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Title: Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0-7653-4500-5 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 17 February, 2003 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.32 (38 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Not A Timeless Classic...
Comment: In 100 years will readers know early 2000 culture so well they'll recognize names and companies like Geri Halliwell, Scott Turow, Richard Corliss? Ebay? Dodge Neons? Obscure potato chip brands? Will descriptions of using the internet be recognizable? Probably not. The story's pop culture references don't further the story - only serving as reminders that this book is not meant to be a classic.
Two storylines follows a human world and a Neanderthal world. Unfortunately, the questions it raises are more interesting than Sawyer's answers.
Pros: Interesting factoids about anthropology, biology and history. Nice, quick read. Simple explanations of complex issues are interesting and not overly technical. Pleasant characters on the surface. Several times I put the book down to think about the questions and issues raised.
Cons: Superficial. Too many soon-to-be-obsolete pop culture references. Too many moralizing diabtribes, using the Neanderthal's idyllic world to illustrate mankind as terrible. Worst of all are the shallow characterizations. The rape victim's character was fundamentally unbelievable...merely a conglomeration of every stereotyped rape victim reaction and emotions, all rolled into one. It was like someone who had seen too many sappy Lifetime channel movies and read too many self-help books wrote what he thought a woman would be like. Not cool.
Overall: worth a quick read, try to get what interest you can out of the ideas...but ignore the clumsy writing.
Rating: 5
Summary: A great story.
Comment: I recommend this book to any science fiction fan. The blend of anthropology and science fiction is brilliant. The story itself was amazing and I couldn't put it down. I love the affair between two of the characters because of how different they are. I love everything about this series and am excited to read the next two. A must read for any anthropology and science fiction fan!
Rating: 5
Summary: Hugo winner starts off a terrific trilogy
Comment: The winner of the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year, and deservedly so (although David Brin's KILN PEOPLE is also excellent).
Sawyer knows everything there is to know about Neanderthals (which, actually, isn't much, given that we only have fossil evidence of 400 Neanderthal individuals, spread over 170,000 years of time). In particular, he runs with two notions: the contemporary view that Neanderthals had no religious beliefs (sorry, Jean Auel -- but Sawyer's right ... there was no cult of the cave bear), and Lewis Binford's contentious suggestion that male and female Neanderthals lived largely separate lives. Sawyer extrapolates -- in the best sci-fi tradition -- all of this ahead to the present day, giving us a modern Neanderthal culture, technologically sophisticated and wonderfully drawn.
There's an "A" story and a "B" story. The "A" story tells of a Neanderthal quantum physicist named Ponter Boddit who is accidentally transferred from his version of reality (one where Neanderthals survived to the present day and we did not) to our version of reality. This gives Sawyer a "Stranger in a Strange Land" on a par with Heinlien's (the master's) Michael Valentine Smith, providing all sorts of wry, insightful social comment.
The "B" story takes place back in the Neanderthal version of reality, telling us of the aftermath of Ponter's disappearance, and a murder charge brought against his research partner -- Ponter's disappearance is taken as a sign that he's been killed. Sawyer uses this counterpoint subplot to let him show us the varied workings of draconian Neanderthal justice and keep a wonderfully ticking clock going in the background. The science is good and accurate, the philosophy well-grounded and compelling, and the characters believable and (mostly) likable.
HOMINIDS has a real beginning, middle and end, and so can be read as a standalone novel, but I'm sure you'll like it enough that you'll want to read the other two volumes in the NEANDERTHAL PARALLAX trilogy: HUMANS and HYBRIDS. Good books all.
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Title: Humans by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0765346753 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0312876904 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0812580354 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0812580346 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: End of An Era by Robert J. Sawyer ISBN: 0312876939 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 19 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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