★★★★★ (5 of 5)

• Full Title: Humas
• Author: Robert J. Sawyer
• Year: 2003 (mine was 2003 paperback)
• Pages: 317*
• Genre: Science Fiction
• Publisher: Tor
• ISBN 0-765-34675-3 (paperback)
• Series Wikipedia page
• Author’s Wikipedia page

(* Not counting preview of next book)

 

Summary

Nominated for the 2004 Hugo Award For Best Novel (losing to Paladin Of Souls), Robert J. Sawyer’s Humans is the sequel to Hugo-winner Hominids, which I rated five stars last year. As the second book in the trilogy called “The Neanderthal Parallax”, this one required less introductory text, utilizing characters already familiar from the first novel.

After accidentally falling through a portal into an alternate universe in the first book, Ponter Boddit in this book intentionally returns to the Earth where Homo sapiens is the dominant human species, as the two worlds consider establishing trade and diplomacy between them. Again, the author uses the novel for sharp commentary on our society.

Storywise, two unresolved threads from Book 1 are resolved in Book 2 — that of Mary Vaughn’s attacker and the possibility of a relationship between Mary and Ponter. The new thread begun here that remains unresolved at the end is that of the reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, which has already occured in the Neanderthal world.

 

Points For...

As with the first book, I found this one incredibly enjoyable to read, finishing it in a mere three days. Again, almost all the character depth is focused on Mary and Ponter, and again there is wide diversity in the types of characters, which felt natural rather than forced.

The social commentary, as before, is a natural result of the setting and plot so it doesn’t seem forced in any way, nor does it take away from the story. It is in fact part of the story, as one would expect any time two very different cultures experience first (or second) contact. For example, there is the evening when Ponter reads an encyclopedia entry about the founding of the United Nations, which is cross-linked to historical information about the wars Homo sapiens are so fond of. As a reader, it was easy to feel Ponter’s physical sickness upon learning the death tolls.

 

Points Off For...

Again, I couldn’t think of anything worth knocking off an entire point. I was mildly uncomfortable with the relatively detailed sex scene between Ponter and Mary, but that is a result of my own Puritanesque upbringing rather than any fault of the author’s. And I had been expecting such a scene since the first book — it seemed inevitable that Ponter and Mary would try it, and since the entire story is about these two cultures exploring each other it made some sense to describe this part of that exploration.

 

Conclusion

I would recommend this to anyone, even people who normally avoid science fiction. It’s set in the present day, doesn’t involve ray guns or aliens or space battles, and provides plenty of food for thought.

(And now that I’ve rated this one, Sawyer has become the all-time points leader in my subjective rating system, averaging 5.0 stars per novel, the only author to do so. It will certainly lead me to seek out more of his books. I further noted that I’ve been fortunate to hit so many 5-star jackpots in recent months — five of my last 25 reviews, in fact, and another eight 4-star stories.)

 

 

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