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    Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax
    Unavailable
    Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax
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    Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax
    Ebook427 pages6 hours

    Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax

    By Robert J. Sawyer

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Robert Sawyer's SF novels are perennial nominees for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, or both. Clearly, he must be doing something right since each one has been something new and different. What they do have in common is imaginative originality, great stories, and unique scientific extrapolation. His latest is no exception.

    Hominids is a strong, stand-alone SF novel, but it's also the first book of The Neanderthal Parallax, a trilogy that will examine two unique species of people. They are alien to each other, yet bound together by the never-ending quest for knowledge and, beneath their differences, a common humanity. We are one of those species, the other is the Neanderthals of a parallel world where they, not Homo sapiens, became the dominant intelligence. In that world, Neanderthal civilization has reached heights of culture and science comparable to our own, but is very different in history, society, and philosophy.

    During a risky experiment deep in a mine in Canada, Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between worlds and is transferred to our universe, where in the same mine another experiment is taking place. Hurt, but alive, he is almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist. He is captured and studied, alone and bewildered, a stranger in a strange land. But Ponter is also befriended-by a doctor and a physicist who share his questing intelligence and boundless enthusiasm for the world's strangeness, and especially by geneticist Mary Vaughan, a lonely woman with whom he develops a special rapport.

    Meanwhile, Ponter's partner, Adikor Huld, finds himself with a messy lab, a missing body, suspicious people all around, and an explosive murder trial that he can't possibly win because he has no idea what actually happened. Talk about a scientific challenge!

    Contact between humans and Neanderthals creates a relationship fraught with conflict, philosophical challenge, and threat to the existence of one species or the other-or both-but equally rich in boundless possibilities for cooperation and growth on many levels, from the practical to the esthetic to the scientific to the spiritual. In short, Robert J. Sawyner has done it again.

    Hominids is the winner of the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novel.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateFeb 17, 2003
    ISBN9781429914635
    Unavailable
    Hominids: Volume One of The Neanderthal Parallax
    Author

    Robert J. Sawyer

    Robert J. Sawyer is the author of Flashforward, winner of the Aurora Award and the basis for the hit ABC television series. He is also the author of the WWW series—Wake, Watch and Wonder—Hominids, Calculating God, Mindscan, and many other books. He has won the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards—making him one of only seven writers in history to win all three of science-fiction’s top awards for best novel. He was born in Ottawa and lives in Mississauga, Ontario.

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    Reviews for Hominids

    3.5/5

    610 ratings36 reviews

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    • 2/5
      A story of a parallel universe where homo sapiens died out and Neanderthals survived, flourished and became civilised, and the opening of communications between them and Canada in our world. The prose is leaden, and the Neanderthal civilisation quite implausible - with a very low population base and no heavy industry they have managed to invent highly functional artificial intelligence and develop a utopian society at the cost of privacy. If I want to read about ambiguous utopias I'll go back to "The Dispossessed".
    • 4/5
      Nice book. I read this because the new book I'm writing involves a parallel universe in which the dinosaurs didn't go extinct. Hominids involves a universe in which Neanderthals didn't go extinct.

      The parts of the book written from the POV of the Neanderthal universe were boring to me, so I skimmed over them. You can do that and still enjoy the book and the ending.
    • 5/5
      Excellent read. Sawyer gets better and better with age. His philosophizing is interesting and challenging even if you don't agree with all he says. This story has a couple of unusual twists. Sawyer is a master storyteller.
    • 3/5
      preachy escapism.
    • 4/5
      Good story, but a little heavy on the romance.
    • 4/5
      Ponter Boddit is a theoretical physicist working with his professional and life partner--his man-mate--Adikor on a quantum computer, deep in the bowels of a nickel mine, when something goes horribly wrong and, from Adikor's perspective, Ponter disappears.

      From Ponter's perspective, he's suddenly in a tankful of water in a large, dark room.

      Ponter and Adikor are Neanderthals, from a world where H. sapiens sapiens died out, and H. sapiens neanderthalis survived to become the dominant species.

      Now Ponter is stuck in our world, where he emerged into the heavy water tank of a neutrino detector deep in a nickel mine in northern Ontario. Reuben Montego, a medical doctor, and Mary Vaughn, a very distinguished geneticist who has done work on recovered Neanderthal DNA, are two of his major allies in this world, but he's facing a huge challenge, building a new life for himself, isolated from everything he's ever known. And since Neanderthal society is much lower-density, the total Neanderthal population much lower, and they never developed agriculture but instead have systemitized hunter-gatherer food collection and distribution, modern industrial civilization with a population in the billions, is very tough for him to quickly absorb.

      Meanwhile, back home in the Neanderthal world, the woman-mate of Ponter's late woman-mate has accused Adikor of murdering Ponter. She's not deterred by the lack of a body; Adikor was the only person there when he disappeared, Adikor has a volatile temper, and Adikor, to her way of thinking, must have been jealous of Ponter's greater prominence in their shared profession.

      Also, Adikor can't explain quantum physics in a way that makes sense to an adjudicator who was apparently never required to study any science.

      There's a lot to like about this book. The science is interesting, though not as new and startling as it was in 2002, and the Neanderthal society is really, really interesting. And who can dislike a world where woolly mammoths still roam North America?

      But I do have some problems with it, too.

      I won't deal with Mary Vaughn's rape and its aftermath, as others have done that at some length.

      It's more than a mite annoying that the contrast between our society and Ponter's is largely used as an opportunity for one-sided criticism of ours. H. sapiens hunted most of the megafauna to extinction. (This is no longer believed to be true.) H. sapiens wiped out H. neanderthalis. (This is no longer believed to be true, and with another decade of research, we now know there was interbreeding among Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans.) We still have violent crime. We do not successfully feed all of our very large population. We pollute the air. And, oh dear, we have religion.

      What's interesting is that Ponter assumes without question that H. sapiens wiped out H. neanderthalis in our world, and H. sapiens wiped out H. sapiens in his world. It would seem that there's another possibility, especially since the means by which the Neanderthals have effectively culled violent behavior from their genome could not possibly have begun until they had advanced scientifically enough to reason out the genetics.

      What's annoying is the discussion of religion between Ponter and Mary. Mary's a Catholic as well as a world-class geneticist, and might reasonably be expected to have a slightly more sophisticated understanding of religion. It's treated as an unquestionable fact that religious believers believe that religion, belief in God, is a necessary precursor of morality. That's a belief that is troublesome in many ways as well as demonstrably false. But having been raised Catholic myself, albeit in a different country than Mary was, I was taught that, on the contrary, the moral impulse comes first. "If anyone says "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar, because he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." 1 John 4:20 (English Standard Version) In short, that the innate moral impulse is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for belief in God.

      Robert J. Sawyer is a smart guy, and knows how to do research. Perhaps he didn't realize he needed to do research on this. Certainly, if he had incorporated this view of the relationship between religion and morality, as taught by the religion Mary is said to believe in, it would have made Mary's position in that discussion rather stronger--perhaps uncomfortably so, for the agenda Mr. Sawyer seems to have been pursuing.

      Now, it's not that he portrays the Neanderthals as perfect. By no means. It's just that Neanderthal failings seem to be matters of individual character, while Sapiens failings are shown as systemic and pervasive, despite the fine characters of Ponter's friends in this universe.

      I think the ideological blinders do weaken the story and the book overall, but I like Ponter, Adikor, and their friends on both sides of the portal, and overall I enjoyed the book.

      Recommended with reservations.
    • 4/5
      This is a really engaging book full of all sort of interesting topics
    • 5/5
      I really loved the book and the only disappointment that I have is that the rest of the series isn't on Scrib.
    • 5/5
      Easy reading with some interesting ideas about evolution, physics and moral systems. It made me think about these subjects in a new way. All this, while keeping the story pleasant to read.
    • 2/5
      I read this as part of my "reading all the Hugo winners" goal.
      All I have to say is: This book was up against China Mieville's 'The Scar' - and THIS won? WHAT?
      Sorry, but this is just not a very good book.

      The premise is that, due to an accident that occurs during a quantum physics experiment, a Neanderthal scientist from a parallel universe where humanity is the race that went extinct, finds himself stranded in our world.
      There's plenty to work with there, lots of potential. However, that potential is not realized.
      The book is written in the style I like to refer to as "late 20th-century Mainstream Bestseller." However, this breezy beach-read style is broken up by extended awkward and unbelievable dialogues. Sawyer's point is to show the problems of our society by contrasting it with his imaginary Neanderthal society. Unfortunately, his way of doing this is to get two characters stuck in a room together and make them talk at length, in a very stilted, artificial manner about the topic at hand.
      So we get to hear polemics on religion, gender relations, overpopulation, etc, etc. I absolutely agree with some of Sawyer's opinions, I disagree strongly with others. Whether or not I agree with his points is not relevant, the problem is that the topics are introduced and discussed in such a clunky fashion.

      Also, as a woman, I felt that Sawyer showed a significant lack of understanding of women in general. His depiction of the reactions of a female character who is raped read like they come straight out of some psychology text, without ever genuinely getting inside her head or creating empathy. I also objected to his depiction of a gender-separatist society that apparently has developed because women are so bitchy due to PMS that men have to live separately from them. I will admit the actual existence of PMS (supposedly it occurs in 2 to 5% of women), and maybe Neanderthals could potentially be more susceptible to it. But yeah, Sawyer's depiction of women in general rubbed me the wrong way.
    • 5/5
      This is one terrific book but that's really not a surprise to me. I haven't read everything Sawyer has written. As a matter of fact I think I've only been reading his stuff since 2009 so this book, which was published in 2002, is new to me. However, everything I have read by him has been very good. And there is the small matter that it won the 2003 Hugo Award so many other people thought it was good too.Located 2100 metres underground in a disused nickel mine in Ontario is the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). It is located there because cosmic rays cannot penetrate that deep under the Canadian shield but neutrinos can. When neutrinos hit the neutron of a hydrogen atom in heavy water the collision causes a light to be emitted and this can be detected. The data gathered at SNO confirmed that neutrinos oscillate which physicists had predicted. This is important in the world of physics. In fact, the scientist who led the discovery, Art McDonald, was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2015.This book starts with a scientist from another reality being transposed into the SNO detector. Ponter Boddit is from a version of earth where the Neanderthals survived and homo sapiens died out. In his reality the subterranean location was the ideal spot to set up a quantum computer which is a computer that uses other realities to perform complex calculations very quickly. The computer opened a portal into SNO and Ponter and a large quantity of air were exchanged with a volume of heavy water.Of course, the appearance of a Neanderthal in modern day Canada creates quite a stir. Mary Vaughan, a geneticist from Toronto who sequenced part of the Neanderthal genome from some bones, is asked to travel to Sudbury to authenticate that Ponter is genuine. Mary, who is traumatized by being raped, takes this opportunity to get some distance from the scene of the rape. She has not told anyone about the rape, certainly not the Toronto police.Back on Ponter's home world his disappearance has created another stir. Everyone in that world wears an implant that acts as a personal computer and a recording device. Ponter's device cannot communicate from the reality Ponter is now in. His co-worker and man-mate, Adikor Huld, has been charged with Ponter's murder since he was the last person to be with Ponter.As we travel between the two worlds we discover just how different they are. In the Neanderthal reality wooly mammoths still roam the earth, there is virtually no crime and the population is far less than the human world. Neanderthals still live like hunter gatherers so there is no farming. Violence has been bred out of the genome because anyone who behaved violently was castrated as were all of their relatives who shared fifty percent of their genes. It sounds pretty idyllic but maybe there are a few worms in the apple.I really appreciated how Sawyer portrayed women in this book. I thought he showed a lot of empathy for Mary, the victim of rape. Even more interesting to me was the depiction of the sexual dynamics in the Neanderthal world. Although I did wonder why the children had to stay with the females while they were young. Maybe Sawyer will address that in later books of this trilogy. I guess I'll have to read them to find out.
    • 4/5
      Just finished reading this out loud to my husband. I downgraded my original rating from 5 stars to 4 because the novel is less impressive on re-reading: the plot moves slowly and has a few small holes; some of the writing is awkward and redundant. However, it's still an incredibly imaginative tale. What would happen if Neanderthals had become the dominant primates, instead of us? And what would happen if a quantum computer could open a portal between the two parallel timelines? It's a brilliant idea, and I enjoyed all three books in the series.
    • 3/5
      This book has problems. I want to explain those first, then move on to why I will be attempting to read the next book.
      My first problem is that the author introduces Mary in a graphic sexual assault scene. Most authors would introduce her beforehand and then lead up that scene or introduce her in the aftermath because that is not an acceptable entrance for a female lead no matter how important to plot her assault may be. Take note potential authors, introduce us the day before or the day after the assault so that we have a good idea of the character, not just her trauma.
      My second problem is the constant religious talk between characters in one section. Everyone we meet is somehow in science-based careers and I'm just not buying that the top people on this project are all devout of some faith or another.
      My third problem is the dialog. I get it, these are scientists, they are more likely to be awkward individuals, but this awkward? I don't buy it.
      My fourth problem is that the author is clearly using the Neanderthal culture to critique ours and it can be a bit preachy. It didn't bother me much, but I'm sure it will be glaringly bad for others to read through.
      My last problem is that the science that the Neanderthal parts are based on is outdated and a bit fond of pulling the odd non-consensus idea in. I can see from the sources page in the back that what he pulled from was all written in the 90's, so that explains a lot. Back then we didn't know that we definitely interbred through genetics. We also didn't know quite a bit that we do now about some early art sites. The newer bits of data that I know from classwork does not agree with the hypotheses of the characters in the story. (I am beginning to feel like I will never be satisfied with a book that has Neanderthals in it unless I write it.) I'm leery of the physics talk in this story as well, not because I know anything on the subject, but because I know how wrong the anthropology parts are very likely to be.
      Now, from all that, you would think I did not like this book, but I really did. I love the clash of cultures and the concept of two universes in which different forms of humanity rose to the current level of technology. The dealing with difference in sexuality and religion and even scientific interpretation is really interesting. I could tell that the author put effort into using scientific literature to form a lot of his worlds, and I really appreciated that, even if I disagree with his sources. I do have some feeling for the characters, though they do need to be fleshed out more. Overall, I have to rate this book as mediocre, but I have to say that I can see the potential for the story to get better, or for it to have been better with better editing. I will attempt to read the next book because of this, though I give no promises about my ability to finish.
    • 5/5
      This was an excellent book, with some great, intriguing world-building and original characters.

      Occasionally, the author seems to insert an idea he likes too much to pass up, even if it doesn't fit. "Ooh, here's a discussion of atheist ethics, in which a highly educated human has somehow never considered the idea before, but a person from an entirely atheist society has an explanation ready!" Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often.
    • 1/5
      So disappointed by this book. It started out seeming very promising, but then it wasted all its potential.

      I love fish out of water stories. I love alternate societies that are used as a commentary on our society. A lot of this was done well here. Honestly, this is the only good portrayal of a polyamorous person I've seen in published fiction. But it didn't go far enough. Never did the polyamory/monogamy divide become an issue. Never was Neanderthal society used to critique rape culture, which should be a NO-BRAINER given that a main character gets graphically raped at the beginning of the story. What was the point of that if not to offer a contrast to sexual power dynamics in Neanderthal society? But apparently that was there for needless drama, not social commentary. Gross.

      The science was beautiful, really it was. I totally believed a lot of Neanderthal society as an extension of what we know from fossils and DNA. But it absolutely strains credulity to think that 1) a total surveillance state wouldn't be abused for political gain, 2) eugenics is actually effective at preventing most violent crime, and worst of all, that 3) such a technologically advanced society could arise without agriculture. You fail economics forever, goodbye.

      The Neanderthal characters were likeable and good but the human characters were really lacking. If you don't like any of the humans in a story and it's not Bambi then you're in trouble.

      In sum, this kind of story is only effective if the contrast society to our own has its own problems. Setting it up as a utopia is boring and breaks my suspension of disbelief.
    • 4/5
      Hominids is an engrossing tale of cultural contrasts. In this novel, Ponter, a physicist from a parallel universe, and his partner accidentally open a portal between their Earth and ours. Ponter is sucked into ours and his arrival makes quite an impression, not because of its unexpected nature or because of what it means to our understanding of physics but because Ponter is a Neanderthal. The book flips back and forth between showing what the consequences of this accident are in both worlds. In so doing, Sawyer provides an interesting contrast between their physiology, culture, religion (or lack thereof), and technology and ours. Looking at ourselves from the outside is one of the things I find most compelling about speculative fiction and Sawyer does that in this book. There were a few things I thought fairly contrived, poorly explained, or simply unlikely though.
      The human (Homo sapiens) characters in the book are either one dimensional or simply unbelievable. One, a female geneticist called in to verify that Ponter’s DNA is, in fact, Neanderthal, seems especially so. She quickly falls for this gentle hunk of man after having been raped just prior to learning of his sudden appearance. The fact that this supposedly brilliant scientist who, somewhat oxymoronically, is a fairly devout Catholic, allows herself to be swept away emotionally in this way, especially after such a traumatic event, makes little sense. A hesitant friendship would be understandable but a romantic attraction, although it remains chaste, is not.
      There is a discussion on consciousness between Mary, the geneticist, and another character toward the end of the book that also had me scratching my head. They are speculating on what it is that causes people, either us or the Neanderthals, to develop consciousness. The proposed hypothesis that this is somehow due to a sudden and poorly explained quantum event sounds almost magical. Mary doesn’t challenge the idea. In fact she seems to seriously consider it.
      A third thing that I have a hard time with is the description of the Neanderthal society. It is described as a hunter-gatherer culture with a very small global population that never developed farming. Things like furniture are made individually by craftsmen (or crafts-women). No mention is made of any type of industry or mass production and yet they have somehow developed a technology capable of developing sophisticated robots and seemingly sentient artificial intelligence. How? Is this another mystical quantum thing?
      This book gets three stars by default from me because it looks at our society from the outside and does so competently. The reason for the extra star is because it is highly absorbing at the beginning. I found it hard to put down and it did hold my attention. Another reason for the extra star is that I’ve met Mr. Sawyer and he’s a very charming fellow.
    • 4/5
      The first book in this series was very good, by the second book I got tired of the author's attitude toward religion (he pretended to have his main protagonist be "religious" but she really wasn't), and by the third book I was actively rooting against the heroic Neanderthals, hoping they would just die out (again).
    • 3/5
      This was one of my Hugo book club that I hadn't read before. I liked and loathed the book at the same time. The rape in the early chapters of the book seemed completely unnecessary as if that would be the only way Mary would be interested in Ponter later on in the book since he isn't a human male. The Neanderthal culture was interesting and I would have liked to have seen more of it. I did think that the AI upgrade on Pointer's recorder made for an easy out for communication. The story just seemed to find the easy way to deal with things to complete goals in the story arc. The only time things seemed hard were in the Neanderthal side of the story when it looks bleak for Adikor. And again of they have devices that people wear strapped to them why don't they have cameras to record things where the signal is blocked. I don't think I will bother with the rest of the books. So far this is the second series by Sawyer I have started and didn't feel compelled to finish.
    • 3/5
      Hominids won the Hugo award for best novel in 2003. My takeaway from that is that some people thought this was a pretty good book. I generally look at most of these awards with some degree of reservation because I see some excellent ones lose or even ignored. In fact, when I look over a list of winners from the last 20 years or so I do a lot of hmmmm-ing and think, is this really the best we can do? That said, this was a pretty good book. Anthropological science fiction. Yum. I don't want to say too much and spoil the story, although the rear cover of the novel outlines most of the major plot points in some detail. This, as it happens, is a parallel world story - on another earth Neanderthals became the dominant species, and the neanderthal world inadvertently during an experiment intersects with our own. Sawyer builds a complex society for them. It makes for a very interesting, if unbelievable story. 'Clan of the Cave Bear' society I could buy in to. This convergent evolution one not as much. Not that it couldn't be, I just, well, never mind. There was a lot that defied sensibility. The whole courtroom drama in Neanderthal earth I found extremely absurd. Despite thinking this, we have a well written story here that I enjoyed a lot even though I think we got a little carried away with a Neanderthal version of a sort of strange new world Utopia. Still, this IS a science FICTION story, and it is done well enough to be a very good read. First of a three part series, the follow-up novels are 'Humans' (Hugo nomination for 2003) and the finale 'Hybrids'. I will continue with this series soon I think.
    • 3/5
      An interesting scenario, especially the premise that, unlike here, the other dimension world has the Neanderthals survive because the Homo Sapiens killed themselves into extinction!
    • 5/5
      While I was not a fan of the whole rape as a plot device I enjoyed reading this book. It got faster as it got closer to the end. Both stories on either side of the parallel dimension were interesting to me. I enjoyed the concept and the science discussions as well as the religious discussions this book had within its pages.

      I liked it enough to want to go get the next book in the series. That says enough for me.
    • 4/5
      Reading Sawyer’s first book in his Neanderthal trilogy, I was struck by how simple a read it was. He did not get into a super-pretentiousness when he would do a little world-building. His descriptions of the Neanderthal alternate-Earth were in some ways veiled criticisms of our judicial system (in their world, you’re guilty until proven innocent) and lack of privacy (everyone has a computer, a Companion, grafted to them when they are recently born) as all your actions are recorded at a central database.

      The other Earth, us, is a recent future where a Canadian company, INCO, is doing heavy water experiments in an old mine, cleaned up and rocking with a few goofy, cardboard-cut-out scientists.

      The main character in our Earth is Mary, whom Sawyer creates as a sympathetic character by having her raped. Sorry but I thought this was unnecessary and graphic. I think the reader could have had some sympathy for her without her being violated. Further, we hear nothing more about the rapist for the rest of the book! What happened to him?

      Despite this tragic scene, nothing is made much of it. Mary is nervous around men but that’s about it. When Ponter, the Neanderthal scientist, gets sucked into our world, Mary becomes infatuated with him. A touching scene at the end of the novel wraps that up a bit.

      A third of the book is dedicated toward the trial of Ponter’s best friend, who is being tried for the supposed murder of Ponter, since Ponter disappeared and the idea of falling into an alternate Earth is just beyond anyone’s reality.

      Last Thoughts: Decent pacing, good science. Love how the media is portrayed as a bunch of wolves after a story (same in the Neanderthal world – called Exhibitionists!). The relationship between Mary and Ponter could have been better explored, as well as further developing the scientist Louise and her new boyfriend.

      So far I’m reaching for the next in the trilogy, “Human.”


    • 4/5
      This book Won the Hugo award in 2003. It's a story of Ponter Bonditt, a Neanderthal from a parallel universe who has accidentally migrated into our world. The book discusses many issues about quantum physics and history of evolution. A fast fun read.
    • 3/5
      Hominids is an extremely well-written novel. It tells the story of a Neanderthal physicist living in an alternate timeline where humans, not Neanderthals, went extinct. The Neanderthal physicist, while working on a quantum computing experiment, is accidentally transported to an alternate universe, our universe. The novel then splits into two stories. The story of the Neanderthal's friend at home who is trying to retrieve the lost Neanderthal while fending off an accusation of murder against his friend. And the story of the Neanderthal and his interactions with humanity. Sawyer is a brilliant writer, and the book was never dull. The trial of Adikor, the Neanderthal's friend, was especially gripping. So much so that I often skipped ahead to read more of the trial before going back. But it was all well-paced, well-characterized reading.It was also pure nonsense. I'm no scientist, and I have no doubt that Sawyer had basis for all of his ideas in this novel. Normally, I wouldn't question the science in a book, because perfect accuracy is not the point of science fiction. But midway through the book it was painfully obvious what Sawyer was doing. The Neanderthal, Ponter, became a mouthpiece for everything Sawyer doesn't like about modern human culture. The Neanderthals were not a realistic society with flaws and strengths, they were the culmination of what humans could be, in Sawyer's mind at least. The criminal justice system, religion, the media, even some aspects of the scientific community are his targets. Sometimes with justification, but never with nuance. The Neanderthal society is presented as almost perfect, due to a combination of culture and technology. They are at one with their surroundings, have no religion, and little crime thanks to unhackable surveillance devices. Logically of course all systems have a weakness, and Sawyer has clearly never read 1984 but then again, Neanderthals are just that great.Sawyer throws humanity a few bones. Our fundamental violence and competitiveness did allow us to go to the Moon. But that's about the only thing we can do better than our cousins and even that we screwed up. It's ridiculous, not because humanity is portrayed negatively. I'm all for pointing out our flaws. But because the Neanderthal society is portrayed as so utopian. What few flaws he identifies in their society are minor and I'm not sure were intentional. They practice eugenics, castration, and 24 hour surveillance, but Sawyer makes sure to balance that with the very emotional inclusion of a female scientist who is brutally raped, so you see that all that terrible stuff would actually make society better. Yes, at one point we see a Neanderthal who is driven to grief by unfair aspects of their society, but Sawyer clearly is advocating the Neanderthal approach to crime stopping. What makes this worse is the scientific certitude with which Sawyer writes. It's a fictional book and he doesn't claim otherwise. But he does have sources at the end of his novel, which lead you to believe a lot of the extrapolations he is making are justified scientifically, when they are not. Does not finding any evidence of ritual burial mean Neanderthals didn't have religion? Is there any solid evidence Neanderthals had any more respect for the environment than humans? Etc. I say no. I say we can put pretty much any face we want on Neanderthal culture because we will never know what they were really like. There may or may not be evidence for some of Sawyer's claims. But to have a society be so idealistic is just not believable. All societies have flaws, major flaws, not the minor foibles of these Neanderthals. You can, in fact, present a superior society that shows humanities faults without the pie in the sky version of Neanderthals. I could forgive a lot about this book if it weren't so heavy handed. Sawyer spends so much time explaining why humans are bad and neanderthals are good that he forgets about the story. It turns out that it takes about five minutes to bring our friend Ponter home. Buried in this are some actually interesting quantum ideas about the way consciousness may or may not affect the universe. But even these are ruined by the cheap why they are used to further the rushed ending. So what did we learn? What changes were made in the characters and in the societies? For me, not much. It all felt very empty.Sawyer is a better writer than that. I've never read a book that was so interesting and well-paced, that left me feeling so disappointed.By the way, humans also hunted Neanderthals to extinction, as well as all mega-fauna on the planet. Climate changes played no role in any of it.
    • 2/5
      Hard to see how this won the Hugo. He's taken a great idea and turned it into a dull, cliched book. Basically, it's an update of "Brave New World". In our enlightened times the idea of the noble savage has been squashed (they killed off the mammoths, didn't they?), so Sawyer has replaced them with Neanderthal. These Neanderthals have the perfect Utopian society (although lacking a bit in privacy) so can preach on the evils of human civilization. This preaching, on the usual subjects of war, pollution, racism etc. has priority over a plot that is minimal and characters that are heavily stereotyped. The science is not all that hot either. Nowhere is it explained how a small hunter gatherer population could create and sustain an advanced technological civilization. A 10% increase in brain capacity is not enough to account for the difference. Explaining the Big Bang away as mass differing over time does not explain the relative distribution of elements (H, He and Li) - inflation does.
    • 2/5
      Start with your basic SF concept that there are parallel universes differing by some event in history. Postulate that the difference between our universe and another is that...over there...our ancestor, Cro-Magnon man, died out and homo neanderthalensis evolved. Now, build a plot around a Neanderthal accidentally crossing to our universe.It wasn't a bad premise for a book. There was a rather interesting explanation of how the cross-over might occur, introducing the reader to quantum computing, a science in its infancy in our world. The societies had evolved in different directions, providing a lot of room for subplots contrasting those differences.Unfortunately, this plot gets buried under Sawyer's desire to preach at the reader. Our society is uniformly portrayed as a catastrophe in all respects. Neanderthal society is the closest thing to a utopia that is "humanly" possible: there is no pollution; there is no over-population; there are no extinctions of species; there are no wars; hunger is unknown; crime is almost non-existent; every individual's primary desire is to make a positive contribution to their society.Sawyer spends so much time sermonizing that he runs out of room for the plot and characterization. The former is really rather thin. You get to the end and realize that there wasn't much story; perhaps it's in the sequels. For the latter, particularly the women, he relies on trite stereotypes to flesh them out. Louise Benoît?...oh, she's the stunning-but-nice blonde who gets everything she wants because every man on the planet is gaga over her. Mary Vaughan?...oh, she's the main character raped at the beginning of the book who is now afraid to love again. Reuben Montego?...oh, he's the minority doctor-made-good...well, you get the idea.I wanted to like this and I think Sawyer has the ability to write well, but this was disappointing.
    • 5/5
      I just read a fantastic book trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer. It is sci fi and works on the premise of multiple universes-kind of the same idea as that tv show Sliders. Well, the two universes in this triligy are both on earth-one earth is the world as we know it today-the other earth is populated in a reality where Neanderthals became the dominate species and man died out. During an experiment in the Neanderthal world-they are more technically advanced than us- a member of that world is transfered into ours. His name is Ponter Boddit and he is as surprised to be here as we are to have him here. The first book introduces him and his society. Neanderthals are environmentally friendly-no gasoline powered anything, no agriculture-which means little disease as we know it, very clean, sparsely populated the planet-do not even live all over the planet, peaceful, loving, kind, totally cool society. They are bisexual. Each adult takes a same sex and opposite sex mate-not everyone but most. To control population children are born only every ten years. To ensure that, men live with men and women live with women and only come together for 4 days a month when "two become one". Violence and many forms of inherited disease have been bred out. A violent criminal is sterilized-so is eveyrone else containing 50% of his DNA-that means parents, siblings and children. Scary, yet effective.It is fascinating and light sci fi-for those non-technical people-such as myself. the characters are fantastic-definetely fully dimensional, life like and well realized. The story is implausible but definetely makes you think about where our species is headed.
    • 3/5
      If you've read Sawyer before you'll be aware that he has a lot of political commenting (a.k.a. complaining) in his works... this is no exception. And, no, it's not done discreetly or in flow with the story, he sorta just sticks it in at some spot he deems convenient - sometimes it doesn't clash with the story flow, but mostly it does and you'll stop and think, "now what does the government funding policy have to do with this Neanderthal?".The concept behind the book is cool and there is some exploration of how it could be "possible" which makes the sci-fi part of the novel pretty decent... it's the character development (or lack thereof) that makes this story frustrating. Instead of developing characters, Sawyer relies on stereotypes to dictate and explain behaviors: females are victims (to menstrual cycle, to rapists) men get so distracted by beautiful women they can't focus on their work, etc.The concept is worth 4 stars, the rest of it warrants a 3, or less if you tend to choke on political grumbling. I won't read any more in this series.
    • 4/5
      In "Hominids" Robert J. Sawyer makes a number of sharp points about society by conjuring a Neanderthal man in present-day North America. Many modern ills, like violence, racism, xenophobia, pollution, overpopulation, each have their moment in the sun. This is only obliquely a didactic novel, however. With the social discussion, we also have a number of sciences dealt with effectively: genetics, computer science, physics, anatomy, medicine, history, paleoanthropology - don't worry! These are all duly subservient to the plot.On top of all that, Sawyer has produced a real page-turner. The Neanderthal Parallax is a good treat for those of us who like a little meat on our sci fi.
    • 4/5
      interesting weaving of anthropology, physics and gender politics into an easy read that provides a dramatic resolution and leaves open the possibility of a sequel.