Review: Funny, Fictionalized Science in a riveting human-interest story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 20, 2014
How often does anyone pick up a new novel and love it to bits? I read this one out loud to whoever would listen, and had to stifle laughter so as not to wake my husband when I read into the wee hours. Even if I didn't love Neanderthals, genetics, anthropology and mad scientists, I'd love this book.I casually mentioned the premise to my daughter (age 20), and she reacted as vehemently as the heroine, Sarah, but worse: "Neanderthals are extinct for a reason," daughter said, and "nobody today would want to hang out with them." Nobody? What, your mom is nobody? Millions of dreamers like me would be thrilled to find a lost colony of Neanderthals in some remote valley. I can see the folly of trying to revive a species that hasn't walked the earth for some 30,000 years (they've missed out on a window of opportunity to evolve and adapt to current conditions), but hey, if scientists found a way to get the DNA into a viable embryo and the next step was finding a woman to be surrogate, and I were young and single... well, never mind what daughter said to husband over dinner about Mom wanting to have a caveman's baby (NOT what I said!).Sisters, daughters, and dads are why I bury my head in books. Fiction is a vital escape valve from real life. Except for the parts where Sarah rolls her eyes at the crazy things her sister says or does. Ah, too true, too true. But Liz isn't my sister, so I can laugh, and still escape into a fictional world where someone else does ridiculous things.My full-length review of this novel will go live in the April 2014 issue of Perihelion Science Fiction (perihelionsf dot com).