Rating: 
Summary: At the Alps of Madness?
Review: This book has a promising start and premise, sort of like A. Conan Doyle's "Lost World" imposed over all Europe instead of a mere South American plateau. However, later in the book I was disappointed as aspects that I was enjoying were shoved aside for a storyline a lot like "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft. There is a little something for fans of Kafka's "Metamorphosis". Here there be wogglebugs.
Rating: 
Summary: Good.
Review: I liked Darwinia, it was pretty good. I liked the idea of Europe turing into a prehistoric jungle, it seemed exciting reading about giant bugs crawling up your legs. But towards the end I din't like all the deamons (sp).
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: This book is neither as bad nor as good as the other reviews make it out to be. The various plot strands do not always mesh well, but once the story gets going there is considerable narrative drive and Wilson writes with great style.
Rating:
Summary: Unfulfilled potential
Review: Reading the dust jacket for Darwinia you'd think that it's a story of an exploration of a miraculous new continent that has replaced Europe. You'd only be partly right. I can't go into detail about how the story disappointed me without revealing key plot details, but suffice it to say that Darwinia abandons a promising start that includes a believable description of how the Miracle affects the rest of the world. Wilson explains away the Miracle halfway through, and the story mutates into a wholly different one. This transmutation might be more acceptable if the new story were a more interesting one. Another source of disappointment is the use of the other point of view characters besides Guilford, particular Elias Vale. Vale's significance to the story seems too minor given the number of pages devoted to him.But don't let my fault finding dissuade you too completely from giving this book a try. One reason that I am so critical is because it has such an interesting premise and some interesting characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good, original SF on its best
Review: This book is full of original idea's. I can place is next to the best of Niven and other famous authors. Once your're half way, the plot changes 180 degrees, and I coudn't stop reading...
Rating:
Summary: A great adventure -- plus a little more!
Review: Darwinia starts off as a good old-fashioned adventure novel. The new land to be explored is an incomprehensibly weird and wonderful place. Wilson makes up some amazing plant and animal life. Then gets some old-time explorers to go take a look. Wilson decided he needed a deeper plot for this book. I disagree. I didn't need the complications of "deeper" meaning. I guess I just wanted a fantastic adventure. None-the-less Wilson still gets 4 stars from me (and a second-place Hugo vote) just for the freshness of vision, and the fabulous invention of Darwinia.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much - and not enough!!!
Review: "Darwinia" has a lot to live up to. I read it purely on the strength that it has been nominated for a Hugo - and though it is an interesting and, in parts, highly enjoyable novel, there are others on this years shortlist more deserving of the prize. The main problem with "Darwinia" is that it seems more like three or four books squashed into one. "Darwinia" is in part a story of "Lost World" exploration, part cosmic space opera, part ghost story, part horror-flick, part philosophy, part love story --- and so on. The novel is flawed because of the way all these elements are patched together - leaving the reader floundering with a jagged, disjointed narrative that sometime jumps from third to first person. And just when you think "Darwinia" is settling into something you can get to grips with, the story mutates into something else. With many authors, this comes as a welcome suprise and bonus for the reader, but in "Darwinia" Wilson leaves us feeling unfulfilled and rather dissatisfied. That said, Wilson's writing is engaging enough - the characters are likeable or not as the plot dictates and there are one or two very notable scenes. It's a shame though that the plotting of this novel does not match the quality of the narrative. Read it by all means - but if this wins the Hugo above "Children of God" or "To Say Nothing of the Dog", I will be very surprised.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not one of the "great" SF books.
Review: The starting premise is relly interesting, but has lots of flaws. First, dealing with the omnipotent is too difficult for a novel... Everything gets trivial too soon. And there are lots of things that are simply ilogical (I will try to describe a few without spoiling the novel): what is the basic motivation for the "ghosts"? if everything is virtual why the battles are so "real"? why they did not use futuristic weapons, or simply a-bombs? RCW avoids writing a pure adventure novel (as it appears to be in the first chapters) to write somthing more deep, but at the end, he sacrifices again avery sign of coherence or logic to include a "final battle" that is too incredible... Not a bad novel, but it could have been much much better.
Rating:
Summary: Not Bad... But not the best
Review: This book started off really good but then it started to get really confusing. There was too many ideas in not enough pages.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed - expected better from Mr.Wilson.
Review: I'm not sure where or how to start.... there are so many different concepts crammed into this book, almost all of them under-developed and half-finished. I thought that the first bit about Darwinia's appearance was going to be an expansion of "Mysterium", but the alter-ego /ghost /doppelganger threw me a bit, then the god-mind playing games was a bit too much for me to take - even re-reading some chapters several times, I confess I'm still at a loss to grasp the point. I was expecting something much better from the writer who gave us the beautiful "Harvest". Sorry Mr. Wilson - not my cup of tea, or rather, the tea was OK, the unfinished leaves spoiled it.
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