clock … watching time, the only true currency

Humans by Robert J. Sawyer is the second book in The Neanderthal Parallax, a set of three novels exploring interaction between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens via parallel universes. Humans picks up from its beginnings in Hominids.

The story is a bit dialog-heavy. The conversations between the Neanderthal male named Ponter and a human woman named Mary (with all the name’s religious overtones) move the story along somewhat, but mostly give Sawyer mouthpieces for admittedly interesting comments on religion, science, politics and culture.

The Vietnam chapter includes this admirable idea, however unrealistic, about declaring war.

[Political leaders declaring war] should do it right here,” said Ponter, flatly. “Their leader — the president, no? — he should declare war right here, standing in front of these fifty-eight thousand, two hundred and nine names. Surely that should be the purpose of such a memorial: if a leader can stand and look at the names of all those who died a previous time a president declared war and still call for young people to go off and be killed in another war, then perhaps the war is worth fighting.

I’ve read worse ideas.