Constructing DNA as friend or foe: Science and fiction in Greg Bear's Darwin's series

Master thesis Comparative Literature Supervisor: Dr Noa Roei

Second reader: Dr Joost de Bloois Jonathan Coffeng (10353380) University of Amsterdam June 23, 2014

Constructing DNA as friend or foe:

Science and fiction in Greg Bear’s

Darwin’s series

Science fiction is a niche genre that arguably sprang out of gothic in the nineteenth century with the arrival of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus (Aldiss 39). Since its inception, the genre has not been considered scientific, but its fiction is nevertheless much intertwined with the non-novelistic world. The relation between science fiction and scientific literature is problematic; because both have a different method, yet they arguably operate in the same field. Scientific literature imagines the world according to established or not-yet-proven laws, leaving little or no room for the metaphysical or sociological. But even if these subjects are largely left outside scientific papers, they cannot be denied to have formed part of the research process. Bruno Latour argues in his seminal Laboratory Life (1979) to this point, which I am going to use as a key text for untangling the divide between science and fiction. In turn, science fictional works like Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio (1999) and Darwin’s Children (2003) try to accommodate the different voices that make up scientific discourse, even though in an entirely fictional – and non-objective – way.

This case study will focus on both Darwin’s Radio and the sequel Darwin’s

Children to analyse the relation between fiction and fact, which are hallmarks of

science fiction and scientific literature respectively. The novels belong to the tradition of science fiction that is home to such diverse authors as Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick. The Darwin’s series revolve around the fabric of life, or human DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). The fictional part is that the series imagines human DNA to be highly malleable within one generation, enabling “rapid evolution” to occur. Rapid evolution is an act of intense genetic modification and allows a new race of humans to be born. The first novel, Darwin’s Radio, uncovers the event leading up to the first birth of an enhanced yet frightening specimen of a human being, Stella Nova. The second novel details the consequences when more altered children infest the world. While this plot event sounds fantastical, the novels survey themes such as scientific

discovery and the creation of fear in news and narrative. Both topics involve the separation between fact and fiction, because a scientific fact (evolution) is magnified towards a fiction (specie-level change within one generation). Discovery requires a hypothesis (a form of fiction), while fear is also magnified by fictional means.

When considering the history of science, the separation between fiction and fact becomes a bit clouded. Rebecca Stott argues in Darwin’s Ghosts (2012) that many feats of science were inspired by philosophical quandaries. Most notably, she mentions Benoît de Maillet (110), who almost wrote a fictional account on the origins of humans and the earth. His seminal publication, the Telliamed (1748), details in seven days the genesis of earth and its animals. Maillet views that the earth used to be submerged in water and that the first forms of life were fish. Whilst strictly not true, this Biblical approach (taken from the Arc of Noah) enabled him to give a reasonable estimate of the age of the earth (116), which is billions of years old and not a couple of thousands (119). His publication may be structured like fiction, but it does contain an essential claim that still rings true today.

In the current age, science is bent on empirical grounds, and not on sociological and metaphysical reflection (Latour 21). Someone like Maillet, while displaying innovative thinking, would not be taken seriously in contemporary science. There is however an emerging field (the posthumanities) that argues for a science that considers the social. This spirit has been found most poignantly in biologist Lynn Margulis, who published a critique on Charles Darwin’s concept of natural selection in Acquiring Genomes (2002). Margulis stumbled over the element of competition in his theory, arguing that “the following terms are absent from The Origin of Species: association, affiliation, cooperate, cooperation, collaborate, collaboration, community, intervention, symbiosis” (32). Indeed, these missing words leave a considerable void in his theory; if cooperation was not worthwhile, how can it be explained that different cells have fused together in the past to create new forms of life? This creation from cooperation or “symbiogenesis”1 (13) is her main argument. Her idea may sound idealist, but looking at existing facts from a social (discourse) perspective and then re-assessing these in an empirical way, creates new theories.

1 _{An example of symbiogenesis is the green slug (e.g. Elysia viridis) that has “eaten but not}

digested certain green algae” (Margulis 13). Under influence of chlorophyll, green algae can absorb solar rays and convert them into chemical energy (photosynthesis). The green slug has taken over this ability and is able to gain energy from the sun and not food.

The affinity Greg Bear’s novels hold with Lynn Margulis (Idema 74) is more than skin-deep2_{. The cameo appearance of Margulis in Darwin’s Radio (Bear 88, 90)} is emblematic for how the novels not only take elements from her theory, but also adopt the spirit. Instead of a competition between scientific literature and social factors, the novels propose that there is cooperation (symbiosis) between the different factual and fictional aspects of scientific discourse. Bear’s Darwin’s Radio (1999) and

Darwin’s Children (2003) reflect on how science is performed and in what way myth

creates fear. The central debate in these novels is on the subject of genetic engineering and in what way this novel development poses risks or rewards to society. In other words, can DNA be seen as friend or foe in the twenty-first century, when the secret of life is gradually being uncovered? In the past, it would have seemed a fiction to view physical and behavioural characteristics as stemming from genes (a term not established yet), which consist of an instructional code called DNA. Today, it is possible to modify genes, which sounds unnerving and liberating. The divide between science and fiction is therefore not always clear-cut, even though the modern practice has largely banned non-empirical views.

This thesis will analyse how science and fiction are related from different perspectives in three chapters. In chapter one, genetic metaphors from the novel will be explained, as it is one way in which science separates itself from fiction. Metaphors are instrumental in helping develop theories surrounding scientific fields, e.g. genetics and DNA. A different way in which fiction distinguishes itself is the construction of narrative facts as opposed to scientific facts. Chapter two will argue on the construction of the first instalment Darwin’s Radio. This novel revolves around a sudden evolutionary change in the human race. Literary critic Lisa Lynch argues that the novel diverges from the traditions of science fiction. I am going to claim that nevertheless a consistent whole is created that is not used as a way to attack the genre, but to reflect on how science is performed socially, according to Bruno Latour’s

Laboratory Life (1979). Lastly, the third chapter considers the imaginative powers of

fiction, science and the news, demonstrating their cross-pollination. This case study employs the novel Darwin’s Children, to which thus far even less has been published in literary criticism. The separate threads of these three parts culminate in a discussion

2 _{Tom Idema’s dissertation Transmutations : Bio-sf, Nomad Science, and the Future of}

Humanity (2013) features a chapter (‘Infected genomes’) connecting Margulis to Bear and

and conclusion regarding the issues of metaphor, scientific discovery and the polyphony of discursive voices.

I. Metaphors as a way to understand genetics

An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf's big with its yeasty rising. Money's new-minted in this fat purse. I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I’ve eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there's no getting off.

“Metaphors”, Sylvia Plath, 1960 (Kennedy 115) Any discourse, be it scientific or fictional, employs metaphors. Metaphors are literary devices that compare two matters and find a common ground between them. The Sylvia Plath poem indicates3 that they are elusive yet elegant, triggering fields of meaning. Since a comparison is always an approximation between two items that are incommensurable (Friedman 754), they are sometimes thought to be confusing. George Orwell argues to this point in his Politics of the English Language (1946): “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print” (Greenblatt 2392). Despite their confusing quality, they are essential to scientific progress, elucidating critical concepts and helping in discovery. In science fiction, the relation between a literary and scientific metaphor becomes more opaque. Greg Bear’s Darwin’s series borrows from the reservoir of genetic metaphors, but does so in a way not to structure thought, but to obfuscate or at the very least problematize thinking on DNA. How do metaphors influence thought processes both in fictional and scientific texts?

In Bear’s fiction, the most prominent metaphor is the SHEVA virus. SHEVA brings to mind the Hindu God Shiva, “the eight-armed god of creation who destroys and transforms life at will” (Idema 169). The god’s description is immediately applicable to the novel, as the virus works to destroy existing human life forms in order to create it anew. In the Darwin’s series, both the destructive as well as the creative power of Shiva is conveyed in the working of the virus. Also within the

3 _{Without interpreting the poem too much, the speaker (possibly an autobiographical}

first-person, i.e. Sylvia Plath) is pregnant. She refers to her belly growing very big and also to the duration of pregnancy (nine months).

world of scientific discourse, viruses are primarily seen as carrying a negative, destructive essence, as “subcellular, infectious agents that are obligate intracellular parasites” (Strauss 5). Subcellar means that they are not composed of all the material inherent to cells, containing only a protein coat/envelope and sometimes “as few as three genes” (Alberts 221). They are therefore dependent on a host cell that they need to infect in order to survive. Their very existence, if there is an organic existence attributable to them, is parasitical. Viruses only serve to “commandeer the host cell’s machinery to reproduce” (221). In other words, the biological nature of a virus makes it a very powerful metaphor, implying a negative reading.

Yet, the virus, both in recent scientific literature and in the metaphorical way in which it is developed within Bear’s work, is also a creator, changing existing human cells and enabling a new species to emerge. This runs counter to the view of viruses as parasitical pathogens; the novels play with this aspect to a great degree. Unlike traditional viruses, SHEVA requires cooperation in order to function. It is “[s]hed only by males in committed relationships, the activated retrovirus served as a genetic messenger, ferrying complicated instructions for a new kind of birth” (Bear

Darwin’s Children 8). The virus works therefore very selectively and only appoints

individuals that are normally least affected by pathogens; those in a stable relationship. Monogamy minimizes the risk of contracting a venereal disease. Secondly, the virus does not create predictable behaviour in the affected population. While the children who have changed due to the virus are a burden to society, being difficult to treat medically, they exhibit cooperative behaviour. This is in contrast to the thinking of viral elements as being parasites, disrobing their victims of life. It also links back to Lynn Margulis’ idea of collaboration triumphing competition in biology. She cites a virus that infects plants not to cause disease, but to “cause stripes or beautiful bright yellow and cream patches” (85). In chapter three, the issue of collaboration with respect to the “virus children” will be further considered.

It seems that one metaphor, the virus, already implies a wealth of information. The virus and its naming SHEVA cannot be taken to unambiguously mean a destructive, infectious agent. It is inscribed in a net of metaphorical relations that imply an excessive meaning. The metaphors might be primarily negatively oriented, but there are fissures that contradict pre-conceived notions of the virus. The contradictory and added value of metaphor is argued by Thomas McLaughlin as follows:

My construction of the poem’s meaning is in excess of the “proper” meaning of the words and the speaker’s intentions. Any reader who engages in the figurative process will produce this excess. The full meaning of the figure cannot be kept within safe limits: it proliferates as a function of its implied invitation to the reader. (82-3)

Through metaphor, which manifests itself in different forms, additional meaning is created that is not textually given. This is a factor to be kept in mind specifically for fictional texts, which heavily rely on this feature.

McLaughlin indicates how metaphors make semiotic grids. The novel actively constructs such a grid and makes connections that are not obvious. Put differently, Bear’s novels might rely on the fact that a reader will make conscious links. But metaphors also work on a more oblivious level. Lakoff & Johnson argue in

Metaphors We Live By (1980) that a metaphor primes a particular interpretation, not

solely in literature, but especially in conversation. Many daily expressions can be framed on the basis of one single metaphorical domain. One of their illustrations shows how a concept such as TIME is constructed as being a RESOURCE (Lakoff 66). Time can be used up, serves a purpose, and can be quantified (66). These sayings may not directly be seen as a prototypical metaphor, but “both are structural metaphors that are basic to Western industrial societies” (66). Nevertheless, seeing these sayings as belonging to a singular perspective is a breakthrough, because it implies that metaphors may be mapped in a greater cognitive domain.

Mapping metaphors to one domain is particularly important for the understanding of DNA. Metaphors ignite understanding and help develop a new field of research; how these discoveries are performed will be the subject of chapter two. When Watson & Crick discovered DNA in 1953 (Zylinska 129), a slew of metaphors entered the biological language. Inspired by advances in heuristics, or the deciphering of war codes (128), genetics was seen as a breakable code. The base pairs of a double-stranded string of DNA formed a code that can be transcribed in order to form mRNA (messenger RNA; a single-stranded, more portable form of DNA). The mRNA code is successively read by the ribosomes, which translate the base pairs into proteins. The way of looking at genes as a code, which can be broken and understood, enabled scientists to view all of the genes from a singular complexity. Claus Emmeche views these metaphors as springing from “information theory” (2), primarily a field in

applied mathematics that concerns itself with logic, probability, heuristics, coding, and storing information.

While information theory is a versatile discipline, the metaphor that was pulled from it – life-as-a-code – proved to be less than flexible. Seeing DNA as a code implies that it is read from A to Z and that a linear transaction is made. It also implies that one gene is responsible for one building block in the cell4. The novel inverts this view, because DNA is seen as a highly changeable entity in the first novel, Darwin’s

Radio. In a hyperbolic move, or a comparison taken too far, a virus changes the entire make-up of reproductive cells, changing the species of possible next generations. Nevertheless, the author Greg Bear grounds his narrative in contemporary science, in his manifest “The New Biology” (2002):

The central dogma-that one gene produces only one protein-died in the last decade with the discovery of alternate splicing. (Genes also produce other, non-protein products, such as ribosomal RNAs.) The sidebar to this dogma, which claims that DNA is read-only-implying that the genetic material changes only through random mutations, not through insertion or rearrangement of genetic material-collapsed some time ago with the discovery of mobile genetic elements such as transposons and retroviruses. Nevertheless, the Central Dogma is still mentioned, nostalgically, sometimes almost reverently, in new textbooks.

This explanation seems reasonable as it refers to scientific facts. He puts forward the process of “alternate splicing”, which claims that DNA transcription does not occur in a linear manner. When DNA strings are read by the ribosomes, some parts can move. Biologist Barbara McClintock explains these parts as “jumping genes”. These jumping genes mix and match DNA during the transcription process, making new combinations5. The verb jumping personifies a gene, which does not actually jump. This metaphor is productive for scientific purposes, because it immediately enlightens the process to a researcher. In Bear’s fiction, the quality of jumping is greatly exaggerated. The children who have been affected by the virus are not changed in a way that is plausible, indicating that their genes have not jumped, but made a leap. While science may employ metaphor as a reference, fiction takes it as a narrative fact.

4 _{In the vast majority of cases, genes code for proteins. They can code for non-protein}

products, but this will not be considered here.

5 _{Jumping genes can explain how humans, who have fewer genes than was expected (30,000}

instead of the moderate guess of 100,000 ; Rose 45-6), have managed to be of immense complexity.

The existence of these jumping genes does not deny the larger metaphorical framework of DNA code. A code implies a specific kind of language that needs to be deciphered in order to be understood. In a similar vein, human languages such as English or Dutch can be seen as a code as well. They need to be processed in the brain by the language faculty, which relies on the hidden or deep structures of language in order to make sense out of any string of words. The analogy works from this perspective, but it does not when language is considered as a never-ending stream of messages. When engaged in a conversation, individuals have the unique ability to add language. This sounds futile, but cells do not have the ability to add genes at will. Nevertheless, it does seem like the development of e.g. an egg to a bird involves the creation of more information:

[A]pplied to developmental biology, information theory implies that the egg should be seen as a communication channel between parent and offspring adult organism. This, however, raises the apparent paradox of increasing ‘information’ during development. (Emmeche 17)

The argument behind this statement is that language in the form of conversation can always be added to in order for change to occur. Language is fluid and flexible, having the ability to adapt to any kind of situation. Genetic information, on the other hand, is always a fixed entity that can in some circumstances undergo random mutations. It is therefore a bit difficult to explain how a one-time, one-way conversation in the form of a DNA string can lead to enormous changes and variety in development. The answer lies in the cellular machinery itself, which responds to the accolade of changes brought by the transcription of genes (17). The responses of the cell work like a chain reaction. One small change brought by a gene makes for a greater change further in the transcription process.

DNA and its model life-as-a-code are essential to understand evolution, which works with DNA on a larger scale. Some genes may provide a benefit to the environment and perpetuate in the human genome, but also may pose a liability to those bereft of the change. Over time, the changes in DNA accumulate and lead to a significant species-level change. This process is termed evolution and Darwin’s Radio and Darwin’s Children both address its positive as well as negative aspects. In science fiction, evolution is a key topic. Helen Parker explains that “nineteenth century social utopias” were optimistic and saw that “the natural world is constantly improving, moving toward perfection through evolution” (11). This ideal has been

transferred from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and focuses more on the global structure of a society and not on individual humans that are altered. At the time of Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA in the 1950s, “only a few early writers, chief among them Eric Temple Bell writing as John Taine [in 1924-54 AD], dealt with human mutation, the accidental alteration of our own species, and such alterations rarely had favourable results” (13). The Darwin series belong to a different phase of science fiction, being written long after the discovery of DNA, and do address the positive aspects to mutation. Mutation can involve a beneficial adaptation to the environment. Despite the struggle that it takes, “the end product of successful adaptation is a stronger species and a more unified society” (41). Both strength and community-spirit are emphasized in the new breed of human beings described in the

Darwin’s series.

In this thesis, the metaphors of the virus and DNA are crucial to understand the biological underpinnings of the novels. In their analogical or structural form, metaphors can relate an abstract field to a more concrete field, which is very useful in scientific discovery. The next chapter of this thesis “Darwin’s Radio – the thrill of making scientific discoveries” will discuss how, once analogies are drawn, discoveries are made and scientific feats are constructed. The third chapter “Darwin’s

Children – the consequences of genetic modification” devotes the bulk of its attention

to structural metaphors encountered in fictional news reports and how these sway the characters’ opinion on DNA and genetic modification. Structural metaphors involve a comparison, but the term does not qualify how the comparison is made. Usually, structural metaphors (or analogies) arise out of concretization or corporealization in the form of ontological metaphors (Lakoff 152). Ontological metaphors pertain for example personification, most notably by turning an entity into a Devil. The focus of this investigation is therefore both on image-making (the metaphors encountered), but also on how discoveries unfold with regards to DNA research.

II. Darwin’s Radio – the thrill of making discoveries

I lift them up and look at them with pleasure – I know my parents made me by my hands. They may have been repelled to separate lands, to separate hemispheres, may sleep with other lovers, but in me they touch where fingers link to palms. With nothing left of their togetherness but friends who quarry for their image by a river,

at least I know their marriage by my hands. I shape a chapel where a steeple stands. And when I turn it over,

my father’s by my fingers, my mother’s by my palms demure before a priest reciting psalms.

My body is their marriage register. I re-enact their wedding with my hands.

So take me with you, take up the skin’s demands for mirroring in bodies of the future.

I’ll bequeath my fingers, if you bequeath your palms. We know our parents make us by our hands.

Sinéad Morrissey, 2005 (13) Charles Darwin is often credited as having single-handedly discovered evolution. Indeed, a lot of the concepts that are used today in biology and genetics are derived from his quintessential publication On the Origin of Species (1859). As with many advances in sciences, ideas rarely emerge overnight or in the mind of one person. The printing press is usually thought to originate from Gutenberg, but this foregoes the less prospering nations of the world that also had variations of the press in use much earlier (Gunaratne 460). Likewise, Darwin may be the father of genetics, but thought on the miracle of life had existed much earlier. To this end, Stott argues in Darwin’s

Ghosts (2012) that many forerunners were already toying with ideas how behavioural

and physical traits were inherited.

Darwin’s Radio presents a fictional scientific theory on sexual reproduction

that parallels how the science of evolution was described in history6. In the narrative,

6 _{Historical theories on genetics are more open to divergent ideas and do not always base}

themselves on science that can be proven in the lab (or by mathematics). Brian Wilson Aldiss argues: “[In the Eighteenth Century,] the division between the arts and sciences had not then grown wide” (36).

which is part of a series of two instalments (thus far), the environment is caught in the grips of a mysterious virus. A virus is an infectious agent that passes from one body to the next. While it is a disease metaphor, the way a virus is transmitted may mimic how ideas are transferred from one scientist to the other. A virus is a very tenacious vector of disease and it can be held that certain scientific ideas are of a similar calibre. When ideas are initially proposed, there are usually not many that buy into them. But like a good infectious agent, a convincing idea will soon gain ground. Further, once ideas are systematically established in a paradigm7, it is very difficult to get rid of them, similar to an established viral hazard.

Radio attacks the reigning paradigm on genetics in its fiction, commenting

that inheritance should not be taken for granted. The poem of Sinéad Morrissey may raise awareness of family ties. It refers to how the speaker feels connected to her parents, even though they have separated. The most repeated metaphor in the poem is the “hands”, a metonymy. The hands are both physical actors, but they also represent part of what can be inherited. Not only are the hands similar to her parents, but her whole appearance. Darwin’s Radio problematizes this notion of inheritance. By introducing the powerful vector of the virus, massive mutations or change can occur that will distantiate the children from their parents genetically. Nevertheless, motherly instincts prevail and the main character Dr Kaye Lang fights for making discovery. By making use of fictional qualities like temporality, genre and discourse, the novel fictionalizes science but also comments and reflects upon it. More general, how does the fiction of viruses, mutation and genetic modification in the novel relate to the fiction science makes of discoveries? Are there parallels in the ways the story is presented (narrative) and the way discoveries in DNA are shown to the world?

In the first instalment, a world is detailed on the eve of a discovery that is going to change the face of mankind. Darwin’s Radio (1999) opens with a seemingly unrelated story about an expedition in the Alps, where palaeontologist Mitch Rafelson discovers Neanderthal mummies. Using a frame narrative, the setting shifts to Tbilisi, where virologist Kaye Lang uncovers the secrets of bacteriophages, disease-eating bacteria. Her employer, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta (Georgia, U.S.), asks for her return to help in a pandemic that is spreading like an inkblot over

7 _{A system of established ideas is considered to be a paradigm. Thomas Kuhn argues in The}

Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) that paradigms have a tendency to become in vogue

America. The pandemic affects pregnant women, who are contracting Herod’s Flu, a disastrous fever that could leave the foetus in the womb severely malformed. With help of virologist Christopher Dicken, she finds out that a recently discovered human endogenous retrovirus8 termed SHEVA is the culprit. The exact workings of this vector of disease only become clear as the first frame narrative intrudes with the main narrative. Mitch Rafelson encounters Kaye and his tissue of the Neanderthal mummies is found not to be old enough to qualify as belonging to that period. Instead, the mummies are recently deceased individuals that have contracted a variant of the retrovirus. The disease is seemingly a way for evolution to rapidly occur. Regardless of the consequences, Mitch and Kaye, who has lost her first husband due to suicide, fall in love and she becomes pregnant, becoming infected by the virus. Their baby Stella Nova is miraculously born without any complications, but she is a changed human being and has extraordinary intelligence.

II.i Time

The first component that may help in answering the question how science is fictionalized in Darwin’s Radio is assessing how it employs time. Time is a metaphor in science fiction; it enables creative liberties. But how is the process of creating science fiction different from historicizing about the past? Historians use primary and secondary sources to portray an event of the past with knowledge from the present. The same can hold for the science fiction writer, who paints the future with knowledge from the past, but particularly from the possibilities that the present holds. Bruno Latour explains the work of historians in Laboratory Life (1979), –

In one sense, historical accounts are necessarily literary fictions (De Certeau, 1973; Greimas, 1976; Foucault, 1966). Historians, as portrayed in historical texts, can move freely in the past, possess knowledge of the future, have the ability to survey settings in which they are not (and never will be) involved, have access to actor’s motives, and (rather like [G]od) are knowing and all-seeing, able to judge what is good and bad. (107)

8 _{A “retrovirus” is a pathogen that infects cells in the body using a reverse transcription}

process (from RNA to DNA ; Alberts 221). While the threat of retroviruses comes from outside the body (exogenous), as in the case of HIV, there are traces in human DNA of viral elements. It is theorized that some of these elements once made up an ancient (extinct) retrovirus (Cloyd, ch. 62).

Latour gives here an almost cynical account of historicizing the past. He claims that much relies on the interpretation of facts by the historian, which gives a particular slant on history. Usually, a major perspective on history is given by or about the ruling class9. In biology, it is presumed that the most important discoveries will be foregrounded. Radio foregrounds however a minor view on the issue of genetic engineering, which makes it very contrastive to the process historians are involved in.

Darwin’s Radio has a problematic relation to the past. It is not possible to

theorize about the future, as science fiction does, without grasping back to the past and present. Historians, even though they have extant documentation and perhaps survivors at their disposal, reconstruct what is most likely to have happened. Greg Bear, by using a controversial scientific theory, is theorizing about what is likely to happen. While Radio may be distanced from contemporary time, the story indirectly relates to past events. According to Lynch, the novel is “reflecting the way HIV/AIDS has been configured in the media as a threat to American family life, Bear describes

SHEVA [the human endogenous retrovirus] as a disease that tears apart families” (81).

But this analogy is not completely sound, because SHEVA is not exclusively inscribed in social issues that have been encountered and experienced before. On top of this, the novel also uses its fluid construction of time as a means to freely oscillate between past events and scientific theories. Crucial for the novel is not epidemiology, but particularly (a warping of) the scientific theory of Charles Darwin.

Darwin is one of the most enigmatic and renowned scientists of all time. He published his work on a process called ‘evolution’ or gradual change within and across species, which detailed how humans descend from apes or primates. This insight was an astounding feat, notwithstanding that he had remarkable forerunners like Benoît de Maillet. Maillet drafted a highly sensational and controversial book called the Telliamed (Stott 110). Because it was written more like a fantasy and not fact (Stott 114), the ideas within it did not have as much impact as Darwin. Darwin’s seminal work met with a lot of criticism from the Church, because it directly discredits The Book of Genesis. This is not only about his radical belief – at the time – that God did not create the earth, but that it was formed in a gradual process. His idea about how nature worked proved to be decidedly modern and secular, because he believed in nature as a democratic system and not one ordained by God. Natural

9 _{This view is derived from David D. Roberts’s famous adage “History is always written by}

selection, or the way in which nature decides who survives or perishes, is essentially democratic. It is a benevolent system, because “natural processes breed always for the good of the individuals of the race concerned” (Beer 33). More importantly, though, his publication has hints of the structure that is encountered in Darwin’s Radio.

Darwin, just like Bear on his hypothetical rapid evolution, was essentially grasping in the dark. Not much was known about his particular theory, but he based himself on philosophies and ideas that existed much earlier (Stott 10), but were not presented in a convincing form. Beer argues that “it took a hundred years for Darwin’s projections, his ‘fictions’ or theories, to be thoroughly authenticated empirically” (51). Science fiction can be said to never be empirically sound in the era in which it is written, but some ideas have proven to be remarkably close to what is possible today10. In Darwin’s era, the ideas were strange, but they are widely accepted now. Darwin can only be seen as a template for how science is related to a general public, though, because Greg Bear’s work is definitely not in the same league as the

Origin of Species (1859). Rather, it is more like a minor satellite that contains ideas of

the father of genetics and presents them in an unsettling manner.

Usually, temporality is further expressed in the setting, which is expected to be remote and in outer space (i.e. removed many light years from current time). While

Radio does not begin its narrative in outer space, it presents the reader with an

assortment of locales that mimic otherworldliness11_{. One of the settings is Tbilisi,} Georgia, which – to most Western readers12 _{– is quite a foreign destination. The} choice of this particular setting for the discovery to take place is not without reason. Science fiction presents other worlds as a way of reflection (Atwood In other worlds 23-4). By mentioning the place explicitly, the novel raises historical awareness.

10 _{Take Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), which details a drug-addicted world, in}

which “everybody is happy” (65). The same politics is propagated these days, because happiness is not seen as a gift, but a necessity and personal responsibility. It is a state of mind that can be influenced by medicine.

11 _{Science fiction is a stigmatized genre that defies the literary norm (Boogaerdt 2). It usually}

introduces outlandish vocabulary, which is often shared between novels from the same and different authors. While this may be alienating, it frequently employs this category to discuss matters of gender, race, sexuality or socio-political issues (health, economy, and government). For background literature, please consult Nick Hubble’s The Science Fiction Handbook, Edward Jones’ The Cambridge Companion to Science-Fiction, and David Seed’s Science

Fiction: A Very Short Introduction.

12 _{The notion of the West implies a vast topic that will not be considered here. It is a ripple in}

the text that only the effects of a biological hazard are considered from a Western point of view. The Republic of Georgia is taken to be a site of discovery, but it is not described as a site where infection occurred as well.

Outside literature, the Republic of Georgia has been a tumultuous site of history. The novel uses these extra-novelistic facts to construe its story, – “Despite of its beauty, Georgia had many blemishes: civil war, assassinations, and now, mass graves” (Bear 15). This quote is an example of how a setting provokes a certain expectation, one of conflict.

By virtue of its remote location, the place Tbilisi features as an alternative world in the novel. In Tbilisi, bacteriophages, “viruses that attack only bacteria” (Bear 13) are used in a fight against bacterial diseases. In the West, such a method is controversial, because administering viruses is seen as an act of genetic modification. In Georgia, such objections do not hold and the scientific community blossoms as a result, –

Georgia was planning to turn itself into a nation of resorts. Her economy was growing in double digits each year; her currency, the lari, was strengthening as well, and had long since replaced rubles; soon it would replace Western dollars. They were opening oil pipelines from the Caspian to the Black Sea; and in the land where wine got its name, it was becoming a major export. In the next few years, Georgia would export a new and very different wine: solutions of phages to heal a world losing the war against bacterial diseases. (15)

The stakes for genetic engineering are therefore high. It is not only used for curing disease, but also a means to boost the economy. In a similar vein, Bruno Latour proposes that science cannot be separated from the social or economy. Science has health implications, but it can also safeguard employment and make a nation credible in an international setting. In Laboratory Life (1979), Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar discuss the following:

[Research] papers were an expensive commodity! This expenditure appears needlessly extravagant if papers have no impact, and extravagantly cheap if papers have fundamental implications for either basic or applied research. It may therefore be appropriate to interpret this expenditure in relation to the reception of papers. (73)

Latour discusses how producing papers in a laboratory setting requires a significant investment. There are ways to compensate for the expenditure and make research valuable (“valorisation”). He argues that both basic and applied research can contribute to greater knowledge or in solving a particular problem. Either way,

scientists are under considerable pressure to make their findings useful. In the past, much research has met severe criticism, significantly lowering the rewards. There have been cases when published research was discredited as worthless, but when criteria changed in light of other research, a worthless paper turned out to be valuable (Latour 121).

In the novel, the laws of science are inverted and the status of good research is questioned. That is why the narrative brings in the setting of the Republic of Georgia, which forms a rhetorical commentary on a non-novelistic surrounding. In reality, this country has explored unorthodox ways of performing research. They have devoted much attention to phage research, which is traditionally not accepted in medical treatment and usually forbidden in many Western countries. The reason for this is that Western researchers sent out the wrong message when performing phage research in the 1940s (Inal 238). By fiddling with results, they lost credibility for what is an excellent alternative to antibiotics. Scientists in Georgia persevere in this research and hope, especially in light of new developments, that they can reap the benefits of investigating a field that was left unscathed in the Western world.

II.ii Fiction

Next to the setting being a plausible site for discovery, the narrative is ridden with drama and intrigue. This is a bit of genre-defying move, because the work is classified as “hard science fiction”, based on “physics, astronomy, chemistry, engineering and biology” (Hubble 129). Indeed, the biological aspect of the novel is touted as highly researched, and the author has published many times in Nature about his vision on genes and especially junk DNA (e.g., “Fertility 2079”13). But it should not be forgotten that the work is a dramatic story and has elements of the thriller or suspense, for example –

Rumors were spreading already about the discovery of the first infectious human endogenous retrovirus, or HERV. As well, there were a few scattered news stories about a virus that caused miscarriages. So far, no one outside the CDC had yet put the two together. On the plane from London, Dicken had

13 _{“Fertility 2079” is an article written in Nature, structured like an infomercial placed on a}

website, discussing the possibilities that “controlled” reproduction can bring. The infomercial describes how prospective parents can order designer children with a pre-determined future. In a sense, it is an anti-thesis to the novel, in which reproduction is not predictable and is driven by a virus.

spent an expensive half hour on the Internet, finding nowhere a detailed description of the discovery, but everywhere a slam-dunk predictable curiosity. No wonder. Someone could end up getting a Nobel–and Dicken was ready to lay odds that that someone would be Kaye Lang. (Bear 59)

The thriller narrative, which is present in all frames, is fed by lack of knowledge. Although certainty is given by the use of scientific terminology and the description of biological processes, the infection hazard is a plot device to keep the momentum going. Granted, not all sub-plots begin with the same kind of tension, but gradually they are overtaken by the news of the virus, which works in a Michael Crichton-like way (Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain14). Saricks (415) explains that some thrillers base themselves on a natural threat and exploit this feature to propel the story forward. These thrillers are based on scientific facts, but are not speculating or theorizing about a possible future. Bear’s science fiction does not fit this category, because it employs the tropes of the thriller in unforeseen ways. It does not use the thriller element for a clear build-up of tension and successive denouement. There is no positive outcome in Radio (Lynch 72); the situation is not resolved and the victims (the children) are not compensated.

The central discovery in the novel is the virus, and the story is structured to capitalize on this issue. Using a triptych approach, the story shows the events of three different seasons in three separate sections. The first part is winter, which is traditionally seen as the period when everyone is more susceptible to disease. The second part is spring, which instead of offering new chances, problematizes the growing pains of the virus. The third part is devoted to summer, which indeed brings new life in the form of the birth of Stella Nova, who has suffered from the infection her mother carried. When viruses are taken as a metaphor, they can be seen as a menacing threat. The novel taps from the reservoir of fear that is built up in real-life by recent epidemics like bird flu, dengue and mad cow disease. These diseases, while all potentially dangerous, have proved not to decimate humankind, but have resulted in quite drastic repercussions nevertheless (Van den Bulck 370). In the novel, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta describes the virus as a “mild pathogen” (Bear 72). For a short while, the official authorities in Darwin’s Radio initially downplay the risk. Meanwhile, the scientists do not immediately oversee all the consequences

14 _{Michael Crichton harnesses the scare-factor of genetics to provoke fear: cloned dinosaurs}

can come alive and disrupt the world in Jurassic Park and an extraterrestrial virus that is in such a way lethal that it is quarantined like a person (The Andromeda Strain).

and while they realize that they need to act, there is also a sense of enthusiasm involved in making progress.

A further argument that sets science fiction apart from actual science is the sensational nature of some of the utterances thus described. It has now been established that the virus works like a thriller, but the way the narrative is structured also takes some cues from soap opera (also discussed in Broderick 94, 97). Soap opera is a specific genre that is serialized and delivered in manageable chunks for increased comprehension. Brown (3) explains that it resists narrative closure by offering a cast brimming with characters, whose development is often interrupted and stalled. Further, there is a creative usage of temporality, because there is always the assumption that the soap continues whether it is broadcasted or not. Lastly, there is a preference for dialogue, solving of problems and quasi-psychological chatting.

A soap opera may not have any literary stature, but the application of some of its techniques is essential for the novel’s pace. The novel is open-ended and its three parts are structured like a series. There are ninety-two chapters and these are set in diverse locales, providing the reader with abrupt scene changes. Temporally, the novel usually depicts action (or rather dialogue) that happens ‘at the moment’, but sometimes the narrative skips a considerable amount of time. This is especially apparent in section three, in which the chapters signal different months in which the action occurs, –

AUGUST 12 (…)

Her daughter. Kaye had been nurturing and carrying and protecting this for

ninety days.

For a moment, she felt distinctly uneasy. (Bear 427)

It seems that the skipping of time has the function to centralize the pregnancy of the lead character. For fiction, it is understandable to focus on one character, but for research purposes, it is inadvisable to single out one case when there are many. Science strives to be objective, while this fiction, both in structure as in contents, does not adhere to scientific norms. In section three, most ancillary characters, that have proven essential for Dr Kaye Lang’s success with understanding the virus, are not given the chance to speak. Maybe this is the effect of hierarchy, but it can also be that the fiction of Darwin’s Radio tries to get the reader emotionally involved. Especially

because the novel’s ending is quite successful for the doctor: the baby does not carry any major defects, –

Galbreath closed her eyes, caught her breath. “There’s nothing wrong with your baby,” she said. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. I don’t understand anything. Why aren’t you rejecting her as foreign tissue–she’s completely different from you! You might as well be carrying a gorilla. But you tolerate her, nurture her. All the mothers do. Why doesn’t the Taskforce study that?” (Bear 447)

The delivery is a success and the baby enters the world as being “six months” (501) already in terms of development. The focus of these last chapters is a bit difficult to define, because the mother Kaye is exhausted. Usually, her fiancé acts as a mediator between the baby and how it is perceived, – “Mitch met his daughter’s stare with fascination” (496). Nevertheless, Kaye can still be held to be a central figure and the other characters – by means of their dialogue or focalized narrator commentary – act as lenses to build her story. The hospital scene detailed here focuses on maternal aspects and not on any worries Mitch may have on fatherhood or his work as a scientist. Similarly, a scientific report may also be geared towards one particular aspect, detailing other scientists’ voices, but never decentralizing from the main argument.

The intermingling of genres is used in a way to tackle the different aspects of scientific literature. Roger Luckhurst analyses Darwin’s Radio, among a range of other novels by Greg Bear, to be difficult to place within science fiction. While Luckhurst analyses all novels by Bear (until 2007) to find a common technique, he has a specific claim for one novel:

More recently, Bear has written hybrid fictions out of the precise collision between hard scientific speculation and its complex soft social and political implications – as in Darwin’s Radio (1999) and Darwin’s Children (2003). (Luckhurst 218)

It seems that the science fiction of Darwin’s Radio is hybrid in order to handle these different hard (scientific) and soft (social) topics, which can be explained in a Latourian sense (Luckhurst 217 ; Idema 74). This analysis has attempted to develop this argument further and show which exact genre techniques are employed; the

thriller and soap opera. The thriller is fuelled by the scientific speculation, while the soap opera highlights the social issues that are at stake.

II.iii Discourse

Discourse refers to the strategy or political aims a particular text may bring to the table in order to be convincing. Fiction is usually filled with techniques to whet the reader’s appetite, to keep him or her engaged. Darwin’s Radio revels in discursive strategies of drama and intrigue, even though these are not always successfully implemented. Scientific reports, but also philosophical tracts on science, usually tend to avoid dramatic biases and needless misunderstandings. Bear’s work, instead, takes advantage of the unknown and uses it as a narrative ploy to propel the story forward. Latour and Woolgar, jointly writing about scientific discoveries, use discursive strategies that are opposite of the fiction present in Radio:

The book [Laboratory Life] is free of the kind of gossip, innuendo, and embarrassing stories, and of the psychologizing often seen in other studies or commentaries. In this book the authors demonstrate what they call the “social construction” of science by the use of honest and valid examples of laboratory science. This in itself is an achievement for they are, in a sense, laymen to laboratory science and are not expected to grasp its fundamentals …. (12) It seems unfit to compare a philosophical account to Bear’s science fiction, but there certainly are parallels to be found in both methods. The most important parallel is that both works reflect on science, offering insight in both the construction of science and difficulties in reporting it. Their discursive technique is similar in the sense that both are non-scientific. The difference presents itself when viewing the philosophical grounds that Latour builds his arguments on (Verloren van Themaat 166), which is devoid of needless colouring or dramatization in order to stage a debate. Bear’s novel revels in contrast in creating a suspenseful and dramatic narrative environment, –

Scattered Human Endogenous RetroVirus Activation, SHERVA. They dropped the R in retro for dramatic effect. That makes it SHEVA. Good name for a virus, don’t you think?

“It’s a retrovirus, a true monster, eighty-two kilobases, thirty genes. Its gag and pol components are on chromosome 14, and its env is on chromosome 17. The CDC says it may be a mild pathogen and humans show little or no resistance, so its [sic] been buried for a very long time.”

He placed his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. “You predicted it, Kaye. You described the genes. Your prime candidate, a broken HERV-DL3, is the one they’re targeting, and they are using your name. They’ve cited your papers.”

“Wow,” Kaye said, her face going pale. She leaned over her plate, the blood pounding in her head. (Bear 72)

On the one hand, credibility is heightened by the biological details. On the other, the social aspect of making a discovery is stressed. It is Kaye Lang’s doing and her efforts in the Republic of Georgia that have led to consolidating her position as a scientist. In a report, however, such events are never described, because it distracts the public from the main point. The media surrounding the report, like interviews on television or newspaper articles, frequently exploit science to create a more credible or dangerous story. In the following instance, the story is more interested in mixing the different media and creating a historic account, –

A human provirus, lurking like a stowaway in our DNA for millions of years, has been associated with a new strain of flu that strikes only women,” the announcer began. “Molecular biologist Dr Kaye Lang of Long Island, New York, has been credited with predicting this incredible invader from humanity’s past. Michael Hertz is on Long Island now. (75)

The above quote is taken from an interview with Dr Lang. The interview is one of the voices present in the book besides scientific reports. The voice works as a way to reflect upon recent history, but it also plays down certain aspects of that history. By this point in the narrative, it is already clear that the disease is not just a new type of flu, but also more life threatening. The interview as a means to reflect on scientific discovery is a sensational means to raise interest without performing research. In a different way, Latour is centralizing science, while actually being one step removed from the actual scientific practice. He describes the process of research and tracks how the process of discovering the Thyrotropin Releasing Factor (a hormone that affects the metabolism ; 108).

Darwin’s Radio is removed from contemporary scientific practice. It is based

upon the legacy of Charles Darwin and has a discourse that is ambivalent towards science and religion. Just like Darwin attacked the reigning ideas of the time (that were borne from the Church), Bear not only attacks the Church, but also how science is performed, –

“Tune in the Christian Broadcasting Network. They’re splitting constituencies all across America. Pat Robertson is telling his audience these monsters are God’s final test before the arrival of the new Kingdom of Heaven. He says our DNA is trying to purge itself of all our accumulated sins, to … what was his phrase, Ted?”

The aide said, “Clean up our records before God calls Judgment Day.” “That was it.”

“We still don’t control the airwaves, Frank,” Augustine said. “I can’t be held responsible–“

“Half a dozen other televangelists say these unborn children are the devil’s spawn,” Shawbeck continued, building up steam. “Born with the mark of Satan, one-eyes and hare-lipped. Some are even saying they have cloven hooves.”

Augustine shook his head sadly. (433)

In this radio interview, the facts are perhaps amended too much towards creationist philosophies. It confirms the idea that a Creator is responsible for mankind’s well-being and that any deviance is an act of the Enemy or Devil. While there are only small overt hints towards a biblical interpretation of the work, the genetics of mutation warrants a theological explanation. The system is too intricate to discredit the idea that an intelligent Creator is not responsible for it. This theory is known as Intelligent Design (Ruse 268) and it is crucial for the understanding of the first instalment. Crediting a God for creating the cellular apparatus (ribosomes, DNA, RNA) is an act that may set the novel apart from actual science, because the natural sciences try to explain the world out of natural processes and not on biblical or philosophical grounds.

The biblical aspect also ties in with the omniscient mode of narration. Like a work of science, the narrator tries to be impartial, but he is not really successful at doing so. In one reading, the narrative is not very friendly towards women. It is very harsh that a virus only attacks women carrying children and this metaphorically relates the role women play to Eve. In the creation myth, Eve was the one who ate the apple and had committed sin (Foster 129):

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (King James Bible, Genesis 3.6)

In the narrative, women are also seen as sinful creators, particularly if they are carrying the “devil’s spawn” (Bear 433). In another reading, the women, even if only

in the role of Kaye Lang, have the power to change the world. She is crucial for the understanding of the virus and can save humankind from its demise. Eve also was instrumental towards mankind’s success. Eve was the ‘helpmate’ of Adam and the two perfectly compensated each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This duality between the treacherous woman and the nurturing mother is perhaps the key towards understanding the novel’s tendency to either divulge in thriller or to show a more human, social face.

Both the thriller and social aspect of the novel are related through the science fiction text as narrative medium. The genre excels at incorporating different styles and subject matter, even a multiplicity of voices within one text. Darwin’s Radio is about evolution and perhaps it can be thought of fighting, just as Darwin did, Victorian ideals. Victorian literature was all about realism, but its close descendent naturalism cannot be entirely separated from Bear’s modus operandi. A naturalistic novel is expected to be “[an] opposition of a personal will-power to social structure or heredity” (Bal 204). Seen abstractly, this description connects to the main theme of

Radio, heredity. Both the employment of the naturalistic genre and science fiction

result in works of a very different calibre, but there are salient parallels between these two methods.

An oft-given example of a naturalistic novel (e.g. Knutson 140) is Thérèse

Raquin (1867), in which – in brief – three characters of different humours and

personality are in a relationship with each other, one of them ending up dead. The murder is not described as one committed out of rage or jealousy, but as a “logical” result of the bestial nature of one of the lovers. It is therefore not a crime passionnel, but a crime whose motivations are not emotional, but scientific “facts” (according to Émile Zola’s writing). It seems unrelated to compare Darwin’s Radio to this work of high literature, but both can be said to employ the same strategy. Zola bases his “explanation of a murder” on the science that was current in his day, which was highly speculative and quite unproven. Similarly, Bear uses speculative science as well in his explanation of the “killer virus” and its consequences. This relation could be metaphorical for how Bear relates towards Darwin’s era stylistically.

The strictness of both the naturalistic novel and Bear’s science fiction presents itself on the level of the fabula or plot and indeed the structure of Radio is quite rigid. Bal argues that a fabula has a subject and an object (or goal; 203). There can be multiple subjects, but “each subject has the will to execute his or her program; if not

we do not have a fabula” (204). The fabula of Darwin’s Radio seems simple, because the subjects are all aiming at resolving the issue at hand, finding a remedy for the killer virus. While this distinction is clear and makes for a predictable ordering, the subjects are not autonomous and are interrelated. There is also one subject prioritized, while the others have supporting roles. These roles are hierarchical and can be said to resemble a scientific institution in a fictional way. In a scientific setting, everyone has a particular relation towards each other, creating a rigid hierarchy. Latour explains for the laboratory that this group “formed an almost perfect administrative pyramid” (216-7). Each role occupied in the laboratory has a “sociological function” (217). He describes that “major leaguers” make much renown, but that “minor leaguers” are often essential for research and sometimes also have a glimmering of the credit the chiefs attract (218-9). The same analogy can be said to hold for the narrative structure of Darwin’s Radio. Dr Lang is established as lead character, but there is a secondary female scientist that has actually done much research that helped the main discovery. This scientist is Marge Cross, who – by virtue of her stern demeanour and witch-like appearance – is relegated to the sidelines.

While Latour, in describing science in action, attempts to describe all layers of production, many characters in Bear’s work are not given the chance to speak much (if at all). This is where the fiction comes in and presents the reader with a different reality. Focusing on the fabula or cause-and-effect structure of the story, the subject and object are constantly realigned at the expense of other narratives. Marge Cross, who implicitly has done much research in benefit of the Center for Disease Control, is characterized in a sensational manner, –

“Marge is a master at human psychology. I know. I went to medical school with her in the seventies. She took an MBA at the same time. Lots of energy, ugly as sin, no man trouble, extra time you and I might have wasted on dating … She jumped off the gurney in 1987, and now look at her.” (Bear 157) The actor of this utterance is Judith Kushner, who “had been Kaye’s doctoral advisor at Stanford” (89). Regardless of the perspective taken, it exposes a fundamental flaw that is particular to this novel in the science fiction genre. In a different genre, for instance the psychological novel, “a character trait of the subject itself is often the power which either facilitates or blocks the achievement of the aim” (Bal 199). A struggle occurs from the viewpoint of the character, highlighting his or her

characteristics in relation to the aim or object. Here, the struggle moves away from the actor(s), to the object. The object, the plague, consumes the story and leaves most characters stale. This is most successfully portrayed by the third and final act of the novel, which only solidifies the role attributed to the central heroine. By not discussing what happened to her fellow researchers, the novel confirms a certain hierarchy.

Conclusion: Darwin’s Radio – the thrill of making discoveries

In this investigation, the relation between science and the science fiction in Darwin’s

Radio is expressed in the way it moves through time, creates fiction and uses its

narrative in strategic, discursive ways. Temporally, the novel may be set in the future (2079 AD), but it refers more to the past by means of its setting. The viral hazard has its origins in Tbilisi (Georgia) and this locale imbues historical awareness, because it conjures up images of war and conflict from the non-novelistic world. Constantly, Bear’s fiction intertwines a hypothetical version of scientific reality. Radio discusses the latest development in the debate on genetic modification. Rather than focusing on biological details in a dry manner, they are reported with drama and intrigue. In Bear’s work, the biology is used as a vehicle to create suspense. As a result, the story usually comes across as a thriller, even though there is no evil scientist behind the plague.

Discursively, the work takes cues from both Charles Darwin and the Bible (Genesis), structuring the narrative in a formulaic mould. Charles Darwin is seen as the instigator of evolutionary genetics, while forerunners like Benoît de Maillet have written down similar claims. The way Maillet presented his story was however different, in a more fictional and fantastical way. In the novel, Dr Kaye Lang is the researcher that is in the limelight, confirming on the one hand hierarchies that also exist in real-life scientific settings (Latour 216-7). This mould or the fabula (‘plot’) adds foundation to the story. In general, the narrative does not shy away from romanticizing aspects of science and making a quite gruesome plague a means to emotionally involve the reader.

Relating back to the topic of metaphor, one central theme recurs in Darwin’s

Radio. The novel views human beings as constructs, which can undergo facial,

sensorial, and cognitive changes within one generation. This malleability of the human is a grand metaphor for how the novel intends to portray scientific literature as

being constructed as well. Scientific literature may be coarse and bereaved of any emotion, but the processes that occur behind the scenes have coloured the creation of a research paper. In turn, fiction itself is a construct as well. Darwin’s Radio does not follow one structural path and sticks to it, but rather pieces together distinct building blocks (the thriller and the soap opera) to facilitate the broad view it intends to give on genetic engineering.

III. Darwin’s Children – the consequences of genetic

manipulation

Only one form of contagion travels faster than a virus, Sinskey thought. And that’s fear. (Brown 428)

Even highly contagious viruses like the one described in Dan Brown’s Inferno (2013) are relatively slow in affecting everyone. This novel describes the heinous – and very successful – attempt of Bertrand Zobrist to sterilize one-third of the human populace by means of a virus. But what is even more successful is the panic that ensues, which spreads quicker than the virus ever did15. A similar analysis is relevant for Darwin’s

Children (2003), Greg Bear’s second instalment on his version of evolution. While it

took hundreds of years before ancient retroviruses buried within human DNA became “active”, the news about the virus spread like hay fire. In the narrative, recurring news reports provide insight into how DNA and mutation are constructed as an enemy. Apart from news reports, the story hinges upon the information that is transmitted and how the infected population is treated. In this chapter, I will explain how genetic engineering – as a novel and unpredictable scientific development – is clouded by an atmosphere of fear. First, I will explain how news implies a different form of imagination and in what way it influences scientific discovery. Secondly, I will show how the mutated Darwin’s Children embody fear and are influenced by the different narrative voices. Lastly, the protagonist of the novel, the mutated child Stella, will be

15 _{Academic criticism on Dan Brown in relation to Inferno is scant. There is one Dutch}

(popular) book that gives a good overview of Dan Brown and his imagining of Florence and Dante Alighieri: Saskia Balmaeker’s De geheimen van inferno (2013). Brown’s first novel in the Robert Langdon series, The Da Vinci Code, has seen quite some research, both on

reception theory and the separation of fact and fiction. Bart D. Ehrman’s Truth and Fiction in