Title: Darwin's Radio (Darwin's Radio #1)
Author: Greg Bear
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: first published 5.4.99
Publisher’s Summary
Molecular biologist Kaye Lang's theory--that ancient diseases encoded in the DNA of humans can return to life--has become a chilling reality. The shocking evidence: a "virus-hunter" has tracked down a flu-like disease that kills expectant mothers and their offspring.
In an ice cave in the Swiss Alps, Mitch Rafelson, a renegade paleontologist, discovers a frozen Neanderthal family, including an oddly evolved infant. Meantime, in Soviet Georgia, Kaye Lang, a microbiologist, is investigating a massacre site, where pregnant women were exterminated. These events relate--by way of elliptical scientific reasoning--to a retrovirus being hunted by U.S. government scientist Christopher Dicken. Called SHEVA, it causes genetic mutations in embryos and may also be an agent of evolution, ushering into being a new race of humans. Is it a sexually transmitted disease? Or, more sinister, is it a God-sent means of delivering up a new Adam for the millennium? When Mitch and Kaye fall in love, then decide to bring their own SHEVA baby to full term, they are about to find out the truth firsthand.
My Review
An ancient disease encoded in human DNA has been unlocked, causing a flu-like disease that kills pregnant women. 😱
This book has been on my TBR for a very long time. Reading this originally published in 1999 science fiction novel in 2022 added another layer to the book. I was awed at author Greg Bear's depictions of public reactions to a devastating virus. I also cringed at some of the text that did not age well (ex: Bill Cosby doing PSAs for the CDC...oof). Overall, I loved the entire story (the plot, the characters, and the pacing). I am excited to read the sequel, Darwin's Children and might be leaning into more medical thrillers in the future.
Do you have any favorite medical thrillers?
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