Rating: 
Summary: mediocre
Review: Unfortunately it's hard to bond with the characters since they seem underdeveloped. Furthermore, the enemy is also hard to hate---they are just entities created by a computer virus. I know the notion of wanna be sentient supercomputers makes for a great enemy---but a computer virus which simply wants to replace our history with its own! I guess I'm just disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: After a slow start Wilson leapfrogs off the map...
Review: This book is much better than the naysayers would have you believe but is disappointing to someone who wishes Wilson would return to the kind of personal writing found in his best work to date: "Gypsies". Still, "Darwinia" doesn't disappoint -- there are many surprises (thank the gods not just a rehashing of Jules Verne!) and some interesting characters. I'd have liked to see him develop Lily into a stronger character, but that's a small criticism. Intriguing idea that 'free-will' doesn't begin for humanity until the Darwinian invasion...what does this say about our own world, Wilson? "Darwinia" engages the imagination, and Wilson's writing is seductive enough to keep the reader turning pages. But I can't help wishing Wilson would give us memorable personalities like those of his first three novels. I wonder how many others feel likewise?
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant alternate-history; highly recommended
Review: This book was truly unique; an excellent read. If you're a thinking reader, you will not be disappointed. It begins as your average tale of exploring-the-unkown-savage-wilderness. It quickly becomes a superior alternate history (in the truest sense of the term.) I won't give away key plot points. Suffice to say, those who started this book expecting "Jurassic Park" were disappointed. This book is far deeper than that. The goal is to solve the mystery of Darwinia. Obviously, some reviewers were unhappy that the solution was not simple or tame. Character development was good. There are no cardboard noble good guys in white hats battling banal bad guys with no real motives. Everyone has motivations. Some are better than others. Just like life. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: What happened here?
Review: The first half of the story was very good, telling the tale of a world in which Europe disappeared overnight. But halfway through, the story starts to get real weird and by the end it's pretty dissapointing.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fun Read
Review: A great airplane book. I really enjoyed the writing, and thought that this is better than Mysterium or the Harvest. They're all very enjoyable to read. Wilson deserves to have his books in print - I can't find the early stuff.
Rating:
Summary: disappoints in the end
Review: i greatly enjoyed the first 1/3 of this novel--that was when i thought it would be an alternate history of what this century would have been like if europe disappeared. although that plot line does not completely go away (it lingers in the background for the rest of the novel) the plot that replaces it is needlessly convoluted and much less interesting. i was disappointed that wilson felt he had to explain the disappearance of europe at all, keeping it a mystery and leaving the characters to wrestle with its consequences for science and religion would have been much better than the worn-out "battle for the fate of the universe" plot that emerged.
Rating:
Summary: Fades fast
Review: Like other readers, I thought the book got off to a great start. But the plot bogs down quickly. After the first part it seems, in fact, to wander into another novel--specifically The Devil's Day by James Blish. But Wilson draws none of his characters with the same care and realism that he did in his excellent Harvest, a novel which I can hardly believe is out of print already. Adding to the disappointment is the tendency, like so many other tedious SF novels, to treat the fate of the universe in such banal terms. I winced when the predicable fallback on the misnamed Uncertainty Principle showed up at the second Interlude. It's like black holes; a handy cliche to explain just about anything...
Rating:
Summary: Great premise, Fantastic beginning, disapointing overall
Review: The book jacket description and the beginning of the book hold so much promise. It is unfortunate the author abandons these gems and switches to a much less interesting storyline a third of the way into the book. Maybe if the new story was better it wouldn't have been such an overall disapointment.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book, but slightly flawed.
Review: Like all of Wilson's books, Darwinia turned out to be a real page turner. I've been a huge fan of his since I found Gypsies at the library, and have found all of his work to be excellent, including Darwinia. Like most of his books, Darwinia focuses on a world that is suddenly changed irrevocably. But, unlike many authors, elements of character are always paramount to the physical events of the book. In most of Wilson's books, this is an asset, especially in The Harvest, a book which contains some of the most powerful and emotional characterizations found in any type of literature. In Darwinia, however, the focus on character seems at times to make the story less cohesive. While that main character of Guilford Law is always interesting and compelling, I was saddened when I found that the second half of the book focused less on the New World of Darwinia and more on the cause of the New World's appearance. The variety of new flora and fauna in the first half of the book kept me interested and excited to find out what would show up next, but in the second half of the book, that excitement was missing. I wouldn't say that the second half of the book was bad, but in for my taste, I would have prefered for Wilson to wait longer before revealing the cause of the Miracle, and spend more time developing the landscape. I would wholehearted reccomend this book to anyone, but it is somewhat melancholy. The end was very well done and was not so ambiguous and dark as the end of his other works, like A Hidden Place or The Harvest. I felt that overall the book was excellent.
Rating:
Summary: An awsom look at the past while changing it and the present.
Review: I thought it was good. It starts out with a group of people going to explore a new Europe. You kind of wish it would stay like that. The way the story changes keept my interest. Not a lot of books hol;d it as well as this one. I Kind of wish I was the main character.
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