Bear, Greg: Darwin's Radio
Darwin's Radio (1999)
Written by: Greg Bear
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 35/524 (Mass Market Paperback)
I don't remember where I heard about this book or why I wanted to read it originally. Actually, I have a vague memory: I was working on my science fiction thesis at the time and was a little obsessed with genetic tinkering/evolution, so when I heard about this book, I thought it was right up my alley. And while it was probably doomed to languish in my TBR pile for a while anyway, my interest was deflated when a friend of mine, shortly after buying the volume in March 2008, said that I shouldn't have bothered: she would've given me her copy. In essence, I don't think she got beyond the first few pages. And now, I see why.
The premise: ganked from Amazon.com: Is evolution a gradual process, as Darwin believed, or can change occur suddenly, in an incredibly brief time span, as has been suggested by Stephen J. Gould and others? Bear takes on one of the hottest topics in science today in this riveting, near-future thriller. Discredited anthropologist Mitch Rafelson has made an astonishing discovery in a recently uncovered ice cave in the Alps. The mummified remains of a Neanderthal couple and their newborn, strangely abnormal child. Kaye Lang, a molecular biologist specializing in retroviruses, has unearthed chilling evidence that so-called junk DNA may have a previously unguessed-at purpose in the scheme of life. Christopher Dicken, a virus hunter at the National Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, is hot in pursuit of a mysterious illness, dubbed Herod's flu, which seems to strike only expectant mothers and their fetuses. Gradually, as the three scientists pool their results, it becomes clear that Homo sapiens is about to face its greatest crisis, a challenge that has slept within our genes since before the dawn of humankind.
My Rating
Did Not Finish: I have a fear: I'm afraid I can no longer read novels that are geared too closely to the mainstream audience. The problem is that I get bored with the prose way too quickly, and that just doesn't inspire me to trudge through the full length of the novel in question. Some of you might wonder, why is this a fear? It's a fear because there was a time when Michael Crichton was one of my favorite authors. He's mainstream SF if there ever WAS mainstream SF! But I'm afraid to read him now, because I'm afraid the prose will be similar to what turned me off in Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio: generic voice, unnecessary details, and the worst culprit of all, head-hopping in a third-person limited voice. And if not head-hopping, then brief out-of-body experiences in order to describe the POVs appearance.
Let me show you (emphasis mine):
Lado sensed the silence had gone on too long. He glanced at Kaye with soft brown eyes in a finely wrinkled sun-browned face, lifted his cigarette over the steering wheel, and jutted out his chin (page 13).
Now, maybe the fault is mine: after all, not EVERY third person POV has to be limited, right? But passages like this, where I'm lifted out of a perspective to get an outside view of their appearance, just jars me out of reading. Because this isn't meant to be an omniscient narrator (Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is an EXCELLENT example of this technique), so why am I viewing the scene from a character's eyes only to be jerked around to view that character? I'd rather the old clichéd mirror trick than this!
Anyway, stupid as it sounds, it really bugged me. And I quickly learned I was bored, even though these first few chapters I managed to read were presenting the reader with tension and mystery. My problem was that I just didn't care. And before putting the book down, I hunted down a plot summary of the book to see if maybe something in the book WOULD make me care, but nope. My brain got twisted a little sideways, and I ended up caring less than before.
That's okay. This is the book that inspired my Declining Interest post. It's not to say I would've ended up liking the book better if I'd read it right when I'd gotten it, but surely, it would've had a better chance?
Maybe not. I was in the throes of my fiction thesis and I suspect the POV problem would've moved me to violence to my eyeballs. ;) Yes, I was THAT critical back then. :)
Cover Commentary: This cover never appealed to me. I mean, I like the colors, but that's about. Something about the design and the font suggest that this book is aiming for the mass market best-seller lists, aiming for the audience that wouldn't read science fiction unless it was presented outside of its genre shelves. That's an unfair assumption, I know, but meh. The cover isn't appealing to me, even if I can appreciate the symbol of the evolutionary stages of man.
Next up: Bone Dance by Emma Bull