Popular culture often comes to science-fiction with the expectation to find prophecy. While many professional writers may reject this understanding, it's almost scary how accurately Darwin's Radio predicted the current situation. A virus keeps the entire world in suspense and the political leaders struggle to find the proper response to deal with the situation. However, in his novel Greg Bear created this scenario to focus on another topic with long tradition within the genre, the proper understanding of the idea of evolution.

SHEVA is a so-called endogenous retrovirus, i.e. a virus that forms part of humanity's genetic make-up. It has been a dormant part of our DNA for a very long time, but now somehow got activated (characters in the story hypothesize that this may be due to stress, maybe from overpopulation). We are used to treat viruses as pathogens, and getting infected with that virus leads to symptoms that at least prima facie look very much like a disease. Women tested positive on SHEVA are experiencing miscarriages, so that they start to call the disease the "Herod's Flu". As it turns out, the symptoms are much more severe and unusual (not to say downright weird). Soon after the miscarriage, the women are pregnant again, and there is good evidence that this even happens without further sexual intercourse.

At the heart of the story is the debate on what this really means. The core group of protagonists come to belief that SHEVA is in fact not a pathogen, but rather a mechanism for evolution, and a rather rapid one at that. Rather than progressing in small steps in the course of very long time periods (the traditional gradualist understanding of evolution), within the genus of homo speciation may occur even from one generation to the next. Nowadays, as well as way back in the times of the Neanderthals, humankind reacts to this alleged homo superior in a very hostile way.

Darwin's Radio is a genuine thriller. While the ideas may form its focus, their development and contention comes with very personal stakes. Some characters are prepared to risk their reputation in the name of their beliefs. However, their proceedings always are under deep uncertainty and they always have to weigh up when to disclose information (or speculation). This focus on characters makes the novel much more easy and enjoyable to read than some (even) harder forms of science-fiction. In fact, for me it turned out to be quite a page-turner.

All this highbrow talk aside, I really loved the characters and where their relationships are going. For instance, it was quite painful to read about the husband who is struggling from suicidal thoughts and other mental issues. The dashing and tragic anthropologist Mitch was weirdly relatable, and I even liked his impulsive relationship with the usually more sober Kaye. When she eventually gets pregnant herself ("the next Eva"), the book even treads horror territory. To put it in pop-cultural terms, t wasn't just the origin story of X-Men anymore, you were totally prepared to end up with Rosemary's baby or E.T. The earlier descriptions of the foeti, as well as these bizarre masks that both parents develop during the second pregnancy, were also invoking a form of mental body horror.

The social ramifications were another crucial part to the story. There is social turmoil when an abortion pill is put on the market and there is violence against women who decide to have an abortion. There is an increase in the number of cases of domestic violence, as husbands make their wives responsible for the difficult situation. On the stage of politics, the government implements a team of experts to constantly assess the situation and prepare a vaccine. There is obligatory quarantine, lockdown, a register to which currently pregnant women have to enter their name and address, and even the threat of castration. There is of course also the lingering uncertainty about the future prospects of humanity given the dramatically decreasing number of new born babies (have you seen Children of Men?). Very reminiscent to the current situation, there is even a more infectious mutation to deal with as well as a storm on the capitol (maybe Bear collaborated with Bill Gates in bringing about COVID?).

I know fuck all about biology, so I had some difficulties to understand what they are really going on about for some of the time. What I did like a lot, though, was how Bear repeats the crucial details again and again until at least on a verbal level they are firmly established in your mind. I also appreciated how the book provides backmatter with explanations of some biological terminology as well as Bear's assessments as to how realistic the occurrences really are (or may be). Finally, I just loved the more out-there ideas of evolution as a network of neurons whose interplay realizes a form of quasi-intelligence (in Chapter 43). It also brings up the idea of higher order principles that function as "a kind of high level species blueprint" or "a biological grammar". Given my interests in the philosophy of mind as well as computer science, these analogies really blew my mind.

Rating: 4/5