and it was cool but we’re past that now and won’t waste any time describing it, thanks. It happened every time and it made me so mad every time. I have to say, I love the way the characters interact in this book. The characters feel so robustly human to me, full of emotions and flaws and character traits, and I loved them. But they spent a lot of time on superficial interactions and leave the bulk of the plot development behind the scenes to be discussed in hindsight while they go about their superficial interactions. I’m not sure how I feel about that. And apart from the main family (Kaye, Mitch, Stella), no one else gets a lot of development. They have their template personality and that's about it. At times there are characters used from previous books that might have been thrown in purely so that there would be a backstory already in place and there would be no need to add further development. It led to a lot of cardboard supporting cast. There are even some characters who felt abandoned. Where are the rest of their stories? Such as:
Minor spoiler:
We skipped entirely over the bit with Stella and Will. Will exists in like, four scenes in this entire book? We start to get to know him and then *poof* 3 years later. Welp, nevermind that now.
I am so exquisitely torn about the main character too. I loved Kaye. I loved the interactions between Mitch and Kaye. I must have been in the right emotional (hormonal??) state of mind for it because I was more invested in their relationship than I was in the fate of the children, most of the time. I highlighted so many of their scenes together because they felt so real. The scene where Mitch finally snaps and Kaye recognizes how unfair she’s been:
That moment when you emerge from your own misery and realize with a shock that it affects other people too and you’ve been a huge selfish ass about it. That is real.
But then, I don’t know. She struck me as a near Mary-Sue at first. It’s almost textbook - gifted genius girl who doesn’t recognize how good she is and everyone is in awe of her and everyone wants to fall in love with her oh my. But then she displays real, palpable flaws and it dispels the Mary-Sue threat. I found her to be a realistic depiction of an emotional (and at times irrational) female, but at times she would drop down into a sort of “This is a female being written by a man” template and I’d find it disappointing purely because it was such a contrast to some of her other scenes. It's like she has transitions where she grows as a character and changes her behaviour, and then transitions where suddenly she's just acting sort of different and it seems odd. And then she finds God or something, I don’t fucking know. It felt like a character departure at several points, in this book and the last.
Ending spoiler:
And then I was pissed at the ending. Seriously pissed. I think that means that my ultimate judgement of her is that I like her? I got the impression that the ending was supposed to be hopeful but I guess I’m just not religious enough for that because no, fuck you, give her more time with her family, you fuck. They’ve been through enough! I think I'm angry at how unnecessary that was. The injustice of it. If that was the goal then bra-fucking-vo.
I don’t think I could read this again, but I think I’m going to be thinking of the characters over the next few days.
I don’t actually know how I feel about it. There are parts of it that are probably some of my most favourite scenes I have ever read, and I highlighted a whole bunch of shit just because I really really liked the way it was written. And there are a bunch of parts that made me squint my eyes and scratch disapprovingly at my chin. I spent a whole day reading this book practically non-stop and felt like I was loving every minute of it, until I got to the end, where I stepped back and looked at it as a whole and thought to myself “....... I’m not sure that I liked that.”
But that’s a Greg Bear novel for me, I suppose. It happens every time.
The first book was exhaustively researched and it was a comfortable stretch to believe that the things proposed could happen. This book does not feel quite as tight. The first book spent a lot of time etching out every minute detail, and this one seems to spend a lot of time skimming over those. I’m quite willing to suspend belief for the sake of plot, especially when creating a new species, but learning and behaviour is my pet field of study and I feel like there are some huge holes in the development of the society of the children. Not to mention the religious element that was introduced. It almost feels like the first book was meant to be hard scientific fact and then he wanted the second book to come at it from the other angle to provide contrast, which is a nice idea in theory, but the way it is presented just doesn’t jive with me. I put comments in several places saying “I hope this is explained a little bit better later…” and then I had a moment of hope when Kaye gets all the scans done, but nope, that was just a distraction too, as if it’s trying to explain that there is no explanation so just get over it. It’s like we go from hard facts and figures to watching the book wave its hands spookily and then conclude with “A God did it." (Well. Maybe. Because that's not confirmed either.) Unsatisfying.
The time skips are especially bad. I’d be reading almost breathlessly, racing ahead to get to an anticipated point where two plotlines would collide and I could see the result, annnnnnnnddd *poof* 3 years later. That thing happened during those three years and it was cool but we’re past that now and won’t waste any time describing it, thanks. It happened every time and it made me so mad every time. I have to say, I love the way the characters interact in this book. The characters feel so robustly human to me, full of emotions and flaws and character traits, and I loved them. But they spent a lot of time on superficial interactions and leave the bulk of the plot development behind the scenes to be discussed in hindsight while they go about their superficial interactions. I’m not sure how I feel about that. And apart from the main family (Kaye, Mitch, Stella), no one else gets a lot of development. They have their template personality and that's about it. At times there are characters used from previous books that might have been thrown in purely so that there would be a backstory already in place and there would be no need to add further development. It led to a lot of cardboard supporting cast. There are even some characters who felt abandoned. Where are the rest of their stories? Such as:
Minor spoiler:
I am so exquisitely torn about the main character too. I loved Kaye. I loved the interactions between Mitch and Kaye. I must have been in the right emotional (hormonal??) state of mind for it because I was more invested in their relationship than I was in the fate of the children, most of the time. I highlighted so many of their scenes together because they felt so real. The scene where Mitch finally snaps and Kaye recognizes how unfair she’s been:
“Kaye stood beside the bed and watched Mitch, eyes wide. Her chest felt wrapped in steel bands. She was as frightened as if she had just missed driving them all off a cliff.”
That moment when you emerge from your own misery and realize with a shock that it affects other people too and you’ve been a huge selfish ass about it. That is real.
But then, I don’t know. She struck me as a near Mary-Sue at first. It’s almost textbook - gifted genius girl who doesn’t recognize how good she is and everyone is in awe of her and everyone wants to fall in love with her oh my. But then she displays real, palpable flaws and it dispels the Mary-Sue threat. I found her to be a realistic depiction of an emotional (and at times irrational) female, but at times she would drop down into a sort of “This is a female being written by a man” template and I’d find it disappointing purely because it was such a contrast to some of her other scenes. It's like she has transitions where she grows as a character and changes her behaviour, and then transitions where suddenly she's just acting sort of different and it seems odd. And then she finds God or something, I don’t fucking know. It felt like a character departure at several points, in this book and the last.
Ending spoiler:
I don’t think I could read this again, but I think I’m going to be thinking of the characters over the next few days.
ajlewis2's review
5.0
This is actually more a second volume to a story than it is a sequel. The characters from the first book continue through the years. There is some great medical science fiction with a strong touch of mystical happening as well. In my opinion, understanding the theory is not necessary for enjoying the story, so don't get bogged down with that. Don't miss the section at the end called "Caveats" where Bear explains himself a bit.
xerxes314's review
3.0
Darwin's Children is set in a hellish dystopia where beer does not exist. The unfortunate citizens of this alternate universe suffer frequently through the abject miseries of drinking "Miller", "Coors", "Michelob" and other such. At one point, things start looking up when scientists discover "Becks", which is pretty reasonably identified as beer, though not a very good one. However, things quickly fall apart, resulting in some atrocious crimes against humanity, as the neo-Fascist government sets up concentration camps and the characters are forced to imbibe "Bud Lite".
The story also charts the precipitous fall of the Lang family over three generations: from professional to Nobel-worthy molecular biologist to knocked-up teenage slut.
There's also some stuff about hymens and God that is pretty uncomfortable.
The story also charts the precipitous fall of the Lang family over three generations: from professional to Nobel-worthy molecular biologist to knocked-up teenage slut.
There's also some stuff about hymens and God that is pretty uncomfortable.
mckitterick's review
3.0
Super-creepy science-fiction bio-thriller. Bear's ideas about the real forces at work on our planet get you thinking....
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