or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
65 used & new from £0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Darwin's Radio
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside another edition of this book

Darwin's Radio (Paperback)

by Greg Bear (Author) "The flat afternoon sky spread over the black and gray mountains like a stage backdrop, the color of a dog's pale crazy eye ..." (more)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
Price: £5.48 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £1.51 (22%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 10? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
15 new from £2.48 49 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £1.97
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (New Ed) 3 used & new from £1.99
Paperback (Reprint) 13 used & new from £0.39
Mass Market Paperback (Reprint) £5.99 £5.99 34 used & new from £0.01
Library Binding (Reprint) 2 used & new from £10.30

Frequently Bought Together

Darwin's Radio + Darwin's Children + Eternity
Price For All Three: £20.59

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

  • This item: Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Darwin's Children by Greg Bear

    Usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Eternity by Greg Bear

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Darwin's Children

Darwin's Children

by Greg Bear
3.8 out of 5 stars (9)  £9.99
Eternity

Eternity

by Greg Bear
5.0 out of 5 stars (4)  £5.12
Quantico

Quantico

by Greg Bear
3.4 out of 5 stars (5)  £5.47
Blood Music (Gollancz S.F.)

Blood Music (Gollancz S.F.)

by Greg Bear
3.9 out of 5 stars (15)  £4.99
Eon (S.F. Masterworks)

Eon (S.F. Masterworks)

by Greg Bear
4.3 out of 5 stars (26)  £5.98
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; New edition edition (15 May 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006511384
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006511380
  • Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11.3 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 38,718 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #2 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > B > Bear, Greg

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Greg Bear notoriously reworks traditional SF themes in his own special way. His first success, Blood Music (1985), features an intelligent plague which seems destructive but eventually recreates humanity in new, transcendent form--echoing Arthur C. Clarke's rough-hewn 1953 classic Childhood's End. Darwin's Radio revisits this territory but foregrounds scientific, medical and political reactions to disaster; it's reminiscent of a Michael Crichton technothriller. The menace is a "new" virus, SHEVA, which is in fact very old--embedded in a ancient human DNA sequences and now emerging as "Herod's 'Flu", which in pregnant women always forces miscarriage. Chillingly, US health aauthorities first see this threat as something to boost funding, while conservative scientists suppress research into the bizarre reality of what's happening. Evidence from Neanderthal remains and Stalin's mass graves hints that SHEVA is no disease but evolution in action. Human genomes everywhere, linked by the subtle network of "Darwin's radio", are activating Plan B: the creation of a new species. Then, with the world racked by panic, riots, death cults and martial law, SHEVA begins to mutate ... Tense stuff, though some biological info-dumps are tough going, and it's awkwardly paced towards the end when nine months are needed for the biologist heroine's own pregnancy, leading to... but that would be telling. This is a fearfully plausible scientific thriller. --David L Langford


Product Description

THE NEXT GREAT WAR WILL START INSIDE US Greg Bear's powerfully written, brilliantly inventive novels combine cutting-edge science and unforgettable characters, illuminating dazzling new technologies -- and their dangers. Bear draws on state-of-the-art biological and anthropological research to give us an ingeniously plotted thriller that questions everything we believe about human origins and destiny -- as civilization confronts the next terrifying step in evolution. A mass grave in Russia that conceals the mummified remains of two women, both with child -- and the conspiracy to keep it secret...a major discovery high in the Alps: the preserved bodies of a prehistoric family -- the newborn infant possessing disturbing characteristics...a mysterious disease that strikes only pregnant women, resulting in miscarriage. Three disparate facts that will converge into one science-shattering truth. Molecular biologist Kaye Lang, a specialist in retroviruses, believes that ancient diseases encoded in the DNA of humans can again come to life. But her theory soon becomes 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. The 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, along with anthropologist Mitch Rafelson, 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.
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
The flat afternoon sky spread over the black and gray mountains like a stage backdrop, the color of a dog's pale crazy eye. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(3)
(3)
(2)
(2)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Darwin's Radio
73% buy the item featured on this page:
Darwin's Radio 3.9 out of 5 stars (31)
£5.48
Eternity
10% buy
Eternity 5.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£5.12
Eon (S.F. Masterworks)
7% buy
Eon (S.F. Masterworks) 4.3 out of 5 stars (26)
£5.98
Forge Of God
6% buy
Forge Of God 4.5 out of 5 stars (11)
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

31 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (11)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and solid, but he missed the best story, 4 April 2004
By Dr. Rod S. Taylor "rstaylor" (Ely, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Darwin's Radio (Mass Market Paperback)
Darwin's Radio is my first Greg Bear novel, after my hearing many good things about him over the years - and I wasn't disappointed with it. It's a well-written novel, crammed with scientific ideas, questionable politics and real people - more than enough to hold the attention of any sci-fi reader. Sadly, I never really felt any great emotional connection to the main characters until the very end of the book, when the answer to the big question of the book - is what's happening a disease or the next step of human evolution - was coming clear. I wish Darwin's Radio had continued for another few hundred pages, to see where Bear's speculations would have eventually led us. Maybe I can wait for a sequel.....
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Speculative science, not science fiction., 4 Jan 2003
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
Darwin's Radio is a real eye-opener about molecular biology, evolution, and the condition of the human race, not just the human race of the present or the early humans who were the immediate descendants of the hominids, but the human race as it may soon become in the future. Bear himself, after researching the book, "came away with an unshakable sense that evolutionary biology is about to undergo a major upheaval--not in the next few decades, but in the next few years"!

In a powerful and exciting narrative, Bear explores just this sort of evolutionary upheaval, as SHEVA, a retrovirus, begins to attack women, causing them to miscarry at three months, while, at the same time, causing them to begin spontaneously a new, ostensibly fatherless, pregnancy within a month. Kaye Lang, a highly respected molecular biologist, and Mitch Rafelson, a disgraced anthropologist, are involved in research to contain SHEVA, studying DNA and its coding, various immune responses to bacteria and viruses, genetic mutations, and the possibility that SHEVA is not a new phenomenon at all. As the virus starts to spread and thousands of women find themselves infected, public safety is endangered, riots occur, shootings result in deaths, and the government starts to panic, requiring SHEVA-infected women to register their pregnancies, and their second stage babies, if delivered alive, to be turned over to the government.

Bear does a masterful job of depicting both the personal traumas and the petty jealousies which surface when people in power recognize that a genuine emergency can also provide opportunities for personal advancement. Conflicts on both the personal and professional level are astutely presented and heighten the tension and immediacy of the SHEVA crisis. Remarkably, Bear never reduces issues or individual behavior to the level of black and white, carefully preserving the grays which are involved in all ethical and moral inquiry. The science here is dense and challenging to someone (like me) who is not a scientist, but the human story and its implications for the future are so clearly presented and intriguing, that I became thoroughly engrossed in the possibilities of new directions in evolution. Mary Whipple

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Science Fiction with actual science, 2 April 2006
I first read this book when a friend leant it to me after telling me that there was too much science for her liking and that I'd probably enjoy it. She was right.

After the inital shock of just how much science there was in the book I settled into it surprisingly quickly. The characters were well developed, the story fast paced enough to keep me interested. And the chapters were short enough to keep me happy - I knew that I had time to read them practically anywhere.

All in all this was a great book and the sequel was just as good. I'd recommed this to anyone who enjoys science fiction - but be warned, sometimes this book is more science than fiction.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Another disappointing SF award winner
As anyone who's read Eon will know, Greg Bear does Sense of Wonder almost by default. But he also does it at the expense of structure, characterisation and plausibility. Read more
Published 1 month ago by nutella the hun

4.0 out of 5 stars Very unusual book
A great tale

unfortunately the book ends just where the real questions are asked -so I have to get the second volume now.
Published 13 months ago by CjW

5.0 out of 5 stars Darwin's radio
A great book about our next evolutionary step and how the public and government react to it. There is a lot of science in the book, but not prohibitively so, and it is... Read more
Published on 23 Jul 2006 by Spider Monkey

3.0 out of 5 stars good stuff, but a cop out i think
a superb premise. well thought out. far too much science in it, despite doing some molecular biology at university a decade ago, i found the science tricky to follow in... Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2006

3.0 out of 5 stars OK
this book is ok...had no idea what all the science words meant, but there's a glossary at the back which at least gives you a vague idea of what all of them are talking about... Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb book (not one for elf-lovers)
There is too little good science fiction been written these days - the shelves are full of sub-standard Tolkein knock-offs with sword-wielding wizards on the cover. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 2004 by M. J. Farncombe

5.0 out of 5 stars Forget the one star review by the intellectually challenged.
This is a good read, full of accurate scientific detail. Not for the Buck Rogers / Space Ranger fans. Read more
Published on 24 Dec 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Believable and terrifying
Darwin’s Radio is a pleasure for someone who loves hard science fiction, as I do. Here’s the premise: SHEVA, a retrovirus long-buried in our genes, suddenly awakens... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2003 by D. Ronco

4.0 out of 5 stars Evolution by jerks?
For those unfamiliar with evolutionary theories, there are two contesting ideas about the process. One is Charles Darwin's thesis of gradualism - successive generations change... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2003 by Stephen A. Haines

4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping opening, heavy middle, good conclusion
I did find the first chapters completely engrossing, but all that biology slowed me down considerably. The ending was good enough though. Read more
Published on 25 April 2003 by Neal C. Reynolds

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject








i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.