In his fiction, Bear often addresses major questions in contemporary science and culture and proposes solutions. For example, "The Forge of God" offers an explanation for the Fermi paradox, supposing that the galaxy is filled with potentially predatory intelligences and that young civilizations that survive are those that do not attract their attention but stay quiet. In "Queen of Angels", Bear examines crime, guilt, and punishment in society. He frames these questions around an examination of consciousness and awareness, including the emergent self-awareness of highly advanced computers in communication with humans. In "Darwin's Radio" and "Darwin's Children", he addresses the problem of overpopulation with a mutation in the human genome making, basically, a new series of humans. The question of cultural acceptance of something new and unavoidable is also brought up.