Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax)

A fantastic and rewarding conclusion to a very enjoyable series. Character development is great, you really care for these people. We got back into the Neanderthal world here which I had hoped for in the second book. Sorry it had to end. All too short.

It's become fashionable in some circles to denigrate the term "science fiction" .... in favor of "speculative fiction," or some such .... and to treat the "literature of ideas" .... science fiction's venerable nickname .... as pejorative. Robt J. Sawyer proves both those movements misguided. Here is real science fiction, with cutting edge science (anthropology, quantum physics, genetics, and more), and new and interesting ideas on every page. The whole Neanderthal Parallax is worth reading .... and Hybrids finishes it off in high style.

HOMINIDS, the first book in this series, won the HUGO AWARD. The rest of the series is even better. Space isn't the final frontier. In Robert J. Sawyer's remarkable NEANDERTHAL PARALLAX trilogy, the final frontier is right here, but twisted away at an angle: other universes. What if, 40,000 years ago, true consciousness had arisen in Neanderthals, instead of our kind of humanity? What would they have done with this world, this geography, these natural resources, this biosphere? Sawyer's answer is richly detailed, and also winsome ... it makes us wish we could have gone down the same gentler, kindler route.HYBRIDS picks up the story where HUMANS left off (indeed, despite its vast sweep, the whole trilogy only covers just five months of time). The characters we love from the earlier books -- Homo sapiens geneticist Mary N. Vaughan and Neanderthal quantum physicist Ponter Boddit -- are back, and their growing relationship is front and center. Two other characters who had minor (although important) roles in HUMANS also play key parts here, although the new character, a female Neanderthal named Bandra who loves all things Homo sapiens, is one of Sawyer's most engaging creations. The series neatly wraps up the issues of religion versus science raised in the first two books in surprising and gutsy ways. The character live and breathe, and although I felt satisfied at the end, I wouldn't mind at all if the NEANDERTHAL PARALLAX ended up being, like Douglas Adams's HITCH-HIKER series, an increasingly inaccurately named trilogy ...

This was phenomenal! In the first two books, "Hominids," and "Humans," Sawyer deftly described the 'alien' in the form of the Neanderthals in such a way as to show us our own failures as human beings, but at the same time, with such a light touch that it did not come across as preachy. If you haven't read those two, then stop now, head on over, and pick up "Hominids," first. The story in the first two books introduced us to a wide range of neanderthal and human characters, living on parallel earths, and rudely made aware of each other when a single neanderthal, Ponter, falls through into our earth. In the second tome, relations are opened between the world, and a Synergy Group formed. Ponter's relationship with a human woman, Mary Vaughn, grew toward love, and the differences between their two cultures began to show the startling way in which humans have really failed. Indeed, in this book, one of the characters, Jock, begins to see just how poorly humans have handled their world. There is much to this book that is easily missed - Sawyer has put gender issues, sexuality issues, racism, violence, criminal systems, enviromental practices - all of it is on display in this series, and in the third book, it is in the character of Mary that we get to explore both worlds with her biased human eye. As the collapse of our Earth's magnetic field continues (it flips now and then, and is doing so now), Jock, Mary, and the rest of the Synergy group are slowly realizing what it could possibly mean to humanity, while at the same time Mary explores options of potentially creating a hybrid child with Ponter, the neanderthal she has fallen in love with. Most interesting to me (as a gay reader) was Mary's intellectual and emotional wrestling with the Neanderthal relationship structure (they each have a man-mate and a woman-mate, and live in same-gendered relationships for most of their lives, with about four days a month spent in opposite-gender relationships). As Mary moves towards adopting the Neanderthal way of life, she slowly allows herself to consider the option of a woman-mate, and the eventual outcome of her thoughts and feelings really struck me. Just as interesting was the religious debate that has been ongoing in this series. The Neanderthals, very uncurious and entirely unreligious, are shown to be lacking whatever brain components are required for 'faith.' When Mary and Ponter decide to have a child, the Catholic Mary needs to figure out if her child should have the gene for faith, or not. It's an amazingly good thought process for both of them, and again I tip my hat at Sawyer. Where the story finally goes took me by surprise, and left me satisfied about the trilogy at large. This was superb, and as always, I wait for Sawyer's next great novel. There's a reason he's one of only sixteen people to have both a Hugo and a Nebula for best novel, folks. 'Nathan