Customer Reviews

Hominids

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

If you're interested in what an anthropologist has to say about this book, read on.

This book asks the questions, What if there were a parallel universe in which Neanderthals, instead of Homo sapiens sapiens, had survived and developed civilization? What would their world be like? How would their society be different from our own? How might they interact with us?

I think these are interesting questions and worth the effort to try to answer them via the sci-fi genre. Through much of the book, Sawyer presents in an entertaining way current thinking on and debates about Neanderthal anatomy, physiology, behavior and social structure. Unfortunately, in his attempt to explain why Neanderthals eventually achieved civilization (and why, in our world, our species did the same), Sawyer reveals a fatal flaw in his thinking that demonstrates a distinct lack of careful research and, in my view, undermines his entire project. That is, unless his project is to write a romance novel.

Toward the end of his book, two of Sawyer's protagonists, Louise, a post-doc quantum physicist who happens to be a brunette bombshell "wearing tight-fitting denim cutoffs and a white T-shirt tied in a knot over her flat midriff" (p. 369 in the hardcover version), and Mary, a plain Jane geneticist who happens to be a devout Catholic, engage in a one-sided discussion about the origins of consciousness. Louise has had an epiphany that she shares with Mary after carefully testing her idea on "some guys...in the physics department" (370). It's all become crystal clear to her: the reason humans were able to develop civilization was because, forty-odd thousand years ago, they became conscious through the "quantum superposition of isolated electrons in the microtubules of brain cells" (380). Louise doesn't explain this mechanism, apparently assuming that Mary needs no further details because she's a smart cookie and because the sacred word "quantum" has been invoked.

Mary, perhaps disabled by her envy of her colleague's gorgeous body and disarmed by her romantic feelings toward their Neanderthal visitor, swallows Louise's argument hook, line and sinker. This, despite the fact that she is a specialist in Neanderthal genetics and has some sort of training in paleoanthropology. It also could be because Mary is Catholic and Sawyer would have us believe that Catholics accept that consciousness never existed on earth until humans discovered it during the Upper Paleolithic (circa 40, 000 years ago). If nothing else, it would appear that physicists believe this to be true.

This is where the entire story falls apart as far as I'm concerned. I can suspend my disbelief - after all, this is science fiction - enough to enjoy the notion that multiple parallel universes exist and that it is possible for them to intersect through the intercession of a quantum computer (never mind, read the book). And I can put up with Sawyer's host of two-dimensional characters. But you couldn't pay me to accept the idea that consciousness is something humans invented. Louise falls into the same trap that has caught less sexy but more intelligent philosophers and theologians since humans began pondering the origins of consciousness: anthropocentrism, that is, the crippling assumption that humans are the Cat's Meow of creation. For example, 500 years ago, Rene Descartes, in his "cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) revelation, made the same mistake, which led to a widely held belief that humans were the only creatures that could think and feel. This, in turn, led to a perception of all other animals as simple machines that were incapable of feeling pain or making decisions. As a result, scientists conducted many "experiments" on animals that were little more than torture fests. I thought we'd come a long way since then, but Louise (aka Sawyer) has set me straight.

What does this have to do with anthropology? A lot, as it turns out. Louise suggests that "all other primitive forms of life...are just chemical machines" (376). We don't need to mire ourselves in a paleontological debate about whether, to quote Mary, a trilobite showed volition when it "decided to go left instead of right" (376). Sawyer pays out more than enough rope to hang his thesis when Mary, in a rare moment of critical thinking, challenges Louise's theory by alluding to evidence for sophisticated behavior by Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and other hominids that preceded the emergence of Homo sapiens. Amazingly, Louise successfully dismisses her point by saying, "Well, I realize this is your field...but I've been reading up on this on the Web. As far as I can tell, those earlier kinds of man didn't really have behavior any more sophisticated than a beaver building a dam" (377). As far as she can tell. Who needs a Ph.D. in anthropology when rigorous research is only a few mouse clicks away?

Louise should have tested her idea on "some guys" in the anthropology department before she talked to Mary. Mind you, they may have become just as distracted by her cutoffs as her physics guys seem to have been. ("Louise, I think you're really onto something here!") Or maybe she was using the wrong keywords in her Google search. She obviously didn't think to enter the word "Acheulean" (why would she?), which would have brought her to websites depicting the famous stone hand axes that Homo erectus and their ilk started producing over a million years ago. These Lower Paleolithic stone tools have been found in many places in the world and were made on a variety of rock types. If you're a skilled flintknapper (stone tool chipper), you can make one with relative ease, but that's because you've learned how to work with the quirks and subtleties found in each piece of stone. Every whack you take at a rock has to be calculated and the finished product has to remain in your mind as you work. Can this be accomplished without consciousness? Perhaps Sawyer should try it in his sleep. Moreover, I call on beaver biologists to rise up and refute Louise's implication that beavers lack consciousness, too. Fiddlesticks!

In my opinion, quality works of science fiction build on what we already know or think we know and, based on this knowledge and theory, speculate about what might be possible now or in the future. Sadly, Robert Sawyer's book, Hominids, while making Neanderthal studies palatable for a wider audience, stumbles as a fictionalization of science and work of science fiction. Will I read the next two books (Humans and Hybrids) in the series? You bet. I've just got to find out how things go with Mary and her Neanderthal boyfriend!

This is the second Sawyer novel I have read and after all the rave reviews, good press and a Hugo award to boot, I was excited to get my hands on a copy. But I have to say when I was reading the book, I became quite angry.

Briefly the plot: There is a parallel universe where neandethals survived and we became extinct. During a failed scientific experiment using quantum computers, one of the neanderthals is transported into our world.

This book is a light, quick read despite being over 400 pages. There are two parallel stories, one of the neanderthal in our world, the other of the neanderthal world where on man is being trialled for the murder of the missing neanderthal. Of the two plots, the story set in the neanderthal world is the far more compelling.

So let's get to the meat of it, why did this book make me angry?

Firstly, the author uses incredibly cheap plot devices that really stretch the realms of plausability. For example, four characters (including the neanderthal) are quarantined in a house. To push the romance element of the story, the author decided that Mary and the neanderthal needed to be alone. So how does he get them alone in the house? The other two character lock themselves in their own room to have sex, that's how. Think about it, there is a man from another dimension who could quite possibly be the most amazing experience in your life, but instead you lock yourself away from him to have sex? Yeah right.

The second thing that made me angry was the so called "social commentary". This term can hardly be used to describe what is a sneering, down the nose look at man's history. Sawyer seems content to oversimplify complex issues (he sums up the cold war in one sentence) and call them bad without ever exploring the issues or making any attempt to understand. No, he'd just prefer to point the finger and call it wrong.

Leading on from this, we have Sawyer's attempt to create utopia in the form of the neanderthal world. It is interesting that Sawyer has taken a point completely opposite to Orwell's great novel 1984. Amazingly, Sawyer argues that being monitored 24/7 and having every move you make recorded is a good thing!. Yes, according to Sawyer we would all be better off having no privacy. Hmpf!

The next thing that made me angry - the ending. I won't dwell on it too much here lest I ruin it for anyone, but let me just say this - Sawyer took the easy way out and made a very simple ending. Also, given the understanding of what was discussed in the book, the conclusion Ponter makes at the end is simply stupifying.

To top it all off, this book won a Hugo award. So that makes me angry too. This is an embarrassment to the award.

So there you have it. Intelligent readers looking to read something meaningful and challenging, steer clear of this. For people who like light entertainment which pretends to be clever but isn't, you may enjoy this book.

Hominids is an intriguing speculative fiction book. The main premise is based on Quantum theory. Parallel to our world are many other worlds. Some very close to ours and some not. In our story, Ponter Boddit, often referred to as Scholar Boddit, is one of our main characters. He is a Quantum Physicist from a parallel world. While working on a Quantum computer, he is translated into the same location in our Universe; unfortunately it is the center of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. Then the true adventure begins.

Ponter is given Canadian Citizenship, which is unusual because he is a Neanderthal. One could argue however, that a Neanderthal emerging from an INCO mine in Sudbury might not be that far out of the question. Many around the world believe it is a hoax - some believe it is true and a Ponter cult begins. Some want to control him and his knowledge.

In our sister earth, they have not ever had a global war, not developed nuclear weapons, or destroyed the environment the way we have. There is much we could learn from our cousins in this world.

Follow Ponter as he develops friendships, experiences religion and learns that we don't have to be homo sapiens to be human.

I agree wholeheartedly with Steven Taylor's review of this book. I love Sawyer's writing in general, but he REALLY hits you over the head with social commentary. I felt preached to in many places, and it seems his intent is to make you feel guilty for being a human, especially a male human.

Furthermore, I don't like how the privacy-less neanderthal society is presented as The Answer. It's ridiculous to think there wouldn't be any corruption in the system, that they got everything right the first time.

The love story aspects of it are entirely not necessary for the plot in this book, and come across as being superfluous marketing. Though he may be building for something in the sequels.

I've already purchased and plan to read the two sequels. I like the concept of the parallel neanderthal world and our interactions with it and am very curious about how it plays out. I just hope the guilt-trip gets toned down, because in general I dig Sawyer's writing.

The idea of this book, in which there is contact between our universe and an alternate one in which the Neandertals inherited the earth, is promising. Unfortunately, that's the most I can say for this book. Turns out the Neandertals are all a bunch of Sensitive New-Age Guys, and I just couldn't get past their cloying sweetness. Yes, they're sexually egalitarian, and non-violent, and they don't pollute, and they are just generally too damn nice to be real or interesting. Our universe, on the other hand, is fraught with conflict, but it's rendered so one-dimensionally as to make it equally boring. Early in the book a woman is raped (in the Homo sapiens universe, of course) and while the assault is in progress, she's thinks "It's not about sex...It's a crime of violence." No doubt true, and maybe someone being attacked might choose that moment to review some pamphlets from the local women's center, but it seems to me that some original or individual response might make her seem more like a real person.

Robert J Sawyer is known for his non-genre SF writing. This is a guy who steers clear of spaceships and death rays and, instead, gives the reader pause for thought.

In Hominids, Sawyer proposes (using quantam physics) that the universe split during the Great Leap Forward and two realities were created. One world is present-day Earth. In the other, neanderthals lives on while humans died out. In Hominids, through an accident in a physics lab, the two universes come into contact with one other and an evolved neanderthal ends up on our Earth.

Sawyer has created an interesting construct based on sound scientific and historical principles. His characters are strong and believable and, most importantly, help to further the scientific supposition rather than get in the way. the book read squickly and contains all of what a good novel should: conflict, suspense and strong character development.

Hominids is a stand-out in the new crop of SF, and Sawyer has shown, once again, that he puts the Speculative in SF.

I never thought the Robert J. Sawyer of such intimate human novels as CALCULATING GOD and FACTORING HUMANITY, and the Robert J. Sawyer of the intelligent dinosaurs of FARSEER, FOREIGNER and FOSSIL HUNTER could ever collaborate on the same book, but he (they!) have done it here with HOMINIDS. The our-kind-of-human characters ..... especially poor Mary Vaughan ..... are as finely drawn as anything Sawyer has done before, and the Neanderthal world he has created is as fascinating and faceted as the home moon of the Quintaglio. I read this when it was serialized in ANALOG and couldn't wait for each monthly installment. Delighted it's now out in book form ..... most of my Xmas shopping taken care of in one fell-swoop! Excellent, excellent.

I bought Sawyer's Hominids because is won the Hugo award for best novel. I was even a good doobie and ordered it through SFReader, earning Dave a whopping 33 cents for his continued efforts on behalf of all speculative fiction fans. I should have waited until it showed up in a second-hand store.... (sorry Dave!)

While Hominids is a decent read, I don't think it was the best science fiction book published last year. There were several I enjoyed more, that I thought more adventurous and original in theme, and were better written. That said, I enjoyed Hominids, though I enjoyed it more the first time when it was Stranger in a Strange Land.

Ponter Boddit is a Neanderthal physicist who is accidentally transferred to our universe during an experiment in his. While he's stuck on our Earth wondering if he will ever be able to return back to his world, his partner, Adikor Huld, must face charges of murder because of Ponter's disappearance. Thus we have two main threads: Ponter's adventures on our world and his Adikor Huld's trial and attempts to prove his innocence in the other.

(...)I felt as though I were reading a manuscript by someone in a writing workshop at a convention.

Ok Lynn, you didn't like the writing, but what about the book? Glad you asked. The Neanderthals live in a perfect world. No pollution, no crime, at harmony with nature, etc, etc, etc. Basically they embody everything we don't. Which, of course, is the whole point.

Sawyer does raise (re-raise?) some interesting (though not original) questions about individual rights versus society harmony. At what point does an individual's right to be safe take precedence over an individual's right to privacy? Each Neanderthal is implanted with an electronic monitoring device called a Companion. This Companion monitors and records everything the Neanderthal does and says at all times. This record can be accessed, such as when a Neanderthal is accused of a crime. We see this played out in Adikor's trial: he's accused of murdering Ponter, but at the time of the alleged crime, he and Ponter were in their underground laboratory and the signals from their Companions couldn't reach the recording facility. Hence Adikor can't prove he didn't kill Ponter and clear himself of the crime. The conclusion I took from this situation is: What good is a justice system when the only person who knows for sure if a crime is committed is the accused? Not much.

Crime is rare in Neanderthal society for another reason as well: genetic culling. If a Neanderthal commits a crime, that Neanderthal is put to death and all those who share 50% or more of his/her genetic material are sterilized. A few generations of this have greatly reduced genetic proclivity for criminal behavior in Neanderthal society. Ponter is amazed at the amount of crime we have in our world, and even more amazed at the ineffective way we deal with it.

While Sawyer's speculations on crime and how to deal with it are interesting, they don't pose solutions that are even remotely possible. The question 'what if' in this context only has power if it can reasonably be considered. Since it can't, Sawyer's speculations end up being rhetoric and left me thinking 'Interesting, but so what?'

Sawyer's human characters are pretty thin. Beautiful sexpot scientist, dowdy middle-aged scientist, noble black man scientist... all right out of central casting. He partially redeems himself with well-done Neanderthals, but not quite enough to make up for his human ones. Some of the problems the human characters deal with come across as contrived and convenient, added, it seemed to me, to provide some justification for Sawyer's speculations on violent crime and how we deal with it.

Do I recommend it? I do, though with lukewarm enthusiasm. It rehashes old (although interesting) ideas, half the characters are trite and stereotypical, and the writing sucks. It's not a bad book, but a Hugo winner...? I suppose there's no accounting for taste.

"Hominids" begins a trilogy, the "Neanderthal Parallax," and as such I was worried that I'd be left with such a cliffhanger that I'd be frustrated and wanting part two just to continue the story. I do want part two - "Humans" - but "Hominids" itself was a self-contained story with a plot that was resolved even though there is definitely more coming.

Parallel worlds are old-hat to Science Fiction, but Sawyer has managed to take a refreshing look at the hook in this novel. The parallel world is an earth where Neanderthal were the humans who rose to the position of dominant species, not Homo Sapiens. The society that Sawyer crafts for these Neanderthal is extrapolation at its best, with an admixture of social commentary that doesn't quite reach preachy status. The parallels drawn are at once both interesting and slightly embarrassing: in nearly all things, it seems, those Neanderthal's are our better. Though that's an initial thought and emotional reaction, the more I read, the more I felt the gap shortening. I have a strong feeling Sawyer is going somewhere with this theme.

Two plots co-exist in this novel: a Neanderthal scientist is rudely dropped into our world, the first plot. The second plot is that of the scientist's partner, who is accused of murdering the scientist, who has so completely vanished.

For intelligent, thought-provoking science fiction, go no farther than Robert J. Sawyer. This is one of his best yet...

A very good read. I enjoyed the day I spent reading it. The physics seemed fine as far as I could tell and I really appreciate the reading list at the end. But if I were the editor I would have moved some of that peripheral stuff as well as Sawyer's offputting two pages on "T" and "TH" in Neandertal (current German) versus Neanderthal (19th Century German) and then English to Sawyer's great home page and saved a few trees.
The economics seems less well handled than the physics. In our world no non-agricultural people has had a scientific or industrial society. It seems to me that it is unlikely that a pastoral or hunter-gatherer society could progress technologically so as to be ahead of us in a similar span of time. Also the economics of relationships between men and women in the alternative world could use some more examination.
The biology of the Neanderthal also seems not well examined. Why should the Neanderthal all be white? By the way the next movie on the Cro Magnon should make them brown. They were just out of Africa and hadn't had long enough in the North evolve the pink skins of their Euopean descendants.
As for the Neanderthal most of them surely have spent the last 30000 years since they whipen out our ancestors in or near the tropics and those would be brown for the same sunshade reasons East Indians and Africans are brown. Perhaps Sawyer will enlighten us in the next two volumes.