Customer Reviews

Neanderthal

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(38)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(48)

 

 

Where to begin? The basic concept it ludicrous, the writing ranges from clumsy and stilted to downright awful, the characters are thin and inconsistent, the pacing is slow and uninteresting and the hackneyed romantic angle is poorly executed and sometimes vomit-inducing. How could anyone possibly have given this garbage a decent review?

Here's a book so badly written that when the author wants to convey paleontological information he has the evil boss order a generic scientist to give him a lecture. Now, the evil boss is head of an organization that has been working on this neanderthal project for years - why does he suddenly need a refresher course? Because the author can't come up with a better way to cram in ten pages of dull and unnecessary exposition cribbed directly from a textbook, that's why. And who is this scientist? Why is he working for the evil boss? We never find out - after his lecture he disappears, never to be seen again. This entire scene is written so poorly that at one point the boss dismisses the scientist, only to suddenly have the two of them continuing their conversation a page later as if the dismissal had never happened. Now imagine an entire book written like that.

Some of the unmitigated garbage that Neanderthal expects you to swallow:

- Scientists who don't act like scientists and who happily kill each other for poorly articulated reasons
- Former lovers who never had a good reason to break up and have even less of a reason to get back together
- The lamest depiction of the "Noble Savage" philosophy ever printed
- Not one, not two, but THREE completely meaningless and uninteresting subplots that have absolutely no impact on the story
- An example of deus ex machina that would make the ancient Greeks blush in shame. Don't believe me? Well, in the last 50 pages of the book, just as our heroes are about to be killed by an angry neanderthal mob, they are suddenly saved by Sergei the supercompetent Russian robin hood who suddenly appears out of nowhere, spouts a ludicrous backstory and then does nothing for the rest of the book. Seriously.

Neanderthal is so lousy that it's not even possible to enjoy it as bad fiction. If you have the misfortune to encounter this book I suggest respond to it's primitive nature in kind and smear it with your feces in order to prevent others from suffering. And don't feel bad about doing this - it's not as if the book itself isn't already the literary equivalent of exrement-covered paper.

The reviews below really (and unfairly I believe) tear apart this book. Was it literature? Gosh NO! Was it based on 100% verifiable facts? Nope. Was it good old-fashioned fun? You BET! John Darnton ISN'T a scientist. Sure he bases a lot on the creative and scientific work of others, however from there he ran with the plot in his OWN direction to write a down-right fun adventure story similar to what we might find in an 'Indiana Jones' movie. I don't want to make it out that this is going to win awards anytime soon...however I felt VERY interested from beginning to end, and the surprise that comes when you figure out what the hominids CAN do that really sets them apart really was an interesting twist. I could see this in my mind's eye being made into a movie easily. I doubt someone will, but I think it'd make a fun flick anyway. So, if you are looking for literature to read, pass over 'Neanderthal'...but if you're looking for adventure 'light' than John Darnton has written the book for you.

It must have been the title that got me: "Neanderthal," with my mental exclamation point duly added. The blurb, too, sounded promising enough (charitably disregarding the bit about what showed potential for a tortured love angle between the male and female protagonists, "once lovers, now academic rivals"): In a remote mountainous region of Central Asia, a relic band of Neanderthals have been found foraging just as they used to forage 40,000 years ago at the time of their purported annihilation. Then there was the cover shot of the Neanderthal skull with its shattered cranium borrowed from a 1996 National Geographic piece. Icing on the cake, a peer inside the book jacket revealed the author to be a writer and arts editor for The New York Times, no less.
Still, what a letdown this whole Paleolithic escaped proved. Lamentably, as in so many books of its genre, in this one, too, the beginning of the journey holds far more interest than the rest of it, to say nothing of the destination. The first hundred or so opening pages duly build up to a nice crescendo, as you are flitting page after page rooting for the remarkably hapless heroes in their search for their (and your) first glimpse of the hominids. Then instead of a bang: a whimper. When you do get to meet the Neanderthals, you wish you hadn't. It turns out (this without revealing too much), that they possess extraordinary supernatural abilities, not least of which is extrasensory perception cum mind reading; that they have split into two groups, one a band of nature's innocents living in a utopian fool's paradise (a la Rousseau), the other a ferocious posse of savages staging routine headhunts of fellow Neanderthals and ill-starred homo sapiens (a la Darwin); and -- surprise -- that the Agency is in hot pursuit of their weapon-grade abilities....
If only Mr. Darnton had thought a little bit longer and harder of all this and made his fantasy sound at least remotely credible. Instead, he made a howler out of a potentially worthy idea. One can image his pitch to a publisher. "I thought of this story about some Neanderthals found alive up in the mountains in central Asia, and then...." But by "then," the publisher must have signed the contract in haste.
Give this one a miss unless you have a great tolerance for hare-brained contrivances.

I picked this book up at a used bookstore because it looked pretty interesting and I had recently read Clan of the Cave Bear, which piqued my interest in the Neanderthals. Unfortunately this book doesn't hold a candle to Jean Auel's well-researched and intelligently-written book. Darnton clearly did do some extensive research and sprinkled interesting historical details here and there, but overall the storyline was pretty flat and not all that original, borrowing devices we've seen before - attractive intellectuals who used to date and now rediscover their love, a government agency whose goals are not entirely noble, even a Trojan Horse and a half-mad scientist whose behavior is straight out of Heart of Darkness. The writing failed to capture my interest - the characters are not very well-developed and the action is not described with sufficient detail and imagination to really draw the reader into the story. There was enough here for me not to give up on the book, but I kept waiting for the plot to reach its peak. It never did - and before I knew it, the story was over. At least it was a quick read.

This is a very easily classifiable work. It is the "unknown man-like creature" genre. Such other notable works in this grouping are Congo by Michael Crichton and The Descent by Jeff Long. And, if you are interested in reading a book from this grouping, read The Descent. If you are going to read another, read Congo. If you are bored out of your mind and want a break from life and like this genre, go ahead and pick this up.

As far as the genre goes, this book does nothing to really forward it. It has the same type of plot line as the others, and it doesn't really ever vary from it the way that they do. In fact, it never really gets you involved in the story. The adjectives used are uninspired and the characters involved are easy to feel dispassionate about. In the end, you aren't really going to care who lives and who dies. Actually, there are two exceptions to that: Two characters really seem like they deserve to die and one of them does, so I was pretty happy about that.

Other than that, though, it doesn't really have too very much to recommend it. It isn't a bad book, per se, but it does nothing to make itself stand out in my mind the way that Congo and The Descent do. Whereas this is simply a novel, Congo is a page-turner, and The Descent is an epic. That book creates a whole new world for you to explore, and when you close the book, you wonder, just for a second, whether it may not be true. Never, at any point, did I worry about a neanderthal while I was reading this.

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't very good. It was, above all else, average for the genre, with no exceptional characteristics. Pass on it, unless you love the plot line, and have already read the better ones.
Harkius

Neanderthal: A Novel by John Darnton is an entertaining, imaginative, and clever book. The premiss is that a neandrethal colony has been found in the mountains of central Asia and, now, a team of archeologists goes to investigate further.

Now, they disappear and the hunt begins and the story begins. There is suspense and the book is entertaining, but could have used a little more on the society of the neaderthal, nevertheless it was informative.

This is a good book to pick up and read, just to read. No heavy thought... a good book for the beach or around the pool. The narrative will hook you in places like the daring rescue and there is a lot of conjecture in the book.

Neanderthal telepathic communication is just one of them. This is light reading and a hook to entertain with a story to tell. The book's narrative moves quickly and it is a very fast read and if you get sand or water on it you haven't lost much. The book reads like a movie and the character development is shallow, but it works.

Before I struggled through Neanderthal, I surfed to Amazon.com to get a feel for how the book was being received by "the public". To my surprise, most reviews were generally negative, but I thought, "well, maybe I'LL like it". I mean, how can a novel about the discovery of a group of Neanderthals living in today's world not be cool?

Well, I was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. Neanderthal is an awful book. Like past reviewers wrote, it was difficult to finish. Like past reviewers wrote, it was pretty hard to believe. And like past reviewers that knew Jurassic Park wrote, it's no Jurassic Park. I really should have listened.

So, if you are thinking about reading Neanderthal, take it from me and my fellow reviewers, read something else - learn from our pain. Go get From Lucy to Language and have fun imagining your own neanderthal story - the odds are it will be a lot better than this one.

This book tried to profit on the success attained by the
"Jurassic Park" movies, while the subject of
Paleoanthropology is fascinating the premise and stories in
this book is plainly astrayed. A lost tribe of Neanderthals
is found to be alive somewhere in Asia and an expedition
departs to study them, there the main characters will
interact with hominids that are depicted as beastly and that
use Telepathy! Can you believe this? What a contradiction on
the conception of the Neanderthals in this novel: dangerous
telepath brutes. And there is something dirty as well, at one
point it almost seem that there is going to be sex between
the Neanderthals and one of the main characters. Tabloid
zoophilia the likes of "I married Bigfoot". I don't recommend this book.

I would recommend the option of zero stars to allow the reviewer to more honestly rate this book. The concept was weak at best, not to mention old-hat for any one interested in the subject. There are huge flaws in the logic, and the dialogue, and the plot, but I'd have to say that characterization is the area in which the author really shines. And by "shines" I mean sucks, of course. The real tragedy is that there are authors who cannot get their *non-execrable* works published, and there are porn movies in need of a script. The world is so unfair. I propose a chat group where victims of this book can meet to tear this travesty apart, and maybe learn to trust again.

Mr Darnton took an interesting concept and managed to publish it as a terrible book. Dissapointment cannot single-handedly summarise my opinion of this book. I mean, telephatic neanderthals! Please. Is there suppose to be a romance between the two lead characters; Susan and Matt or what? The plot is quite far-fetched and with too much loop holes. How did a lush forest paradise materialise in the barren frigid fields of Tajakistan anyway? Altogether frustrating a reader who is accustomed to better reads.

Opinion: Excellent idea, bad book.