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Darwin’s Children Kindle Edition
Evolution is no longer just a theory – and nature is more of a bitch goddess than a kindly mother – in this tense science thriller from the author of the Nebula Award-winning Darwin’s Radio
Stella Nova is one of the ‘virus children’, a generation of genetically enhanced babies born a dozen years before to mothers infected with the SHEVA virus.
In fact, the children represent the next great evolutionary leap and a new species of human, Homo sapiens novus, but this is officially denied. They’re gentle, charming and persuasive, possessed of remarkable traits. Nevertheless, they are locked up in special schools, quarantined from society, feared and reviled.
‘Survival of the fittest’ takes on a new dimension as the children reach puberty. Stella is one of the first to find herself attracted to another ‘virus child’, but the authorities are watching and waiting for the opportunity to strike the next blow in their escalating war to preserve ‘humankind’ at any cost.
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherHarperCollins
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Publication date11 April 2013
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File size1316 KB
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Review
'Bear plays to his strength – cutting-edge scientific speculation – in this riveting SF thriller about possible evolutionary apocalypse.' Publisher's Weekly
'A stunning read' Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk
'Darwin's Radio is a tense technothriller in the Michael Crichton vein… evolutionary change, we secretly believe, isn't something that happens to us… The world collapses in panic. Gurus of scientific orthodoxy, paralysed by over-fast change, turn a blind eye to the shocking evidence. There are riots, flights to the hills, death cults, martial law, and superstitious fear… Intelligent science fiction on a colossal scale.' New Scientist
'Darwin's Radio delves into crucial questions about where we humans came from and where we're going. Along the way, the book shows how much and how little we've changed from our ancestors… Bear tells a good, character-driven story.' USA Today
'All the best thrillers contain the solution to a mystery, and the mystery in this intellectually sparkling scientific thriller is more crucial and stranger than most.' Amazon.com
From the Inside Flap
DARWIN’S CHILDREN
Eleven years have passed since SHEVA, an ancient retrovirus, was discovered in human DNA—a retrovirus that caused mutations in the human genome and heralded the arrival of a new wave of genetically enhanced humans. Now these changed children have reached adolescence . . . and face a world that is outraged about their very existence. For these special youths, possessed of remarkable, advanced traits that mark a major turning point in human development, are also ticking time bombs harboring hosts of viruses that could exterminate the “old” human race.
Fear and hatred of the virus children have made them a persecuted underclass, quarantined by the government in special “schools,” targeted by federally sanctioned bounty hunters, and demonized by hysterical segments of the population. But pockets of resistance have sprung up among those opposed to treating the children like dangerous diseases—and who fear the worst if the government’s draconian measures are carried to their extreme.
Scientists Kaye Lang and Mitch Rafelson are part of this small but determined minority. Once at the forefront of the discovery and study of the SHEVA outbreak, they now live as virtual exiles in the Virginia suburbs with their daughter, Stella—a bright, inquisitive virus child who is quickly maturing, straining to break free of the protective world her parents have built around her, and eager to seek out others of her kind.
But for all their precautions, Kaye, Mitch, and Stella have not slipped below the government’s radar. The agencies fanatically devoted to segregating and controlling the new-breed children monitor their every move—watching and waiting for the opportunity to strike the next blow in their escalating war to preserve “humankind” at any cost.
From the Back Cover
DARWIN'S CHILDREN
Eleven years have passed since SHEVA, an ancient retrovirus, was discovered in human DNA--a retrovirus that caused mutations in the human genome and heralded the arrival of a new wave of genetically enhanced humans. Now these changed children have reached adolescence . . . and face a world that is outraged about their very existence. For these special youths, possessed of remarkable, advanced traits that mark a major turning point in human development, are also ticking time bombs harboring hosts of viruses that could exterminate the "old" human race.
Fear and hatred of the virus children have made them a persecuted underclass, quarantined by the government in special "schools," targeted by federally sanctioned bounty hunters, and demonized by hysterical segments of the population. But pockets of resistance have sprung up among those opposed to treating the children like dangerous diseases--and who fear the worst if the government's draconian measures are carried to their extreme.
Scientists Kaye Lang and Mitch Rafelson are part of this small but determined minority. Once at the forefront of the discovery and study of the SHEVA outbreak, they now live as virtual exiles in the Virginia suburbs with their daughter, Stella--a bright, inquisitive virus child who is quickly maturing, straining tobreak free of the protective world her parents have built around her, and eager to seek out others of her kind.
But for all their precautions, Kaye, Mitch, and Stella have not slipped below the government's radar. The agencies fanatically devoted to segregating and controlling the new-breed children monitor their every move--watching and waiting for the opportunity to strike the next blow in their escalating war to preserve "humankind" at any cost.
"From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Greg Bear was born in 1951 and published his first short story sixteen years later. His first novel was published in 1979, and his most famous novels, Blood Music and Eon, emerged during the eighties and have now become established classics.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The world felt empty and new.
Mitch put his cup in the kitchen sink and returned to the bedroom. Kaye lay in bed, still asleep. He adjusted his tie in the mirror above the dresser. Ties never looked right on him. He grimaced at the way his suit hung on his wide shoulders, the gap around the collar of his white shirt, the length of sleeve visible beyond the cuff of his coat.
There had been a row the night before. Mitch and Kaye and Stella, their daughter, had sat up until two in the morning in the small bedroom trying to talk it through. Stella was feeling isolated. She wanted, needed to be with young people like her. It was a reasonable position, but they had no choice.
Not the first time, and likely not the last. Kaye always approached these events with studied calm, in contrast to Mitch’s evasion and excuses. Of course they were excuses. He had no answers to Stella’s questions, no real response to her arguments. They both knew she ultimately needed to be with her own kind, to find her own way.
Finally, too much, Stella had stomped off and slammed the door to her room. Kaye had started crying. Mitch had held her in bed and she had gradually slipped into twitching sleep, leaving him staring at the darkened ceiling, tracking the play of lights from a truck grumbling down the country road outside, wondering, as always, if the truck would come up their drive, come for their daughter, come to claim bounty or worse.
He hated the way he looked in what Kaye called his Mr. Smith duds—as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He lifted one hand and rotated it, studying the palm, the long, strong fingers, wedding ring—though he and Kaye had never gotten a license. It was the hand of a hick.
He hated to drive into the capital, through all the checkpoints, using his congressional appointment pass. Slowly moving past all the army trucks full of soldiers, deployed to stop yet another desperate parent from setting off another suicide bomb. There had been three such blasts since spring.
And now, Riverside, California.
Mitch walked to the left side of the bed. “Good morning, love,” he whispered. He stood for a moment, watching his woman, his wife. His eyes moved along the sleeve of her pajama top, absorbing every wrinkle in the rayon, every silken play of pre-dawn light, down to slim hands, curled fingers, nails bitten to the quick.
He bent to kiss her cheek and pulled the covers over her arm. Her eyes fluttered open. She brushed the back of his head with her fingers. “G’luck,” she said.
“Back by four,” he said.
“Love you.” Kaye pushed into the pillow with a sigh.
Next stop was Stella’s room. He never left the house without making the rounds, filling his eyes and memory with pictures of wife and daughter and house, as if, should they all be taken away, should this be the last time, he could replay the moment. Fat good it would do.
Stella’s room was a neat jumble of preoccupations and busyness in lieu of having friends. She had pinned a farewell photo of their disreputable orange tabby on the wall over her bed. Tiny stuffed animals spilled from her cedar chest, beady eyes mysterious in the shadows. Old paperback books filled a small case made of pine boards that Mitch and Stella had hammered together last winter. Stella enjoyed working with her father, but Mitch had noticed the distance growing between them for a couple of years now.
Stella lay on her back in a bed that had been too short for over a year. At eleven, she was almost as tall as Kaye and beautiful in her slender, round-faced way, skin pale copper and tawny gold in the glow of the night-light, hair dark brown with reddish tints, same texture as Kaye’s and not much longer.
Their family had become a triangle, still strong, but with the three sides stretching each month. Neither Mitch nor Kaye could give Stella what she really needed.
And each other?
He looked up to see the orange line of sunrise through the filmy white curtains of Stella’s window. Last night, cheeks freckling with anger, Stella had demanded to know when they would let her out of the house on her own, without makeup, to be with kids her own age. Her kind of kids. It had been two years since her last “play date.”
Kaye had done wonders with home teaching, but as Stella had pointed out last night, over and over again, with rising emotion, “I am not like you!” For the first time, Stella had formally proclaimed: “I am not human!”
But of course she was. Only fools thought otherwise. Fools, and monsters, and their daughter.
Mitch kissed Stella on the forehead. Her skin was warm. She did not wake up. Stella as she slept smelled like her dreams, and now she smelled the way tears taste, tang of salt and sadness.
“Got to go,” he murmured. Stella’s cheeks produced waves of golden freckles. Mitch smiled.
Even asleep, his daughter could say good-bye.
2
Center for Ancient Viral Studies, United States Army Research Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases: USARMIID
fort detrick, maryland
“People died, Christopher,” Marian Freedman said. “Isn’t that enough to make us cautious, even a little crazy?”
Christopher Dicken walked beside her, tilting on his game leg, staring down the concrete corridor to the steel door at the end. His National Cancer Institute ID badge still poked from his jacket pocket. He clutched a large bouquet of roses and lilies. The two had been engaged in debate from the front desk through four security checkpoints.
“Nobody’s diagnosed a case of Shiver for a decade,” he said. “And nobody ever got sick from the children. Isolating them is politics, not biology.”
Marian took his day pass and ran it through the scanner. The steel door opened to a horizontal spread of sunglass-green access tubes, suspended like a hamster maze over a two-acre basin of raw gray concrete. She held out her hand, letting him go first. “You know about Shiver firsthand.”
“It went away in a couple of weeks,” Dicken said.
“It lasted five weeks, and it damned near killed you. Don’t bullshit me with your virus hunter bravado.”
Dicken stepped slowly onto the catwalk, having difficulty judging depth with just one eye, and that covered by a thick lens. “The man beat his wife, Marian. She was sick with a tough pregnancy. Stress and pain.”
“Right,” Marian said. “Well, that certainly wasn’t true with Mrs. Rhine, was it?”
“Different problem,” Dicken admitted.
Freedman smiled with little humor. She sometimes revealed biting wit, but did not seem to understand the concept of humor. Duty, hard work, discovery, and dignity filled the tight circle of her life. Marian Freedman was a devout feminist and had never married, and she was one of the best and most dedicated scientists Dicken had ever met.
Together, they marched north on the aluminum catwalk. She adjusted her pace to match his. Tall steel cylinders waited at the ends of the access tubes, shaft housings for elevators to the chambers beneath the seamless concrete slab. The cylinders wore big square “hats,” high-temperature gas-fired ovens that would sterilize any air escaping from the facilities below.
“Welcome to the house that Augustine built. How is Mark, anyway?”
“Not happy, last time I saw him,” Dicken said.
“Why am I not surprised? Of course, I should be charitable. Mark moved me up from studying chimps to studying Mrs. Rhine.”
Twelve years before, Freedman had headed a primate lab in Baltimore, during the early days when the Centers for Disease Control had launched the task force investigating Herod’s plague. Mark Augustine, then director of the CDC and Dicken’s boss, had hoped to secure extra funding from Congress during a fiscal dry spell. Herod’s, thought to have caused thousands of hideously malformed miscarriages, had seemed like a terrific goad.
Herod’s had quickly been traced to the transfer of one of thousands of Human Endogenous Retroviruses—HERV—carried by all people within their DNA. The ancient virus, newly liberated, mutated and infectious, had been promptly renamed SHEVA, for Scattered Human Endogenous Viral Activation.
In those days, viruses had been assumed to be nothing more than selfish agents of disease.
“She’s been looking forward to seeing you,” Freedman said. “How long since your last visit?”
“Six months,” Dicken said.
“My favorite pilgrim, paying his respects to our viral Lourdes,” Freedman said. “Well, she’s a wonder, all right. And something of a saint, poor dear.”
Freedman and Dicken passed junctions with tubes branching southwest, northeast, and northwest to other shafts. Outside, the summer morning was warming rapidly. The sun hung just above the horizon, a subdued greenish ball. Cool air pulsed around them with a breathy moan.
They came to the end of the main tube. An engraved Formica placard to the right of the elevator door read, “MRS. CARLA RHINE.” Freedman punched the single white button. Dicken’s ears popped as the door closed behind them.
SHEVA had turned out to be much more than a disease. Shed only by males in committed relationships, the activated retrovirus served as a genetic messenger, ferrying complicated instructions for a new kind of birth. SHEVA infected recently fertilized eggs—in a sense, hijacked them for a higher cause. The Herod’s miscarriages were first-stage embryos, called “interim daughters,” not much more than specialized ovaries devoted to producing a new set of precisely mutated eggs.
Without additional sexual activity, the second-stage ova implanted and covered themselves with a thin, protective coating. They survived the abortion of the first embryo and started a new pregnancy.
To some, this had looked like a kind of virgin birth.
Most of the second-stage embryos had gone to term. Worldwide, in two waves separated by four years, three million new children had been born. More than two and a half million of the infants had survived. There was still controversy over exactly who and what they were—a diseased mutation, a subspecies, or a completely new species.
Most simply called them virus children.
“Carla’s still cranking them out,” Freedman said as the elevator reached the bottom. “She’s shed seven hundred new viruses in the last four months. About a third are infectious, single-stranded RNA sense negative, potentially real bastards. Fifty-two of them kill pigs within hours. Ninety-one are almost certainly lethal to humans. Another ten can probably kill both pigs and humans.” Freedman glanced over her shoulder to see his reaction.
“I know,” Dicken said dryly. He rubbed his hip. His leg bothered him when he stood for more than fifteen minutes. The same White House explosion that had taken his eye, twelve years ago, had left him partially disabled. Three rounds of surgery had allowed him to put aside the crutches but not the pain.
“Still in the loop, even at NCI?” Freedman asked.
“Trying to be,” he said.
“Thank God there are only four like her.”
“She’s our fault,” he said, and paused to reach down and massage his calf.
“Maybe, but Mother Nature’s still a bitch,” Freedman said, watching him with her hands on her hips.
A small airlock at the end of the concrete corridor cycled them through to the main floor. They were now fifty feet below ground. A guard in a crisp green uniform inspected their passes and permission papers and compared them with the duty and guest roster at her workstation.
“Please identify,” she told them. Both placed their eyes in front of scanners projecting from the counter and simultaneously pressed their thumbs onto sensitive plates. A female orderly in hospital greens escorted them to the cleanup area.
Mrs. Rhine was housed in one of ten underground residences, four of them currently occupied. The residences formed the center of what was reputed to be the most redundantly secure research facility on Earth. Though Dicken and Freedman would never come any closer than seeing her through a four-inch-thick acrylic window, they would have to go through a whole-body scrub before and after the interview. Before entering the viewing area and staging lab, called the inner station, they would put on special hooded undergarments impregnated with slow-release antivirals, zip up in plastic isolation suits, and attach themselves to positive pressure umbilical hoses.
Mrs. Rhine and her companions at the center never saw real human beings unless they were dressed to resemble Macy’s parade balloons.
On leaving, they would stand under a shower and soak their plastic suits with disinfectants, then strip down and shower again, scrubbing every orifice. The suits would be soaked overnight, and the undergarments would be incinerated.
The four women interned at the facility ate well and exercised regularly. Their quarters—each roughly the size of a two-bedroom apartment—were maintained by automated servants. They had their hobbies—Mrs. Rhine was a great one for hobbies—and access to a wide selection of books, magazines, TV shows, and movies.
Of course, the women were becoming more and more eccentric.
“Any tumors?” Dicken asked.
“Official question?” Freedman asked.
“Personal,” Dicken said.
Product details
- ASIN : B00BS06SKW
- Publisher : HarperCollins (11 April 2013)
- Language : English
- File size : 1316 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 513 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: 244,836 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 1,974 in Space Marine Science Fiction eBooks
- 2,205 in Space Marine
- 3,473 in Science Fiction Adventure (Kindle Store)
- Customer reviews:
About the author
Greg Bear is the author of more than thirty books, spanning thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy, including Blood Music, Eon, The Forge of God, Darwin's Radio, City at the End of Time, and Hull Zero Three. His books have won numerous international prizes, have been translated into more than twenty-two languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Over the last twenty-eight years, he has also served as a consultant for NASA, the U.S. Army, the State Department, the International Food Protection Association, and Homeland Security on matters ranging from privatizing space to food safety, the frontiers of microbiology and genetics, and biological security.
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Top reviews from United Kingdom
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He takes the idea that nature has always been experimenting with new life forms - the human body being no exception (even cancer is a reserve of maverick cells available for nature to play with) - and takes it to its logical conclusion, something that few writers are brave enough to do.
As such, the reader is in a position to take that journey with Greg Bear. Though you may not agree with where he takes it, the narrative is facinating - and is based on not just good science, but a good understanding of human nature, motivations and the role of institutions, power, and the dynamics of culture and society.
I also like the way he gives due credence to common sense and felt experience (in the sense that we all know certain things happen, even if they can't be rigorously proved).
Bear sequels in the past have not lived up to the quality of the first instalment and sadly, this is the case here. Despite it being a good solid novel and streets ahead of most of the competition it lacks the tightness and pace of the original. It also includes a rather unnecessary exegesis on the part of Kaye who experiences an encounter with what appears to be God. Unfortunately this never really dovetails into the structure at all and lacks relevance.
However it is an exciting examination of Neo-Darwinism and Bear provides an excellent afterword which includes further recommended reading on the subject.
Taking the two books as a whole the work can be seen as a Twenty First Century update on Van Vogt's `Slan' with echoes of `The Midwich Cuckoos'. The nature of Bear's homo superior is very interesting. They communicate on various levels; by scent, colour flashing of the marks on their faces and in a strange two-levelled speech by which more than one meaning or message can be conveyed at once. They form bonded `families' which they call demes and seem to have lost any desire for competitive behaviour, finding co-operation to be a better genetic survival strategy.
In context `DC' is a post-aids retrovirus-aware work of paranoia, set in a declining USA. Sadly, Bear gives us only brief glimpses of how the virus children are treated elsewhere in the world. An Indian taxi-driver, for instance, at one point talks quite happily of his `Shivite' grand-daughter and of how proud the family are of her.
There is an upbeat ending in which society has grudgingly accepted its children and they live in their own communities. More and more Shivites are being born among the general population in waves every few years.
It's hard to see how Bear could get a third novel from this idea but one suspects that there is another story in there somewhere, waiting to be hatched.
- The start, I found the start of this book to be very slow with no real reward for the reader
- A middle section in which the story improves and draws you in and it starts to regain some momentum.
- An end which simply fizzled out with many lose ends.
Whilst I am a great fan of authors work; this book just feels a little forced, it unnecessarily focuses on the science that under pins the story at the costs of the story, it includes some ideas which don't work well within the context of this book and worse of all an ending that just fizzles out and doesn't provide any real closure.
Would I recommend reading it, only if you really enjoyed Darwin's Radio and are keenly interested in how the story progresses.
As far as the story line goes I have dropped Bear one star because there were a couple of weakish angles, but that may be more from the point of view of my own beliefs rather than true literary demerit. Otherwise it is a good, well constructed story (as we expect of Bear) and holds the attention. Its scope covers the personal angle, corporate and political intrigue, ethics, genetics, and archaeology which have all been well researched by the author.
Well worth reading if science does not give you the shakes!
Top reviews from other countries
The plots of both Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children continue over nearly twenty years, following politicians, scientists and their children. The characters are strong and interesting, as they change under extreme pressures; the outlook for humanity is, via a new, highly unusual discovery of ancient human bones in North America, upbeat. It needs to be - these are gruelling stories.
The science is comped and prevalent. I have a math and writing background, not science. However, the author does a good job of presenting the premise, clearly and believably. I can't say I understood everything and viruses, but the story was crafted such that any failure on my part did not limit my enjoyment.
The characters offer depth and run true throughout the novels. My only complaint was the sudden disappearance of Will. I felt he got shorted; that something important got deleted from the plot for some reason.
Five stars are well earned for research and writing skills. I look forward to another installment of it is offered.
Here's the way it works:
Scattered throughout the "junk" (unused) portion of our DNA are HERV's (Human Endogenous Retroviruses). These are fossils of ancient viral infections put to use (or not) by our genome. Furthermore, the genomes (radios) of different species have mysterious and varied methods of communicating with each other. When a certain threshold degree of stress in a species is detected by its genome, that genome dials through its library of possibilities for enhancement, punches in a selection, and releases one of these viral junk DNA segments to make the adjustment.
Note the vast difference between this and random mutation/natural selection. There HAVE been major advancements in our understanding of evolution over the past twenty years. For example: Science expected a lot more human genes than 25,000. Science began to concentrate on evo-devo - how the embryo changes into an adult. Science discovered that Hox genes (directing body segmentation) and other repressor molecules direct embryonic development by the mechanism of switching other genes on and off. It came as a surprise that virtually the same genes have been found amongst diverse species - from worms to humans. Evolution may be caused by mutations amongst genetic switches perhaps even more than by mutations amongst genes. Complexity and variety can be created by varying the patterns of control on the same old genes. Constraints imposed by the Hox genes could conceivably enhance quicker changes than gradualism would allow.
All this and more has happened in an orderly fashion because of the self-correcting nature of the scientific method and peer review - following the evidence, whereas there is not a shred of evidence to support a thesis like Bear's.
Back to the story: This same retrovirus infected homo sapiens neandertalensis in the distant past (40,000 yrs ago?). It created homo sapiens sapiens in a single generation, a new fitter subspecies more capable of surviving. Now it is happening again.
"Darwin's Children" begins where "Darwin's Radio" ended with the birth of perhaps a million members throughout the world of this new species. The main "improvement" is in enhanced communication skills, exhibited through improved speech, smells (giving and receiving), and various sorts of body language. The result is a more empathetic, more co-operative, less violent species. Unfortunately they are not welcomed into society and this leads to a suspenseful story.
The characters are better developed than in "Radio," and it is an enjoyable book to read. As in "Radio," Thomas Kuhn enthusiasts will appreciate the way the author has the gradualist neo-Darwinian old guard resist the change to a new paradigm of scientific evolutionary thought. Bear elaborates on this theme more in this book than in "Radio." Scientists reading this book will recognize the Lamarckian and other scientific liberties taken and perhaps not be as appreciative.
One star deducted for Kuhn-worship.