I really tried to like this book. I managed to finish it, mostly because I'm stubborn, not because I enjoyed the story. I found the plot (particularly the ending!) implausible, trite and utterly too convenient. It's not a terrible book or a complete waste, but I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it either.

I was given a free copy of this e-book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

**FULL DISCLOSURE**
I was a beta reader for, and received an ARC of, this story for review purposes. The author requested a review, but made no conditions for it. I am writing this review based solely on my enjoyment of this story in particular, and the author's writing overall.

I am not sure why I gave up on the book, whether it was the oral story being told by various people, the two dimensional characters, or just getting bored with it. It got to the point that every time I put it down when I picked it back up again I could not remember where I had left off. The concept is over used a huge comet that shatters in the atmosphere and unleash something that makes people and animals extraordinarily smart, really vindictive, and cruel. The science is off, to the point that there needs to be a total suspension of belief whether it is how molecules behave, or exploring unknown swamp in the dark. The ending chopped to close out the book so even though you have digested 400 pages you don't leave satisfied. Because of these things I can not recommend you buy a copy of this book.

"The Darwin Variant" starts with an end-of-the-world event, a comet on a crash course toward the earth. What transpires afterward is part science fiction, part thriller, and part horror. Kenneth C. Johnson knows how to write a sweeping narrative, considering he is responsible for V, one of the most beloved miniseries of the eighties, and one of my favorites, he takes his time moving us through an America that is rapidly changing. He uses a narrative structure that many people have been using lately, one of those documentary style breakdowns with each character having a chance to narrative in first person, some unclassified documents, and a few points where "The Documentarian", Johnson himself, summarizes some action. People are hot or cold about this type of structure, but it does not bother me as much as it bothers others. I liked the first person through everyone's lens because this also gives him the ability to develop the characters more efficiently, since we are able to look into their feelings with a sharper focus. Many of the characters, even though he does not use much time to make them remarkably unique, are well fleshed out and well presented. This is most likely due to years and years of being able to develop ideas.

I like "The Darwin Variant" more than some other books of this nature, and I think it is because of the way Johnson writes and presents the material. He knows how to write for an audience, and the final product is a novel that moves well. From the moment of finding the comet to the very end, it does not seem as if there are many wasted pages. Usually in a novel this size, you get that midway slump, the lull toward the middle where the author is trying to set up the third act. Johnson has written this in a way where the tension starting from the beginning continues to climb until the end. The action continued to move and I did not feel like there was any sort of time when I just wanted to skip ahead. It was engaging throughout.

Johnson also does something else well. He takes something that is a huge crisis, pieces of a blown apart comet are changing the way the earth is functioning, and localizes it to Georgia, Atlanta, and the CDC in that area. There would have been the temptation by a less experienced author to try to incorporate the way the entire world changed after this comet instead of a small area, but I do not think that if Johnson did this, the novel would have worked at all. The way that this stayed engaging is by making it about a smaller group of characters dealing with the crisis in the immediate surrounding and not the way that the whole world was dealing with the same problems. There are other novels that could have been written about the same fictional event, from a different city and region, where the outcomes were much much different, but "The Darwin Variant" is the one us readers received, and we are better for it.

Featuring a doomsday type scenario, the Darwin Variant provides a roller coaster ride through the eyes of multiple protagonists fighting survival. Without giving away the story line, readers will be in store for such great near future possibilities with a speeding comet heading straight to earth. What happens with the comet unfolds with a few surprises.

This book is a sci-fi/ end-of-the-world-esque thriller. It begins with the discovery that a meteor is heading towards Earth. Once they manage to stop it, they find that there is still reason to be worried as more and more people begin to change and they life still may end as they know,it because of the meteor.

There were a lot of things I really enjoyed about this book. First of all, it had a pretty nice plot overall. While the ending was happy, some parts of it were a bit cheesy and rushed. Since it was a fairly long read and other parts were a lot slower, it felt a bit quick and awkward.

I really disliked how much foul language was in this book. There was a ton. I definitely would not let a teenager read this and even as an adult, I was extremely turned off by it. I didn't feel like it added any authenticity to the characters and it felt unnecessary .

The story is told from many perspectives. Some perspectives I quite liked, like Katie and Susan, however, there others I really didn't care for and the personality and voice sometimes did not feel authentic to the character's story.

Overall, I found it pretty intriguing. I wasn't so engaged that I couldn't stop reading, but it was a nice and interesting story.

This is one of the best works of fiction I've read this year. Besides a fantastic plot, with many twists along the way, it had great character development. The only negative I can think of is that it was longer than it needed to be.

The Darwin Variant is described as a ‘day-after-tomorrow thriller’ full of catastrophe and danger. I found it to be reminiscent of a lot of science fiction already out there, which can be considered good or bad depending on your opinion on the matter. The earlier parts reminded me of half a dozen space collision stories out there, while the latter half reminded me very much of Annihilation.
The other thing worth mentioned before we begin is the storytelling style Kenneth Johnson opted to go with. It’s written as sort of an oral story being told after the fact. So it’s more a collection of stories from a half dozen people that lived through the events. I don’t mind this style of storytelling, as long as it’s done right, but I know it grates on some people’s nerves.
The Darwin Variant had very high ambitions, right from the start, and it’s difficult not to respect what was attempted here. Its multiple concepts wrapped into one: a science fiction novel where humanity comes together to fight off the big bad asteroids; a biological horror story; an oral history. That’s a lot to try and fit in one mere novel, and unfortunately I do feel that it fell just a little bit flat.
I actually went into this read fully expecting to love it, so when I say I was somewhat disappointed I want you to understand that I’m not being intentionally harsh. There are good bones here, it just needed some reworking to have the impact I was hoping for.
I really do think the problem is that this book tried to do too much with too little time. I wonder how things would have been had they split this into two novels or slimmed one concept. While the impending comet part was interesting it really didn’t need to be as detailed as it was. Mostly it served as a way of getting to know all the main characters.
The Darwin Variant has half a dozen main perspectives, which as I said above I’m okay with. They’re all telling the events as they saw them. They had different levels of expertise and experience, and even lived in different parts of the world. Thus their opinions on the matter and how they interpreted the same events varied wildly. Naturally there were some characters I liked more than others, I’m not going to lie and say I liked them all (because I didn’t). But there were a couple I found myself attached to, and that really did help carry the story along for me.
The writing itself was well done on the whole – there were parts that dragged here and there, but overall the pacing was pretty spot on. I do think the author fell into a couple common writing tropes, but they weren’t blunt or terribly done, so I didn’t really mind it.
There was a lot of potential in this novel, and there’s still quite a bit I enjoyed about The Darwin Variant. Despite how it sounds I am happy that I took the time to read it, and I honestly do think part of the problem is that I let my expectations get too high.

The Darwin Variant is a blend of sci fi, horror, and thriller that re imagines a world where the Earth has a close call with a comet and believes themselves to be in the clear only to be found that it is infected with some kind of alien virus that turns the population encountering it into what amounts to a bunch of doped up, super intelligent, horny, power hungry humans. Disclaimer up front for anyone interested in this book - it contains elements of violence and rape, one aspect of which includes rape of a young girl with a mental disorder. It's very disturbing. The book is written similarly to World War Z. Multiple points of view are provided in a variety of different writing media. Once the virus is uncovered, I found that the story got very repetitive and therefore moved too slowly for me. I felt this concept might have been better executed as a movie or television series rather than a book.

There were times when I wondered where this was going. What starts out as a comet heading to Earth turns into a race to find a cure for a infection brought by the comet. The story line is very complex. The list of characters is very diverse and the story often changes points of view using all in the plot line. The world building and backstory are very well done. This is a tension filled story with danger at every corner. The solution and the person who finds it are both a surprise. More a thriller than just science fiction.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

I have to be honest and say I struggled with this one. I cringed a little on page 1 when the author mentioned the Smithsonian "Institution" in the opening paragraph, but that's on the editor to fix. I can overlook that but what gave me pause was the book's format and its content. The format was a series of historical documents from a large number of different characters, switching back and forth between the same documents (or different ones) in rapid succession, often several times per page. They spoke in first person as if they had been interviewed or happened to create overlapping diary entries. The content of these entries didn't seem realistic and was fairly banal in nature: lots of off-topic chit-chat, personal thoughts, etc. All in all, a poor mix for me.

The core of the story is there: at some times brilliant, other times in need of some more serious editorial feedback and control. Some content after the situational setup will cause some, if not many, to put the book aside due to explicit and disturbing behaviors. Good tension for opening setup, then wandering between intense story-telling interspersed with sections that should have been removed with more prudent editing

I received an Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley and 47North in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to 47North and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is written as a documentary of a past event.
We begin this book with the discovery of a meteor in a direct collision course with Earth. Global cooperation is needed to find a solution to stop the meteor from destroying Earth and all of humanity. Working together the nations of the world succeed in saving Earth with only a few fragments of the meteor crashing to the surface. This is where things get interesting because something from the fragments is altering the environment surrounding the crash sites. Human's and animal's personalities are changing and not necessarily for the good. In fact humanity is still in danger when the contamination from the meteor causes humans to be more aggressive and seek to rule the world through intimidation. Those not affected race to find a cure that will stop the infected from destroying humanity all together.
This book reminded me of The Genius Plague by David Walton where a fungi was responsible for altering personalities.
If you like Sci-fi this one is probably right up your alley and worth giving a try.

Boring, slowly going , didn't keep my attention , just didn't pull me into the story at all. Thinks Netgalley for at least giving me a chance to chance it out in change for my honest t.

I am afraid the writing style wasn't for me,it made it really hard to connect as I found it to be disjointed and it really put me off.I did try as I liked the sound of the book, but it was hard work, and I want to be entertained not feel like I am running a marathon just trying to get into the book.Not for me I am afraid.Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an ARC.

Earth-destroying meteor headed to earth. Earth tries to destroy meteor but succeeds only into blowing it into fragments. These fragments each contain the 'Darwin Variant'. Areas where each land find plants suddenly growing fruit and vegetables 10 times normal size. Each person partaking of these new items is changed in a major way - not necessarily for the better.
This has to be one of the best books I've read in years! The characters are well developed - you feel like this could be people you know. The plot keeps you going (and guessing) until the end!

I cannot recommend this to people, even genre fans. This book needs an editor and more work before it is put in the hands of purchasers.

This was the first "oral history" style book that I've read, so I should preface the review with the fact that I didn't really enjoy that perspective. The story was a little bit "Armageddon" coupled with a helping of "The Andromeda Strain". The constant shifting of accounts, without any real character depth, made it hard for me to really care about the story. I didn't really feel committed to the plot. Without compelling characters to pull me in, the story needed to be exceptional to balance it out, and I didn't find anything unique or original enough in there to get me there.

The story was well written, with topical references and a fair amount of science detail in there, so if you like the docu-drama style and different perspectives telling the narrative, then you may like this book.

This is not an easy book to review. While it has an interesting story about the effect of a rogue comet on living things on Earth, you need to suspend logical reasoning for some aspects of the story. The balance of the comets influence takes place in my home state of Georgia. The rest of the country and the world are seemingly oblivious to all the advances taking place in Atlanta, the CDC, and the surrounding area. My main issue was the totally unnecessary inclusion of the attempted rape of the special needs woman. What was the author thinking?

'The Darwin Variant' was not a zombie novel but could easily be included in that genre. It kept my interest despite the weak action passages and sometimes obvious reactions and events.

The writing is very clunky, and without the narrative notes it'd be impossible to tell who was speaking. I honestly couldn't get into any character and found it hard to care for them. But I did find myself reading the novel just to see how it all turned out, so I give the author that. A deus ex machina at the end ruined the thrill of discovering if anyone would survive.

Author Kenneth Johnson’s book begins as an apocalyptic sci-fi story which quickly morphs into a horror novel before concluding with a sci-fi thriller ending. This book is a fast and entertaining ride, though not without a few speed bumps.

Mr. Johnson has chosen to tell his tale in a documentary form, with the characters relating the story after the fact. Additional details are filled in with security cameras, voice and flight data recorders, television footage, and unclassified communications within government agencies. The power of this technique works well, as the characters all tell their stories in first person, giving the reader the feeling of being there as the action takes place. This increases the horror factor, ratcheting up the tension as the virus begins to change the way people think and act.

Characters are fleshed out, and we are privy to many of their inner thoughts and motivations. The author did a fine job of allowing some of these characterizations to be perceived through their individual sections. This helped to breathe additional life into the book and allow me to feel an interaction with the people involved.

Before the story begins, the “Mission Statement” describes how the book has been assembled from diaries, depositions, court documents, transcriptions, etc. Each time a character takes over the storyline, his or her name is inserted. Unfortunately, there is no explanation of where the information came from (diary, transcription, etc.), and sometimes the descriptions do not sound like a person talking. For instance, Shelly Navarro concludes one section with: “I looked at him with an arched eyebrow and my expression of oh puh-leeze. Then I took another unfulfilling hit on my e-cigarette.” Passages like this one could have been easily explained with more informative section introductions, such as “From the diary of Shelly Navarro.” While these instances were not overly excessive, they intruded on the story and the author’s intentions.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. There are few slow spots, but the path the book takes leads people through different types of dangers. These various scenarios kept me engaged all through the story until the very end. Four stars.