Rating: 
Summary: Great "near future" SF, Bear's getting better
Review: To my mind, Greg Bear has some of the best ideas in the field of SF writers active today (portals to n-dimensional space in "Eon", flipping the bits on matter to change is properties in "The Forge of God", properties of absolute zero in "Heads" to name a few). But his weakness has been his inability to carry a story from beginning to end in a satisfying manner. His characters also tend to be on the disposable side."Darwin's Radio" I'm happy to say does not suffer from any of these flaws while still retaining the mind-blowing ideas he seems to come up with. Ideas: great stuff, some parts were hard to understand but I think I got the essentials. Characters: three main characters were well drawn and very believable, very human. Plot: not perfect but quite good. Kept me turning the pages and in fact I was strongly tempted to "cheat" mid-way through the book and read the ending (I resisted the temptation :-) In many ways this book reminds me of an equally fine book "Timescape" by one of the other "killer B's", Gregory Benford. Timescape was about physics, this book is about biology. Both contain on-the-mark description of modern America and how science gets done. I actually think Bear is onto something "real" in this book and I think what he describes here is likely to be close to the new and improved understanding of evolution and genetics which may be demonstrated scientifically within a few years. Even if he is wrong, it makes for a great read.
Rating: 
Summary: Nominated for a Hugo? This is not science fiction.
Review: It's also not a "techno thriller" (no thrills), or a romance (there's no spark to any of the characters interactions). What it is: bureaucracy fiction. If you're kept on the edge of your seat by reading the minutes of endless meetings between government task force committee members, as well as hearing the 'behind the scenes' political machinations they go through in order to jockey for their position, then by all means rush out & buy this book - it's made for you. Despite page after page of jargon (which I understood, but it's still jargon), there's almost no scientific speculation here. I'm a big fan of Bear's work; his great strength is taking the seed of an idea and running with it, exploring all the nooks & crannies of possibility. Unfortunately, it's all absent here. After page 40 or so, there is nothing more to be learned, just the inexorable unwinding of the political manuevering of the principle characters. People argue a lot about what the SHEVA virus really is, but the reader knows exactly what it is at the beginning. Bear insures there are no surprises by describing what the eventual "new people" will be based on rumors heard at the beginning of the book. To add insult to injury, he fills the last few chapters with that tired narrative technique, the birth scene. Nothing to see here folks, just move along. This is so uncharacteristic for Bear. When I see something like this, it makes me wonder what has been going on in the personal life of the author. This book reads suspiciously like paean to the joys of true love, monogomous relationships and parenthood. Was Bear married, or did he become a father, just prior to his work on this? The book is obviously written as part 1 of 2 parts. The second part looks to be actually interesting; unfortunately the 500+ pages of this book could have been collapsed to maybe the first 80 pages of the next book. What a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious
Review: Why is this book so badly written ? The first sentence is "The flat afternoon sky spread over the black and gray mountains like a stage backdrop, the color of a dog's pale crazy eye" and there are many more awful sentences like this one. After 20 pages I nearly threw the book away. I then started to skip pages. From about page 80 on I read the book and tried to ignore the misguided "poetic" stuff, which - mercifully - became less frequent. This would have been a good hard SF story of about 300 pages. Unfortunately the book has 538 pages. A good publisher employs people who guide authors (they are called lectors). Somebody should have told Mr. Bear to cut the unsuccessful attempts at writing "literature". They ruined the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful premise, woeful ending
Review: Up until the last couple of chapters I was hypnotized by the writing style and premise of Darwin's Radio. I loved the attention the author gave to each of his characters, good and bad. I literally read the book til I would fall asleep with it in my hands each night. Unfortunately the story stumbles at the end, as if the author wasnt sure how he wanted to tie it up. A worthwhile reading attempt if you can deal with the lackluster ending.
Rating:
Summary: tantalizing idea
Review: It takes allmost 100 pages for the story to get going, but when it finally does it's hard to put down. Bear creates likeable characters & comes up with a concept of evolution that may be unlikely, but is fresh & tantalizing. The book will leave you with enough 'what if's' to keep your mind busy for a few evenings. Not necessarily the one book you should take to an uninhabited island, but very good reading nevertheless.
Rating: 
Summary: Darwin's Radio
Review: I agree with "adidas" comments to a point("This book has, at its core, one of the greatest premises for a plot I've seen in ages. The prospect of evolution alongside our species. The characters are pretty well defined, with a good pace to keep you reading through the night. However, 3/4s of the way through, the pace drops".) I would add that while the ending is less than I had hoped for while reading the book, I enjoyed reading it, and also enjoyed reading a "medical" that was not a "Michael Crichton" clone type novel.
Rating:
Summary: Another Great Bear Book
Review: This is an excellent book yet different from Greg Bear's other novells. To me the characters seemed more real in this book than others he has written. It kept me up all night reading the book and was indeed interesting for the endnotes he makes in the back of the book regarding the plausibility of mankind transforming into something else in the near future. An interesting book, a great story, and it will give you something to think about!
Rating:
Summary: Good idea, lose the characters
Review: A thought-provoking concept but Bear's overwrought style reads like a stillborn cross between a Harlequin romance novel and a Robin Cook medical potboiler. The characters are irksome, the dialogue stilted and the emotional tone pitched far too high. Bear's literary skills are no match for his ideas.
Rating:
Summary: Silly plot
Review: GB really went out of his way to think up such a far fetched and unrealistic plot as this! Fortunately it's a brisk read.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating and disturbing tale
Review: Although I found the ending a bit abrupt, this is an excellent and entertaining book. Bear is getting really good at describing plausible near-future worlds. His biology is, well, a rather lengthy extension of present thinking -- but it IS an extension, and a plausible one. Sadly, his prediction of governmental behavior is less of a stretch, and more plausible. Beyond all this, though, the story moves and remains near the top of your mind even when you're not reading it. An excellent book.
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