Darwin's Radio - Greg Bear

A 2000 HUGO AWARD NOMINEE

Ancient diseases encoded in the DNA of humans wait like sleeping dragons to wake and infect again--or so molecular biologist Kaye Lang believes. And now it looks as if her controversial theory is in fact 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. Then a major discovery high in the Alps --the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family--reveals a 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 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.

Product Details
Dewey	813
Series	Darwin
Cover Price	$7.99
No. of Pages	544
Height x Width	6.7 x 4.6 inch
Original Publication Year	1999

Personal Details
Read It	Yes (3/22/2009)
Store	Birdsong Books
Purchase Price	$3.50
Purchase Date	2/22/2009
Owner	John
Links	Amazon

Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear.

The very first chapter had Mitch, an anthropologist, mountain climbing to an intact Neanderthal family. I've read three or four novellas that were about mountain climbing and I had to slog and slog to get through them. Fortunately that part was over and done with quickly, and I was able to enjoy the rest of the novel.

The setting is our contemporary world, with the exception that a retrovirus has awoken and started to cause, well, that's what the scientists in the story are trying to figure out. Kaye Lang is a molecular biologist, who had a paper describing HERV. Which turns out to be significant, in that an active form of the virus, named SHEVA, starts causing Herod's disease. That main fallout of this is a lot of miscarriages.

The action follows Kaye, the Center for Disease Control and other government health agencies, and a little bit with Mitch, who found those neanderthal mummies that exhibit some of the same characteristics that seem to be going on now with us. Is SHEVA a disease or a mechanism for an evolutionary jump? The premise is kinda cool -- that the basis for an evolutionary jump could already be within our DNA -- and the story following Kaye, Christopher, Mitch, Augustine, etc. was very very good.

I kind of hesitate to refer to the book as a classic, but if it's not, it's close. I had to look up the 2000 Hugos. I see that Darwin's Radio is nominated. I can't argue with A Deepness in the Sky having won, that's another great novel.