In The Windup Girl (Night Shade Books, $24.95), Paolo Bacigalupi's first novel, a novel you could drown in, a tale so tidal with the Near Future that any claim to stake out the territory it surveys might seem Canute-ish, there does remain a least one human who still hopes to hold on to the world. He is a character, it follows, from the planet-shattering past we all remember, as residents of this ...

Posted on Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13#17 GMT at http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sea...up-gir.php

"Emiko, who seems to give off pheromones no "full" human male can resist, reminded me very strongly of the heroine of Spirited Away:"

My friend Greg Bear published "Darwin's Radio" and "Darwin's Children" several years ago. He alerted me to the fact that I had contributed to his theme of pheromones involved in communication among members of a new species of human. I read the second installment prior to publication to check the facts. His was an excellent use of forward thinking combined with a science fiction approach to what might happen. Soon after publication, I learned scientists had discovered --as Greg Bear predicted--that human endogenous retroviruses were involved in speciation. His "science fiction" becomes fact approach got him invited to speak to the American Philosophical Society, an unusual outcome for any science fiction author. I highly recommend the books.

James V. Kohl
http://www.pheromones.com