Virus Clans: A Story of Evolution

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Though its premise of evolved, intentional viruses is promising, Kanaly's second novel (after Thoughts of God) pans out as uneven, episodic and, ultimately, predictable. Michael Bracken, maverick researcher, is the viewpoint character for this multi-voiced narrative that follows Bracken's professional and personal disintegration as he loses his status as a respected scientist and devoted husband and devolves into unwashed madness, brought to the brink of disaster by the mysterious workings of the "virus clans" and his own desperate need for understanding and enlightenment. The novel flits between Bracken's story and those of more alien personalities, whose lives span the fabric of time and space. Throughout, ineffectual governments hatch conspiracies, co-opt research and make war in a futile effort to try and slow the spread of the "plagues of madness." Humanity flirts with extinction as hive-like intelligences move toward their own goals of "The One, becoming the Many, seeking to become ONE." As in his first novel, Kanaly here displays a flair for the bright idea, but workmanlike prose and flat characterizations render his inspirations dense and rather dull. (Mar.)

School Library Journal

YA-Sort of an X Files meets Star Trek's Borg Collective, this entertaining science-fiction novel poses the question: What if the driving force behind the evolution of man were the impetus of virus to become ONE, a thinking collective being? Entomologist Gary Bracken, working in an obscure facility funded by government grants, learns that a group of viruses cultured in his lab are communicating with one another, much like termites or ants. When he tries to investigate this phenomenon further, a group of government "suits" quickly fire him and discredit his work. Nevertheless, Bracken continues his research to the point of madness, losing his wife and eventually his sanity. Known as biological enigmas, falling outside the normal course of evolution, viruses are neither living nor dead. They cannot reproduce, move, or respire-any of the qualities that define life-until they hijack the nuclear material of a host cell. What if viruses are able to incorporate themselves into the host DNA and follow a plan, billions of years old, to change the host organisms of Earth to a form that can share the eons of memory held by the virus collective? What motivated the flights of genius in humans that brought about the use of the stick as a club, improvised the first bow and arrow, or enabled man to plan a space shuttle? Could it be the viruses? The book ends rather abruptly but will linger in readers' minds. The questions it poses cannot be answered except with, "It's possible."-Carol DeAngelo, Garcia Consulting Inc., EPA Headquarters, Washington, DC

Kirkus Reviews

More near-future sf from the author of Thoughts of God (1997). Viruses, it seems, evolved billions of years ago on a distant planet, then spread to Earth—and have been directing evolution ever since. In a small New York town, Gary Bracken researches for Centrifuge Labs, which derives most of its income from the Bureau of Industrial Research. Gary's team discovers a protein that viruses use to communicate with one another (like ants, according to Kanaly's strained analogy). So Gary must develop a computer program to translate what the viruses have to say. But then government bigwigs order Gary to shut down. Why? Well, Atlanta's Centers for Disease Control knows all about the chattering viruses and has also noted a general increase in violence, accelerating mutation rates in newborns, and the appearance of odd brain-wave patterns in some victims—and it doesn't want Gary's interference. Gary, however, shifts his work to his basement. Meanwhile, we learn that the virus "clans" are directing human evolution toward "the Change" in order to integrate their memories into human brains. Uncontrollable hallucinations result, though, and Gary, along with most adults, goes mad; only newborns, growing up with the Change, survive and prosper. A single unconvincing, hopelessly overextended idea, reminiscent of Greg Bear's Blood Music (1985) and, likewise, completely undramatizable: a schizophrenic washout.