Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children - Two Remarkable Science Fiction Novels

What happens when humans change? When a new species replaces Homo sapiens? How could a new race of humans replace us? Has evolution already designed our replacement, encoded our successors in our own genes? Greg Bear asks these questions and more in Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children and proposes some answers.

Pregnant women in industrialized countries are catching a virus, aborting fetuses and, more astonishingly, becoming pregnant again without intercourse. Fears that an entire generation of children are going to be lost drive scientists and politicians to extreme measures. At the same an archeological dig site turns up clan groups that defy accepted theories. An ice cave yields a Neandertal couple and a modern human baby. Investigations of war crime scenes show entire families being killed after WWII, the pregnant women by bullet wounds to the abdomen.

Bear uses the mysteries encoded in the human genome as a jumping off point for a deep and thought-provoking story in Darwin's Radio. Credible, rich characters who are caught up in larger than life events lead us through the twisting path of retroviruses, evolution, human genetics and societal reactions to the unthinkable: the end of Homo sapiens.

Kate is a widely recognized researcher in human retroviruses, Mitch is a disgraced anthropologist. Together they stumble upon a problem so large governments hush it up and scientists sabotage each other. The sometimes nasty politics of science pollute government's response.

Darwin's Children is the inevitable continuation of the story. Children born of virus-infected mothers are not exactly human they are Homo novus, New Man. Misunderstanding of these children puts them at risk from neighbors and even family. Government's inability to cope meshed with the corruption of some officials mixed with virile racism confine children to camps, many in outdated prisons. Lack of medical care and compassion lead to thousands of deaths. Is this evolution or the end of the human race?

Stella Nova is one child whose parents would not turn her over to the government. Her wish to live a normal life, outside of camps and away from the humans who would destroy her is intertwined with government's, humankind's and society's search for an uneasy truce with evolution. An uneasy truce with our own offspring.

Greg Bear, as usual for him, did the research and consulted experts in the field of human retroviruses. Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children give a relatively painless overview of current understanding. As always, his characters are well-done but never overdone, and the story is compelling and thought provoking. This is science-based science fiction, not for everyone but if you like Greg Bear, you'll love this pair of books.

"Death rides in on a pale horse, slicing babies right and left. And I'm teamed up with crackpots and money-grubbing eccentrics." Christopher Dicken in Darwin's Radio.

Darwin's Radio, Greg Bear, 1999, Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-43524-9
Darwin's Children, Greg Bear, 2003, DelRey by Random House. ISBN 0-345-44836-7