Book Review of Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

Book Cover

 

Greg Bear was born August 20, 1951 in San Diego, California.  He received his Bachelor of Art from San Diego State University.  His more recent works, such as the Darwin's Radio / Darwin's Children are a pair of novels, which deal with the impact of a strange disease that appears to drive evolutionary transitions, stick closely to the known facts of molecular biology of viruses and evolution. While some fairly speculative ideas are entertained, they are introduced in such a rigorous and disciplined way that Darwin's Radio gained praise in the science journal Nature.

In the novel, a new form of endogenous retrovirus has emerged, SHEVA. It controls human evolution by rapidly evolving the next generation while in the womb, leading to speciation.  The novel follows several characters as the "plague" is discovered as well as the panicked reaction of the public and the U.S. government to the disease.

This book would only be suitable for more mature students because it deals with issues such as abortion.  This would be great for an AP biology class.  This would also be great in a U.S. government class to see how the role of government impacts its citizens.  Darwin's Radio would work in a statistics class to calculate the percentages of people who would and would not be affected.  Many essays could be written for an English class pertaining to student's emotions about what they are reading or what they would do if they were in charge of the situation.

I would recommend this read and I can't wait to read it's squeal!