Hominids

The Neanderthal Parallax, Book 1

By: Robert J. Sawyer

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Robert J. Sawyer

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Neanderthals have developed a radically different civilization on a parallel Earth. A Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleo-anthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer, called a Companion, implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. A computerized guardian spirit, however, doesn't eliminate cross-cultural confusion; permanent male-female sexuality, rape, and overpopulation are all alien to Ponter. Nor can it help his housemate and fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder.

BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer explains why Ponter Boddit is his favorite among all the characters he's created.

Hunt and gather: listen to more in the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy.

©2002 by Robert J. Sawyer (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 2003

"Sawyer is a writer of boundless confidence and bold scientific extrapolation." (The New York Times)

Interesting, but enh

This is an interesting concept, but I wouldn't read this again, and I'm not recommending it to anyone I know. Sawyer spends too much time preaching about how his version of neanderthal utopia is superior, and every one of these repetitious little sermons interrupts the narrative and takes the reader right out of the story. On top of that, most of the characters are completely flat and static. With only three or so well developed characters, the plots seem contrived, and those three are the only ones who are affected by the story. Everyone else is robots. It's as if Sawyer had this thought--hey, what if it's a belief in an afterlife that makes society suck--and instead of taking the time to explore that, he tried to write a persuasive essay in the form of a story. There are better speculative fiction explorations of why society is flawed, and I don't see enough original, compelling content to make this a better choice than the others.

Also, heads up: if you were taught to pronounce neanderthal like -tall, then prepare to cringe every time the reader says it.

slow start but very good story

It took me several tries to get into the book, but it was well worth the effort. The story is very intriguing and thought provoking.It also made some of my stagnant brain cells work again. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Interesting idea/premise, but not as well executed as possible

I really liked the plot premise/idea and the interesting differences the author imagined in the Neanderthal Earth/reality. I disliked the stereotypical characters and thoughts in some instances in the book based on the author's view/knowledge of our Earth. I felt that the rape description was unnecessarily graphic and I did not find his treatment of Mary's dealing with rape as believable. The author also represented some explanations and extreme or less sensical positions from Christianity rather than more reasoned views. The author's bias against Americans is also unfortunate the few times it comes out in this first book of the series; more so in the subsequent books.

Fabulous!

It was an epic story, from an imaginative writer, narrated by a talented orator. I finished it faster than any other book, of it's similar length!

Great for Sci Fi Lovers

Love Jonathan Davis, which is why I purchased this book. However, SciFi is not my genre so I am stopping at chapter 7.
Great premise in the summery and Mr. Davis brings this adventure to life. I discovered Mr Davis from Sandra Browns Mean Streak and I now have 40 of his mysteries, military and attorney narrations.
I do use the 1.25x speed to match the action. I will return to this story at another time as it seems similar to the Planet of the Apes type adventure.
Were my comments of help?

Entertaining if sometimes frustrating

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.

True Science Fiction

Follows the grand tradition of great science fiction. It examines Humanity's cultures and ethics. Bravo!

Inspiring

Wow, occasionally in life you experience a special piece of art that makes the whole world seem right. Hominids is exactly this. Thank Robert Sawyer.

Interesting Premise

This is a very good story. Very thought provoking. The performance is okay. The reader has a problem with the female voices at times. But the story is very thought provoking. I found it making me think quite a bit about the ideas. Very worth the listen.

Fascinating mental stretch

This novel explores our ethnocentrism on an incredible new level or two. Outstanding creative work.