Rating: 
Summary: Brilliantly creative and original
Review: I like stories that have big ideas. Stories like Fritz Lieber's _The Sinful Ones_ that proposed that all the other people in the world really are automatons, or _Celestial Matters_ that takes, as its premise, the notion that ancient Greek science and cosmology were accurate.This is another Big Idea book, and it is brilliantly rendered. The only complaint I have (hence the reason I only give it four stars) is that the solution to the mystery is given away far too early, but that doesn't really hamper the story as badly as I would have thought. Dawinia is an existential fantasy and a vindication of secular methodology all at the same time. By all means, do buy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Over the Top!
Review: Ignore the publisher's weekly review! Wilson is a master and anyone who has sampled his previous works will find the same wonderful themes. Sounds boring? Not in the least, unless transcendence, immortality, universal history and piercing the veil of maya are boring. His characters honest and real. Their stories play out against an epic and literally cosmic backdrop. I particularly love the way his characters find redemption. I think he must be cutting new ground --maybe we could dubb his work neoplatonic SF or gnostic fiction? I just know I'll be in a funk after this one--read slowly and relish!
Rating: 
Summary: Europe has changed...
Review: In fact, in 1912 it was outright replaced by another Europe. A wild Europe, full of wild plants and animals not of THIS Earth. Many believe it to be a act of divine punishment and others are not so sure, but in the end it will change the future of the Earth. Or is that our past?
The book starts out kind of weak to begin with, with three major plot threads. Only one seems to deal with Darwina and that was the reason I wanted to read the book. I am not sure I would compare it to the work of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, but it does have the feel of a Lovecraft or E.R. Burroughs book. Half way thru the story the author tosses in a dash of Olaf Stapledon. Lifts whole themes right out of _The Star Maker_ which did make it slightly more readable for me.
In the end it just got three stars and I don't think I will be looking for this author's other books unless somebody I trust tells me to.
Rating:
Summary: Trip-in-dicular brah!
Review: This is classic sci-fi. Wilson really portrays his alternative 1912 very well. Wilson is the master of the sci-fi everyman character and that ability to make vivid, wild happenings suddenly look as if they could happen down the street. The basic deal with this plot is it's two tiered and tough to explain. There's a micro story - the world wakes up to find after a meteor shower that the entire European continent has been transformed into an alien world. The geography is similar in distances, mountains, etc., but there are bizarre alien life forms walking around, which the scientists on the first steamboat across the Atlantic soon suspect to be much older than the meteor shower -- as if they had been evolving for thousands of years. They find strange empty sterile cities of strange buildings. JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
And what's going on is the macrostory-
What's going on is so far out that, as another review describes it, when the curtain gets pulled you'll be left drooling on yourself trying to process it. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I found the big reveal quite enjoyable and mind-blowing. It happens in the middle of the book when you are so tantalized by the mystery of it all you just can't take it anymore. The book continues after that in a good way to wrap everything up. Wilson has tried to reach this mind-blowing level since this book with The Chronoliths and Blind Lake, but I don't think has really been able to. This one the Philip K. Dick award and deserved it. Wilson has a classic sci-fi pulp writer's technique from the twenties with a whole world of modern science and plot ideas.
Rating:
Summary: could have been better
Review: Starts out pretty interesting but less than halfway through becames boring and monotonous. This could have been an interesting story and instead we have something entirely forgettable.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, not perfect, but very readable
Review: Canadian science fiction is less formulaic than its US counterpart. I think this is Wilson's first book, and he hits with a bang!
Something really strange happens: Europe disappears and is replaced by a primeaval Europe. The people of the rest of the world starts recolonizing the lost continent, renamed Darwinia. All landmarks are the same, but there are just no people there. Then, some explorers find strange structures, and at the same time individuals around the world start having strange dreams, and undergo horrifying physical transformations.
The good thing about this book is that it is really not possible for the reader to figure out what is going on or how everything is going to end beforehand. The end is reminiscent of Clarke, Aldiss, and Asimov at their best.
Wilson writes well, and has had an honourable career after this book.
Rating:
Summary: Kind of slow, but very good.
Review: It seems like there are more and more books where part of the Earth is mysteriously changed overnight. S.M. Sirling's Islands in the Sea of Time and Wilson's own Mysterium come to mind. In all of them that I have read, you simply accept this change as part of the setting of the story. Darwinia is different, in that the main character wants to find out why the change occured, and much of the story is dedicated to explaining that change, and this was why I liked this book better than I expected. The story was pretty slow at the beginning, and I almost gave up on the book. However, once Wilson started to explain how the change happened, it got much more interesting, if not much faster. I enjoyed the characters in the book, particularly Gulliford Law, who is curious about what happened to cause the change in the Earth, but once he finds out, wants nothing more to do with it. As I mentioned, the story is kind of slow, but I think it is worthwhile. I have read several books by Wilson, and they have never been quite what I was expecting going in, but I have enjoyed them all. I would recommend this book, and will look to read more of Wilson in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: ....
Review: This book started out as being good. I started reading it and I thought it was going to be about some explorers trying to survive in a strange alien world. This is what the book started out like. Then it suddenly turned into stuff about alternate lives, gods, etc, etc. Just [not good].
Rating:
Summary: Interesting fusion of ideas; not bad, but not perfect
Review: 'Darwinia' is really a tale of two halves. The book as which it begins is charming, mysterious, and deeply entertaining. Somewhere near the novel's midpoint, a plot pivot appears which transforms the novel into something *entirely* different. To say it was 'unsettling' to this unsuspecting reader is an understatement; however, sticking with it proved to be rewarding nonetheless. The reviewer who described 'Darwinia' as Edgar Rice Burroughs meets 'The Matrix' is dead on target, with maybe a sprinkling of Lovecraft's Old Gods thrown in for good measure. 'Darwinia' has a strange disequilibrium to it, and it is definitely difficult to categorize - but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not a five-star book , in my humble opinion, but it is still a thoroughly enjoyable novel. It's a smart, interesting read unlike anything I've seen before. 'Darwinia' is the first writing by Robert Charles Wilson I've read. He definitely impressed me as an author worth seeking out, and will appear on my reading list again soon.
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