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Loading... Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax) (edition 2003)by Robert J. Sawyer
Work InformationHominids by Robert J. Sawyer
  
No current Talk conversations about this book.   derailer | Jan 25, 2024 |   ) Treebeard_404 | Jan 23, 2024 |  ) Kiri | Dec 24, 2023 | The concept is pretty good. It uses parallel worlds and Neanderthals as a great tool to compare and contrast with all of us. That's something good sci-fi should do, and it's hard to come up with that 'almost human' alien in a believable way. Using a genetic kissing cousin makes sense. It's not original - cue Brin's dolphins and chimps as just one more recent example - but it works. The human characters in the story are, well, a little too good to be true, even or especially while they honestly point out how lousy everyone else can be. The Neanderthals are even nicer, and their bad guys would be the good guys in your average modern comic book. It's a quiet story with the action all in the dialog, once you're past the first couple of chapters. That's a nice change of pace from the summer CGI blockbuster sci fi we see so much of lately, but it's all just too nice to ring true. Those first two chapters reflect my mixed feelings about the whole book quite neatly. One chapter is a wonderful pastoral world building exercise that I really enjoyed. The next is a depiction of a horrible crime that in the end seems unnecessary and unrealistic. Hominids is considerably less dense than the other novels by this authour I've read, probably too much so. It's worth reading, but not his best work. ( ) furicle | Aug 5, 2023 |  ) freixas | Mar 31, 2023 | no reviews | add a review
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Hominids examines two unique species of people. We are one of those species; the other is the Neanderthals of a parallel world where they become the dominant intelligence. The Neanderthal civilization has reached heights of culture and science comparable to our own, but with radically different history, society, and philosophy. Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist, accidentally pierces the barrier between the worlds and is transferred to our universe. Almost immediately recognized as a Neanderthal, but only much later as a scientist, he is quarantined 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 especially by Canadian geneticist Mary Vaughan, a woman with whom he develops a special rapport. Ponter's partner, Adikor Huld, finds himself with a messy lab, a missing body, suspicious people all around and an explosive murder trial. How can he possibly prove his innocence when he has no idea what actually happened to Ponter? "A rapidly plotted, anthropologically saturated speculative novel... with] Sawyer-signature wide appeal." -The Globe & Mail No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.6)
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