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frogfixture's review against another edition
4.0
This is a strong 4-star for me - I loved the ending because it resolved the main thread but did not tie up all the other loose ends. It felt like it deliberately let me reason through how things could have gone, given the way it did end. While reading, I wondered if I was reading a creationist story that was going to use science fiction to discredit evolution, or an evolution story that was going to mock creationism. But the author managed to leave that question unanswered, and you as the reader get to think about the implications for yourself. On a topic that can get emotional reactions, I think it’s quite fun that the author managed not to go there, and let you go there for yourself.
I get a kick out of books that do this - leave you at the end of the story with some questions answered but others you have to (get to!) figure out yourself. A Sense of An Ending (although written in a more literary genre) was also like this, and the feeling of having picked up a puzzle was what I liked about that book too.
I get a kick out of books that do this - leave you at the end of the story with some questions answered but others you have to (get to!) figure out yourself. A Sense of An Ending (although written in a more literary genre) was also like this, and the feeling of having picked up a puzzle was what I liked about that book too.
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3374384.html
This was way better than I had expected. It's set in a world almost exactly like ours, except that science has proved the age of the universe to be only 5,800 years. Our hero, a dynastic palaeontologist, finds himself confronted by fossil evidence that challenges the foundations of both scientific and religious belief, and gets wrapped up in a massive conspiracy to control, suppress and eradicate the truth. Not deep stuff but a great fun read.
This was way better than I had expected. It's set in a world almost exactly like ours, except that science has proved the age of the universe to be only 5,800 years. Our hero, a dynastic palaeontologist, finds himself confronted by fossil evidence that challenges the foundations of both scientific and religious belief, and gets wrapped up in a massive conspiracy to control, suppress and eradicate the truth. Not deep stuff but a great fun read.
casella's review against another edition
3.0
Fun triller, very much in the tradition of Crichton. I found the short it's based on, "Prophet of Flores", vastly more satisfying. The novel fails to engage with the larger possibilities of its alternate-history setting, and introduces a new plot--hybrids between humans and apes/extinct hominids-- that falls into a surprisingly and disappointedly old-fashioned others-are-monsters, apes-are-coming-for-our-women bag of tropes.
18thstjoe's review against another edition
4.0
interesting work where "science" has proven the Young Earth hypothesis based on the Biblical account but recent discoveries begin to call this into question, good thing I knew what the Wallace Line was before reading this.
tundragirl's review against another edition
4.0
Quite the page turner, and not quite what I was expecting, after barely paying attention to the dust jacket. I like how everything is the same except for the one small matter of people actually believing that the Earth is only 5,800 years old. Very interesting premise.
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