Hominids [Mass Market Paperback]

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.

I gather that not much is actually known about Neanderthals, but in the tradition of good Science Fiction writers, Sawyer takes a few ideas and shows us "what it might be like if.."

For instance, what would it be like to be able to smell like a dog? (As the large nasal cavity of Neanderthals suggests they can.) If you were a judge presiding over a court case, you'd want to arrange the airflows and position yourself so that you could smell everyone else but they couldn't smell you. Never thought of that. Very clever.

Or what would a modern society be like if women and men lived seperately (as Neanderthal's were thought to do.) In Sawyer's speculation, it would be a great place. Boys would live with boys and do boy things, and girls would live with girls and do girl things. Once a month when The Urge strikes, everyone would get together and get it on--then go back to the real world the next day. Couples still interdependent financially. Still husband and wife in (normally) monagomus pairings. Still had families. Just didn't live together every day. Hot Damn! No wives to nag you, and no men to pick up after--sounds like win-win to me! Sawyer develops this idea well.

In Sawyer's Neanderthal world socialism actually works. And works very well. Everyone just naturally wants to "contribute". Wonderful society with all the modern conveniences, like computers and TVs and stoves and indoor toilets. No crime. No religion. It's the Beatle's "Imagine" come to life.

The first half of the book is great. Plausible science. Characters in realistic situations. Then he gets preachy and spoils it all.

The Evil Humans (in our world) won the evolutionary war over the Poor Sweet Neanderthals by genocide. (So Ken, what happened in the Neanderthal world, did humnans just evaporate? Or did they get so convicted in concience they all committed suicide?) And the mechanism that elimintes crime from the Neanderthal world depends too much on computer technology. What did they use in the bazillion years before? It's important because it's hard to imagine how the Neanderthal's present idylic world could have evolved in the presence of crime, and yet there is no explanation on how it could have been controlled.

Over all, I'd recommend this book, but with the caveat to watch out for the author's politics.