Darwin's Children, by Greg Bear

It looks like I'm on a roll. Third disappointing book in a row. I truly enjoyed some of Bear's books, especially Blood Music and Darwin's Radio, but this one makes it obvious he can't keep up the quality of his production up to his own standards. Maybe the first flaw in this book is that it seems to assume that you have just finished Darwin's Radio, when the story begins. I say this because you may get up to page 100 and not care at all about the characters. It's hard to get involved in a story such as the one he is telling when, for all you care, all the characters may get blown to smithereens. At times, he lapses into nasty scientific details of molecular biology, as he did in Darwin's Radio. When you're already frustrated with the way the story is being told, however, that can be almost the last straw that you need to put the book down for good. I persevered and got to the end and, by then, I was muttering curses under my breath for having wasted my time with this book.

The plot: In Darwin's Radio, Bear introduces the hypothesis that evolution is triggered by viruses. Mankind supposedly evolved in leaps and bounds because at certain stages in the history of the species, out of the DNA of certain individuals, viruses come alive, contaminate the population and produce a new subspecies. Interesting idea that was nicely realized into a great book in the first installment of this [cringe] series. In Darwin's Children, Bear focuses on the integration of the new species "Homo Sapiens Novus" into our established and prejudiced society. We are fed stories about how the individuals of the new species are segregated, isolated in concentration camps disguised as schools, and even considered for mass execution. The plot visits topics such as sociology, archeology, biology, politics, and religion. Most of these visits, however, are superficial, underdeveloped, and unsatisfying. There are elements of personal drama, but not even these work because the author hasn't made an effort to make you care about these characters. It seems to me he was thinking that the characters were developed in the first book and he didn't need to do it again. That's where the book met its dark fate, in my opinion. Another flaw is that he attempted too cover too much, but was shallow everywhere. There are many characters and very few actually mean anything to the story. Ok, I'm tired of bashing this book. It seems that quite a bit of people liked it; I just wasn't one of them. It could have been a great book, if he had made an effort to improve and augment this rough draft.