Rating: 
Summary: Keeps you turning pages far into the night!
Review: This book starts with an interesting (and not TOO speculative) thesis. Main characters are well fleshed out and sympathetic. Plot moves at a breakneck pace, and journeys between diverse geographical locations, which are also well developed!This is the first book I have read by these authors, but it certainly won't be the last!
Rating:
Summary: Keeps you turning pages far into the night!
Review: This book starts with an interesting (and not TOO speculative) thesis. Main characters are well fleshed out and sympathetic. Plot moves at a breakneck pace, and journeys between diverse geographical locations, which are also well developed! This is the first book I have read by these authors, but it certainly won't be the last!
Rating:
Summary: Exciting adventure
Review: This is the first book I've read by the Gears. Now that I've discovered them, I plan on purchasing many more of their titles. Dark Inheritance is a great adventure story. It's superbly written. The characters are so well fleshed out, I really cared for them. I got so caught up in the exciting story that I regretted having to put it down long enough to catch some sleep.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing idea, disappointing follow-through.
Review: Though I went into the book with the thought 'Jurassic Park re-vamp', I decided to give it a chance any way. Besides, I'm a sucker for a good techno-thriller, and most take some time to get all of the relevant details in order for the plot to work (as does this story--probably the first third of the book!). I can't say that "Dark Inheritance" ever took off the way I was hoping it would. Admittedly, it was a good try; there's definitely something here worth working with. But the characters seemed cliche, more like simple foils than real people; there was no *life* there! And there were no surprises--once the main characters had been stirred in, seasoned to taste with the proper bit of background info and plot-centered jargon, the mix was poured straight into the mold, with no doubts as to outcome. Overall, an OK read as a distraction, but not really for those looking for deep characters or enthralling storyline. As an aside, I must mention something that, in light of this review, may seem a tad minor, but nonetheless rankled my sensibilities as a student of biology. Page 119: "Jim, we don't know for sure that she's a human-bonobo cross."
"She can't be," he protested. "Humans and apes can't interbreed. Apes have twenty-four pairs of chromosomes. Humans have twenty-three. Somwhere in our past, two ape chromosomes merged into a single human chromosome. That number two chromosome makes interbreeding impossible. Assuming a human sperm met an ape ovum, that chromosomal difference would create nonviability at the first mitosis." Which is not necessarily the case, as Mr. Gear, being a physical anthropologist, should be well aware. Gibbons (lesser apes) of distinct evolutionary lineages (and widely varying chromosome counts) have been know to produce viable (though infertile) offspring. The same is true in the case of the mule (whose parents, the ass and the horse, also differ in number of chromosomes). Hybrids of differing chromosomal counts mix and match all the time. They just can't reproduce (which might have been what the Gears were grasping for here.)
Rating: 
Summary: pure trash
Review: To summarize, the book tells the story of an English drug company's project to create genetically enhanced bonobos so that the species will have a better chance of survival and escape extinction.
To review, there's nothing to like in this book. More than half the characters are either totally disgusting, or stupid beyond belief. We have a spoiled, obsessed with sex thirteen year-old girl, a mother who abandoned her daughter to pursue her career, profit driven "hunters"/ poachers, and a colossal group of idiots pouring money, a good deal of which is obtained illegally, into an impractical, doomed-from-the-start endeavor. Even the scientific ideas become boring.
In regards to the emotional relationship between Brett (the spoiled girl) and her "sister"(Umber-one of the genetically enhanced bonobos), that feature disintegrates almost instantly due to continual overdone emotional yakking by almost every main character in the story. If you do want to read about ape genetic engineering then look at Robin Cook's "Chromosome 6." D.I. is a complete rip-off of the latter and Cook's work is infinitely better in every detail.
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