Rating: 
Summary: A celebration of all the ways to be human
Review: A few thin-skinned, unthinking types below have accused Sawyer of anti-Americanism ... which can only be true if anti-Americanism means any comment that is less than 100% favorable to every single action the United States has ever taken. If so, Sawyer is also anti-Canadian; there are plenty of digs here (as well as in his CALCULATING GOD) at the actions of the government of that country ... the one he happens to live in. Also, there are those who are so self-righteous that they are convinced they know where something is going without having bothered to read through to the end. One fellow -- Mr. Walters -- below says Sawyer is pro-affirmative action. First, there's nothing on this topic of any substance in this book, HUMANS, and second, in HYBRIDS, the concluding volume of the trilogy, Sawyer shows how a white man's career aspirations were destroyed by affirmative action, quoting directly the actual hiring policy of a major university. Sawyer looks with a balanced, skeptical eye at issues. But certain keywords set off certain canned screeds from some people; they'd rather react, thinking they've heard it all before, than be exposed to new ideas ... which is their loss, because Sawyer's stock-in-trade IS ideas. In HUMANS, he looks at religion, agriculture, privacy, and more. And he does it in a balance way. Mr. Walters again argues that Sawyer is painting a rosy picture of a society without privacy and with genetic purging of the gene pool, but the whole Neanderthal-world subplot of HOMINIDS (which won a well-deserved Hugo) is about rampant injustice that happens because of such a system; another example of enormous catch-22 unfairness occurs in HYBRIDS. Mr. Walters and others confuse discussing with proposing, and, again, it's their loss. As a novel, HUMANS packs a punch. The framing story is a fascinating series of psychoanalytic sessions, with a Neanderthal on the couch; there's a very passionate love story; and there's a story of revenge. There's also seeds planted for the big conclusion of it all that occurs in the subsequent volume, HYBRIDS, but HUMANS stands on its own -- and stands tall, proud, fair, and reasonable. A careful, open-minded read will show that Sawyer isn't anti anything. He's pro humanity ... in all its varied forms. Highly recommended for those who like to think.
Rating: 
Summary: Again the social commentary..
Review: Again the social commentary of the book, like in Hominids, judges homo sapiens to be unenlightened, especially males. The Neanderthal society is idealized. An example:
"..letting women labor - funny how that word had a double meaning for females, Mary thought - in an environment free of men and their egos."
"..she was beginning to think just about anything was possible - especially if there were no men around."
The majority of this second book in the series revolves around the love relationship of Ponter (Neanderthal) and Mary (sapien), and the interesting parts about science and society are glossed over except when used to point out how inferior our sapien lives are.
Despite all this, I'm enjoying the series, and have hopes for the final book, Hybrids, which I just cracked open.
Rating: 
Summary: A pretty good middle volume . . .
Review: All writers of trilogies are aware of the prevalence of "middle volume" syndrome, but Sawyer seems mostly to have escaped its effects. Ponter Boddit, Neanderthal physicist in a world parallel to our own, returns to the world ruled by Homo sapiens in this sequel to Hominids, this time in a more organized manner and as one of his culture's envoys. He re-establishes his tentative relationship with psychologically damaged geneticist Mary Vaughan and Sawyer explores all the possibilities of interspecies romance -- though Mary often comes off as surprisingly naive for so well-educated a person. The Neanderthals generally turn out to have made better choices than we did (Sawyer's opinions are undoubtedly much of the reason he wrote the story in the first place), though their reproductive pattern lacks some of our own high points. The one comparison that irritates me, actually, is that Canada generally is shown to be culturally and socially superior to the U.S., . . . though I admit isn't a difficult argument to make. And I think Sawyer may be a bit naive himself in expecting the two national governments in North America to allow visiting Neanderthals so much liberty of movement -- especially given our present Administration. However, that's his style in most of his novels. It's a good, highly readable yarn, though, with a nice bit of poetic irony at the end, and I look forward to the conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Unable to stand on its own
Review: Any book should be able to stand on its own. This book fails horribly in that regard. What happened to the shooter? Why isn't Ponter accosted wherever he goes as a result of Tukalla's (I hope I got that right) response to the shooting? What happened to the High Gray Council's objections to free travel between the Earths? What's the deal with the game theorist and the magnetic shift? This book just has too many unresolved plot threads for it to be considered good. As a matter of fact, it's pretty bad as a result. It's less a book of it's own, and more of a stopping point between the two other books. The rape from the first book is (sort of) resolved in the second book, so I'm sure Sawyer considers this to just be part of moving the story along. But, he'd be wrong. This book isn't an entity unto itself. It's got elements of the first book in it, and hints about things to come in the second. Bah. I was really happy with the first book, and I think that just makes my disappointment more pronounced. I hope the third book is fantastic, but I'm going to the library to get a copy to read instead of purchase. The quality of the second book just does not inspire me to toss almost ten bucks at a paperback edition (when it comes out), when the third may leave just as unappealing a taste in my mouth...
Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars on Hominids, 4 on Humans, ? on Hybrids
Review: As a science teacher, I am an avid reader of anthropology textbooks and fiction. I have read most college level textbooks of anthropology, most factual books of paleoanthropology from Ian Tattersall and the rest, and most works of fiction on the subject ranging from Jane Aeul's series to Petru Propescu's "Almost Adam". It was in a dry spell, as I had consumed all there was, that I found Robert J. Sawyer's "Hominids". Normally, I tend to stay away from science fiction, but, a Neanderthal Parallax? I had to give this one a chance.
Hominids was a feast for my eyes, my mind, my heart, and my humanity. It raises compelling questions about our human condition from a very outside and an rational perspective. It is well researched, which is a requirement for a good anthropological fiction in my mind. Aeul explored the caves in France, but, Sawyer MET with Tattersall!!!
The second book of the trilogy "Humans" was good. I have never waited for a book with such anticipation. I felt like a boy with my first new bike, the anticipation to ride so very exciting, yet a challenging aspect about it causes me to hesitate and take it step my step, so when I have conquered it I will experience the thrill and absorb the accomplishment just to prepare myself for the next level. I was only hoping for more about the anthropomorphic life of the Neanderthal, and less about the romance.
The third book in the trilogy: "Hybrids" has already been pre-ordered. This trilogy is still by far the best I have ever read, and I have read many.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the first!
Review: Even better than HOMINIDS, which I didn't think was possible. 2 scenes standout, one at the Vietnam wall and the other might be the hottest bedroom scene in all of Sci-Fi. I can't wait for HYBRIDS.
Rating:
Summary: You Can't Hit A Home Run Every Time
Review: For Sawyer, this is probably just a double. Lose the
soliloquies and what's left is gem of a novella. Worth
reading, but go to the public library.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: HUMANS is a solid sequel to HOMINIDS and picks up where the first book left off. I was surprised to read such a well-developed and heart-felt love story written by a man. This novel delves more deeply into the Neanderthal universe when Mary goes to the "other side" for a visit. The author, through a preachy Native American scientist, raises more fascinating points about our societal structure that I will be pondering for quite some time. Being too young to remember Vietnam, I was especially fascinated (and amused) by Mary's attempt to explain it to Ponter. Can't wait to read Hybrids, the conclusion to the trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book ruined by its preachiness
Review: I absolutely loved the detail and thought that the author put into building his Neanderthal society. The mating system, the seperation of the sexes, the ultimate solution they came to to build a peaceful and relatively unified society. But he ruins it with a bunch of anti-male, anti-Western, anti-human diatribes. Neanderthal society is built up to be practically a utopia; no crime, stable population growth, no pollution, harmony with nature, ad nauseum. Then our earth is contrasted to theirs constantly. Men are bad; Westerners are bad; humans are bad. We pollute, we despoil nature, etc etc. Yet no one takes the point of view that there is NO freedom and NO real ambition in Neanderthal society. This is briefly touched upon, but we are beaten over the head repeatedly about how wicked, wasteful and wanton we are compared to the Neanderthals. Without this one-sided attitude from the author, I would have given it more like 4 stars. And then I realized the author is from Canada, that explained a LOT.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Second Installment
Review: I eagerly awaited this book's publication in paperback and didn't waste time in acquiring it once it was available. I wasn't disappointed. To get my only gripe out of the way first: there was a tendency towards some rather facile man-bashing, which didn't help the book at all and which I could well have done without. For the rest, the gripping story moves along briskly, showing well-drawn characters behaving plausibly and interestingly against a meticulous background. Two scenes were startlingly graphic (I won't say which ones - if you read the book, you'll know which ones I mean) and give the book a greater emotional impact than the first one had. A worthy contribution to this trilogy, then. I can't wait to see its resolution in "Hybrids".
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