About This Blog


This blog was started as a place to post book reviews. The books reviewed here will be mixed. Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, General Fiction, NonFiction and more. Both positve and negative reviews will be posted, as well as reviews for books written for all ages and all reading levels.

Many of the books reviewed here are ones that I have purchased for my own reading pleasure. Some, I receive free in exchange for reviews. Beginning in December, 2009 you will know which are the free ones if you read the final paragraph of my reviews.

Also of note: I choose what I will read, attempting to avoid the books on which I would end up writing a negative review... but I have been known to make mistakes. Thus you see some one and two star reviews here. Since I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, I only write them if the review was promised, or if the book was so exceedingly bad, I just had to say so. Regardless of the percentage of positive to negative reviews on this blog, I give my honest opinion each and every time, and have never received financial compensation for posting my reviews.

Note that, except for fair use portions quoted from some of the books reviewed, all copyright in the content of the reviews belongs to Lady Dragoness.


Friday, August 3, 2007

Artfully Believable

Darwin's Children
Greg Bear
Del Rey (April, 2003)
Hardcover: 400 pages
Rating: 5 stars of 5 possible

Darwin's Children by Greg Bear is a hard science fiction novel that explores the controversial science of genetics, the ability to alter the genetic pattern of humans, and the struggle for survival of the genetically enhanced people.

Besides being a compelling novel that I found hard to put aside, the volume also contains some very helpful addenda at the end, including a short Glossary Of Scientific Terms and a short Biological Primer that helped with understanding the science in this story.  It was very thoughtful of the author and publisher to include those items.

I like both the characters and the rhythm of Darwin's Children, a fairly fast-paced, enjoyable story that included some action as well as some scenes that make the reader stop and think.  This novel stands alone well. I did not read Darwin's Radio, the initial volume in this series, and I don't feel that I need to do that to understand this one.

In short, I recommend this book to those who enjoy reading science fiction, and if you have stayed away from hard science fiction because the science was not well explained, you may change your mind after reading this novel and studying the addenda that were so thoughtfully included.

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