Saturday, 11 January 2025 04:51 pm
Book Review: Darwin's Radio
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deckardcanineSorry, I gave up after reading 100 pages of The Fifth Season. The story is both bizarre and bleak, a deadly combination to my mind. Half the chapters feature second-person narration, which feels condescending to the point of grating, particularly outside of Choose Your Own Adventure, role-playing games, and other activities where the addressee retains some agency. And I got tired of turning to the incomplete glossary.
With that, I decided it was time for another sci-fi novel. I'd heard of Greg Bear but never read anything by him. I also wanted to take one of the thicker volumes off my shelf in preparation for Christmas gifts.
The book was published in 1999 but is set in the early 2000s. An epidemic of "Herod's flu," from the virus SHEVA, causes flu-like symptoms only in women. More importantly, it mutates any babies they conceive by repeat sexual partners. First they have a freakily deformed stillborn; then, even without further sex, they have an immediate second pregnancy, whose fetus has six extra chromosomes, among other new features, and a similarly poor survival record. Lest you think nothing happens to the men, both parents may feel sick and mutate in the final stage.
If SHEVA itself isn't scary enough, imagine reactions to it. Many men who assume they've been cheated on turn violent. As time passes without satisfactory official solutions, massive riots and major assassinations ensue. Then the U.S. government institutes martial law, enforcing quarantines and encouraging abortions indefinitely. I'm not sure which part's worst, but I think it's only gotten scarier in this decade.
The back-cover summary mentions only two of the focal characters, and Wikipedia lists none, but I'll do better. First we meet Mitch Rafelson, an archaeologist with a renegade history and an unusual level of sympathy for prehistoric folk. In the nation of Georgia, he discovers evidence that SHEVA struck long ago, possibly at the dawn of Homo sapiens. Likely Nobel nominee Kaye Lang subsequently posits that SHEVA has long been dormant in our DNA, activating only under stressors such as overpopulation and climate change. In fact, it may have precipitated our evolution from Neanderthals, so perhaps the bad symptoms will be outweighed by good changes once we get the hang of live births again. This is not a popular view, and hooking up with Mitch does Kaye's reputation no favor. On that note, federally employed virus hunter Christopher Dicken, despite less certainty about SHEVA, wishes he could date her. The other character sometimes in the limelight is Mark Augustine, a friendly associate of Christopher until Mark becomes a tyrannical health czar.
I don't necessarily believe in this level of punctuated equilibrium, and the effects of SHEVA are strange no matter how you look at them, but I can tell that Bear did a lot of research. He cites plenty of RL biological details, some of which I'm glad to learn. And as an editor for a health systems research organization, I appreciated frequent references to NIH and CDC. You could almost call the style magical realism.
Will I read more from Bear? Maybe. His other works look pretty different, many of them in franchises he didn't start. At least I can trust him to write complex characters and tackle stimulating concepts, whether or not I like his personal takes.
Since a DR conversation brings up Jean M. Auel, I am now reading The Clan of the Cave Bear. Not the first I'd heard of it.
With that, I decided it was time for another sci-fi novel. I'd heard of Greg Bear but never read anything by him. I also wanted to take one of the thicker volumes off my shelf in preparation for Christmas gifts.
The book was published in 1999 but is set in the early 2000s. An epidemic of "Herod's flu," from the virus SHEVA, causes flu-like symptoms only in women. More importantly, it mutates any babies they conceive by repeat sexual partners. First they have a freakily deformed stillborn; then, even without further sex, they have an immediate second pregnancy, whose fetus has six extra chromosomes, among other new features, and a similarly poor survival record. Lest you think nothing happens to the men, both parents may feel sick and mutate in the final stage.
If SHEVA itself isn't scary enough, imagine reactions to it. Many men who assume they've been cheated on turn violent. As time passes without satisfactory official solutions, massive riots and major assassinations ensue. Then the U.S. government institutes martial law, enforcing quarantines and encouraging abortions indefinitely. I'm not sure which part's worst, but I think it's only gotten scarier in this decade.
The back-cover summary mentions only two of the focal characters, and Wikipedia lists none, but I'll do better. First we meet Mitch Rafelson, an archaeologist with a renegade history and an unusual level of sympathy for prehistoric folk. In the nation of Georgia, he discovers evidence that SHEVA struck long ago, possibly at the dawn of Homo sapiens. Likely Nobel nominee Kaye Lang subsequently posits that SHEVA has long been dormant in our DNA, activating only under stressors such as overpopulation and climate change. In fact, it may have precipitated our evolution from Neanderthals, so perhaps the bad symptoms will be outweighed by good changes once we get the hang of live births again. This is not a popular view, and hooking up with Mitch does Kaye's reputation no favor. On that note, federally employed virus hunter Christopher Dicken, despite less certainty about SHEVA, wishes he could date her. The other character sometimes in the limelight is Mark Augustine, a friendly associate of Christopher until Mark becomes a tyrannical health czar.
I don't necessarily believe in this level of punctuated equilibrium, and the effects of SHEVA are strange no matter how you look at them, but I can tell that Bear did a lot of research. He cites plenty of RL biological details, some of which I'm glad to learn. And as an editor for a health systems research organization, I appreciated frequent references to NIH and CDC. You could almost call the style magical realism.
Will I read more from Bear? Maybe. His other works look pretty different, many of them in franchises he didn't start. At least I can trust him to write complex characters and tackle stimulating concepts, whether or not I like his personal takes.
Since a DR conversation brings up Jean M. Auel, I am now reading The Clan of the Cave Bear. Not the first I'd heard of it.