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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Old Idea with a New Twist, May 6 2004
Robert J. Sawyer adds a new twist to the idea of having someone come from a different Universe to get a new perspective on ours. Rather than going the usual rout of having an alien come from another planet to visit our world though, he has someone come from the same world (or parallel world), and show us how things could have been done differently. The main character Ponter Bonditt, is a Neanderthal physicist, who during a quantum computing experiment accidentally opens a portal into our Universe and he falls through it. Luckily for him in our world at the same spot that he comes through, a group of our scientists had been conducting an experiment, and they are there to help him. (Otherwise he probably would have drowned, or appeared in the middle of a rock bed a mile under the ground.) In the alternate Universe that Ponter came from, Homo Sapiens are extinct and Neanderthal's are the dominant species. Their society is like ours in many ways, but with some very big differences. Women live separately from men. Neanderthals appear to be bisexual (they have a male and a female mate). They have a tremendous sense of smell. For birth control they follow the rhythm method and they can tell by smell whether a women is having her period or ovulating. Their population is a lot smaller than ours as they deliberately only procreate every ten years to create a new generation. Their legal system is also quite different. Everybody carries around a portable computer implanted into their arms which besides monitoring vitals, also serves as an alibi. Since everybody could be continually watched, there are no crimes. They also do not believe in God. There is no religion. Considering the facts that Sawyer provides us with that Neanderthal's brains were 10% bigger than Homo Sapiens and their muscle mass was also bigger, it's a mystery how it was that we were the ones that survived, and not the Neanderthals in our Universe. After further comparisons with the Neanderthals in the other Universe you are made to feel that we behaved far more primitively, and maybe humanity may have been better served if it was the Neanderthals that had won out in our world. Even though this all happened years before anyone who is alive today you are still made to feel morally responsible. In their universe they don't have overpopulating. No starvation. They never hunted any species to extinction as we did. They didn't commit genocide as it is theorized in our Universe why the Neanderthals are no longer around. They don't have wars. They don't have crime. They don't use light outside at night so you can still see the stars. They also had fewer diseases since they didn't eat domesticated animals. (It appears that the most serious diseases that affected us started out in domesticated animals and then were transferred to people. Measles, small pox, tuberculosis, the flue, whooping cough, etc...) After several chapters of this I became very jealous of the Neanderthal's and wanted someone to defend our species, but the greatest accomplishment it seems they could come up with on our side was that we had been to the moon and they hadn't, but even that is downplayed in the book since we've only sent 12 men there and we don't currently populate it. Sawyer does a great job of creating this alternate paradise, and you're just glad to find out everything over there on their side isn't always exactly perfect either. Luckily they still do seem to have a few flaws. Ponter falling through the portal into our world created a murder mystery on their side, and Ponter's partner Adikor Huld who was with him when it happened is accused. The story switches back and forth between these two Universes. Adikor with the help of one of Ponter's children Jasmel, his women-mate Lurt, and another engineer are trying to prove his innocence by recreating the experiment in one universe, and two female scientists (Mary and Louise pronounced Mar and Lou because Neanderthal's can't make the "e" sound) and one male doctor (Reuben) in our Universe are trying to help Ponter adjust to his new surroundings to face the possibility that he may never get home. Across the barriers friendships are made and potential romances are begun. The only negative I had in reading this book was that it appears that Sawyer discredits a lot of real life hypothesis regarding the Neanderthals if they don't fit into the mold of the fantasy story he has just laid out in this book. If the facts don't support the story then he dismisses or discredits them. One that might cause some controversy is that the Neanderthals don't believe in the Big Bang theory of creation. He implies that this was made up in our Universe by a group of scientists who's opinions and theories were influenced by their religious beliefs. Many of these real theories might be completely off base, but unless a Neanderthal does walk through that door to confirm the facts I believe they shouldn't have been dismissed quite so easily. At least Sawyer has shined a new light on some of these hypothesizes. This is supposedly book one of a trilogy, and I'm very much looking forward the next installment.
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by Robert J Sawyer
by Robert J Sawyer
by Robert J Sawyer
by Robert J Sawyer
by Robert J Sawyer
