"Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear (1999)

"'Look, trees send out chemical signals when they're attacked.  The signals attract insects that prey on the bugs that attack them.  Call the Orkin man.  The concept works at all levels, in the ecosystem, in a species, even a society.  All the individual creatures are networks of cells.  All species are networks of individuals.  All ecosystems are networks of species.  All interact and communicate with one another to one degree or another, through competition, predation, cooperation.  All these interactions are similar to neurotransmitters crossing synapses in the brain, or ants communicating in a colony.  The colony changes its overall behavior based on ant interactions.  So do we, based on how our neurons talk to each other.  And so does all of nature, from top to bottom.  It's all connected.'"

Greg Bear has already been discussed in my review of Eon, a novel published 14 years before Darwin's Radio.  He is/was a noted author of hard science fiction.  He passed away from stroke-related complications last year.

I was pretty hard on Eon, the one other of his books that I've read, but looking back at that review I think that my assessment of it was fair.  It really wasn't up to the level of more noteworthy hard science fiction entries, and yes, it does come off like a less digestible version of Ringworld.  Perhaps the sequels were better.  I certainly hope so.

I'm happy to say that Darwin's Radio is a superior book in every respect.  The author has a firm grasp of the science involved, the characters are fully realized and their actions make sense, and the sprawling plot manages to both fascinate and make logical sense at the same time.  I sometimes disagree with the Nebula Awards, but this book amply deserved that level of recognition.

Darwin's Radio takes place in the early 2000s, as health officials across the globe come to grips with a "new" virus that seems to have lain dormant in our DNA.  The danger posed by this virus is far from certain, and as a team of researchers attempts to assess this threat a new chapter in the history of our species (or at least our genus) begins.

Darwin's Radio isn't kind of book you pick up occasionally and read over a long period  of time.  It's a very involved novel, both in terms of the science discussed and the arguments presented its characters.  It thus requires a sustained effort on the part of the reader, but if you can sit down and get to it you'll find your effort rewarded. 

There's also the COVID angle.  Keep in mind that this novel was written in 1999, long before we'd taken up wearing masks, washing our hands obsessively, and also long before we began attempting to keep abreast of "new developments" via cellular technology that didn't exist in 1999.  For this reason Darwin's Radio can seem very prescient, in that discussions of viruses, epidemics and the paranoia engendered by both are things we grew uncomfortably close to during the pandemic years.

As for a recommendation, I'll just say that I can't recommend this book enough.  It's one of the best things I've read in a while, and when I have the chance I'll be reading the sequel, Darwin's Children.

Related Entries:

"Traitor to the Living" by Philip Jose Farmer (1973)

"Time War" by Lin Carter (1974)

"Pathogenesis" by Jonathan Kennedy (2023)

"Saturn Run" by John Sandford and Ctein (2015)

"Eon" by Greg Bear (1985)

"The glob dropped and fleshed out like a vampire in an old horror movie to form a masculine body, clothed in loose white shirt and forest-green pants.  The figure seemed to solidify."

Greg Bear is highly regarded among certain aficionados of "hard sci-fi."  He's written dozens of books, and his bibliography stretches back to the late 70s.  This novel, Eon, is the first of four books in his "The Way" series.

In the early 2000s, a massive object called The Stone appears near the Earth.  Several teams of scientists investigate this object, and after many years they uncover both the startling secret of The Stone's origin and its connections to worlds (and realities) far beyond their wildest imaginings.

In tone the earliest chapters of Eon reminded me a lot of Larry Niven's Ringworld, in that a cast of decidedly "diverse" individuals study an object that defies our present understanding of physics, only to discover that a shadowy race of "engineers" is lurking behind the scenes.  You could also compare Eon to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 series, which also features a mysterious object(s) lying at the edge of our exploratory capacity, followed by revelations concerning its creators and their "message from the stars."

Yet I think Ringworld is the more apt comparison, given that Eon shares the same flaws.  Despite the "hard science" on display, both novels fail to adequately think through the implications of the ideas presented, and instead attempt to overwhelm our critical instincts with concepts that were cutting-edge at the time.  Both books also feature paper-thin characterizations, and tend to wander more than they ought to.  The chief difference being that Ringworld is much shorter, and as a result much more readable.

I wanted very much to like Eon - I'd heard great things about it - but I found it less brilliant that its reputation would suggest.  I felt like there were glimmers of better novels in its pages, but the whole was much less than the individual parts.

P.S. It may be that I'm being overly hard on this one.  After reading Greg Egan's Permutation City, Eon might be a victim of my newer, higher expectations.  Whatever the case, Eon definitely ISN'T in the same league as Egan's book.