Humans (Neanderthal Parallax #2)by Robert J. SawyerHumans, the second books in the Neanderthal Parallax series is a disappointment compared to the first book (which I gave three stars).(view spoiler)[The book begins with a prologue in which Ponter bemoans his guilt for a crime he committed, and will never be judged for. This part of the story telling is completely unnecessary and doesn’t add a thing. The story starts with Mary on our side pining for Ponter while Ponter and his man-mate Adikor try to convince their people to allow them to re-open the portal. With no evidence that the portal will ever open again, Mary takes a job with the Synergy Group, leaving behind her academic job.The topic of the magnetic field of Earth reversing in the near future is brought up several times which will be important to Sawyer’s ‘big idea’ toward the end of the book.The portal is of course opened, after all it wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise, though Sawyer could have spent the entire time in the Neanderthal side. Ponter crosses back over and introducers the new ambassador to the humans. There is a subplot of the rapist who raped Mary victimizing more women. I guess it is meant to add drama but it really doesn’t work for me. It leads to the infamous panty sniffing by Ponter whereby he identifies the rapist, really? Sigh, I will never forget it it was so ridiculous the first time I read it.The Neanderthal delegation brings a gift that is the cast of the skull of the Australopithecine called Lucy on our side…seriously? How unlikely is it that they would have found the same fossil? Beyond unlikly.Unfortunately, Ponter is shot by a human. The ambassador (a female named Tukana) runs down the assailant and kills him with her fist much to the horror the human around her. They admit it was self defense as the man had a gun and was trying to shoot her but they are still horrified at the brutality of seeing her smash a man’s skull in.The ‘Grays’ (the ruling body of elders) want to shut down the portal after the incident. Those who want to continue relations, cleverly contrive to send some of the worlds most respected elders over to the human side ensuring the Gray Council won’t just shut the portal stranding anyone on the other side. As with the first book there is much back and forth between Ponter and Mary about religion. Then there is the super explicit but completely not erotic sex scene between Ponter and Mary - yuk. Seriously, I must have read this originally in 2003 or so but I have never forgotten it was so awkward.Mary goes across to the Neanderthal world to meet Ponter’s family, including his lover Adikor. While she theoretically knew they were lovers, seeing them together freaks her out. She stays with Lurt (Adikor’s woman mate) while she is there. There she witnesses’s Ponter’s daughter get ‘married’. There is a bunch of talk about the impossibility of Ponter and Mary (between Adikor and Ponter; between Mary and Lurt; between Mary and a rival female) then they go back to the human side. The last of the book is wrapping up the rape story line which is where the infamous panty sniffing scene comes in. Ponter track down the rapist who happens to be Mary’s coworker. Ponter then drugs him and cuts off his balls. Yup, that happened.So then the personality sculpture and Ponter go round and round about the crimes and punishments and the right or wrong of the way things are done in each of the universes. Much is made of the system in the Neanderthal world where not just the perpetrator but all of their closest relatives are punished. In the epilogue, Ponter asks Mary to make a life with him. (hide spoiler)]
This book is pretty terrible. I shouldn't have gone on with the series. Now that I'm two thirds of the way through I feel like i should finish it. Just to see where this train wreck is going. It's the book equivalent of slowing down while passing a car wreck, hoping to maybe see a decapitated head. Another reviewer called out this book as basically being an extended liberal strawman argument. Yeah, it is that. My friend Ceridwen said something about a part of a Sawyer book she read being like someone who just took an Introduction to Ethics class deciding now going on and on about things. As if they've had some grand epiphany, but really it's just the sort of shit that really isn't that deep. Unless you just never thought before. Yeah, it's like that, too. This book was nominated for a Hugo Award. Let me repeat that, this book was nominated for a Hugo Award, one of the biggie awards in the Sci-Fi world. Ok, I'm going to repeat this one more time, this book was nominated for a Hugo Award. Once more, this book was nominated for a Hugo Award and the slightly less worse first book in the series won multiple 'prestigious' awards. For better or worse, this is the book I'm going to think about anytime I see people whining about why Sci-Fi doesn't get the respect it deserves, and how it is just as good in quality as Literary Fiction. Maybe it is, but maybe you need to stop putting shit like this up for awards. Maybe hacks like Larry Niven's shouldn't be held up as being anything other than shit-writers who happened to read a couple of science books. Giving nominations to books like this aren't helping the case of getting good sci-fi writers out of the genre ghetto.I feel like I need to finish the series. I know I don't have to, but I feel committed. Maybe I'll just read the plot synopsis of book three on wikipedia.According to the author bio on the ebook edition of this that I read, Robert Sawyer is one of the most popular and respected authors in Canada. Poor Canada. This would be pretty much the equivalent of James Patterson announcing himself to be the pinnacle of literary quality in America. Poor Canada. Were there good things about the book? Um, yeah. There were still some decent ideas, but they were mostly ones laid out in the first book. There wasn't anything really new added here, in the good ideas department. Last night, I started reading the third book. I read two chapters of it. I shouldn't have started. The second chapter (or maybe it was the first), had a long paragraph about how great Kentucky Fried Chicken is. It read like ad copy. There are quite a few product placements in these books. I have no evidence, but the way he gushes over certain products it sounds like he is being paid to mention them. Just saying. Which products were placed in this particular book? I don't remember, I think it might have been free of that sort of annoyance. Although Coke is loved by the Neanderthal Romantic-Lead. Please no more inter-human-species sex. Just say they slept together. I felt very dirty after reading the sex scene in this book. Like I should sandblast off all my skin if I was ever going to feel clean again. Just say they slept together. It's better that way for everyone. It also allows you (the author) to have one less embarrassing moment where you try to give thoughts to an adult female. They don't think like thirteen year old boys, and they have better words for body parts than a giggling eight year old. I wouldn't recommend reading this.
Do You like book Humans (2003)?
Once again, finished in one day. If nothing else, this guy is a very engaging author! I believe this is the book (sorry, I read the whole trilogy in a weekend, so I might be getting them confused) where Ponter castrates Mary's rapist. The aftermath of that struck me as very--implausible. The rapist becomes less aggressive and angry and decides he actually likes himself better this way. Uh-huh. Right. It sounds very much like evolutionary predestination--testosterone predestined him to be perpetu
—Alaina
The second book in this series. It won awards, though I can't figure out why.I found the characters to be even more cardboard cutouts than in the first novel. Also, the sharp insight and extrapolations based on science were notably lacking in this one.Of course, Neanderthals are good in every way. Handsome men with giant units, they are great and sensitive lovers of course, sweet new-age men who pull together for the good of all.Who wouldn't love this contrived utopia where no animal has ever gone extinct due to humanity's evil nature?Particularly disturbing were the pages and pages dedicated to the author's obvious (bizarre) political pet ideas:- Eugenics are good. The human race needs to "weed out the bad genes" by sterilizing criminals, their children and their parents, for the good of the race.- Castration is an appropriate response to rape. Not only that, but the castrated rapist will come to love his (always a man, of course) new condition, because he won't be bothered by those pesky urges any more.- As a society, we pay too high a price for privacy. If we'd only give up all of our privacy, we could have a perfect, crime-free world. I actually kept snorting at this. One of his big arguments seems to be that if it weren't for religion, we'd have nothing to be ashamed of, so nothing to hide. See, no religion = no shame = no need for privacy = utopia. What tripe.I barely finished this one, just a torrent of foolish, juvenile ideas, poorly thought out and presented as the most logical thing in the world. It really reads like the political tract of a naive, sheltered 20-year-old amateur scientist.
—Bruce Kroeze
Similar to its preceding book, Humans is a technically smooth novel with a pleasing style. Unlike its preceding book, Hominids, this installment mixes it up a bit. The running plot is framed by Ponter's session with a personality sculpture (what we would call a shrink in our universe)At first the story focuses primarily on Ponter Bonditt and Tukana Pratt, who are Neanderthals from Earth from a parallel universe visiting Earth from the universe we know. With the portal between the Neanderthal world and ours is permanently reopened, Tukana works to build trade and information exchange between our two societies.Running midway through the story, about a hundred pages in, the pacing changes and focus shifts to Ponter Bonditt and Mary Vaughn. Accompanied by Ponter, Mary travels to the Neanderthal universe and navigates the cultural and ideological differences between the peoples of the two universes.things I especially liked:- The various technologies from the parallel world; alibi archive, companion implant, transportation cube, and personal shield.- The Neanderthals lack of sexual discrimination.- The world-building of the Neanderthal universe; identical to Earth yet different.- The concept, explanation, and examples of man-mate and woman-mate.- The idea of sterilization as the form of punishment for serious crimes, not just for the aggressor, but any family member who share more than fifty percent of their genes with the aggressor.- Tukana the Neanderthal ambassador to Earth.things I didn't mind:- The religion aspect. Not that it was preachy or uninteresting.- The personality sculpture was, at first, intrusive. Eventually, as we move past the second half of the book, he was less interruptive.- Rape as drama.- The Vietnam Memorial scene.things I could have done without:- The length at which religion was discussed and debated, particularly midway through the story.things I didn't expect or made me shake my head:- Although I expected the (male-to-female) rape was to be covered, the (male-to-male) rape caught me with, umm, with my pants down.- All the steamy sex about halfway through the story. For a bit there, I thought I was reading a Harlequin romance novel. The scene was quite descriptive.
—John
