NEANDERTHALS

Two strangers find themselves trapped in a hostile environment and must work together to survive in Monier’s debut SF novel.

Omar wakes up to find himself on a strange island, and after fending off a pack of wolflike creatures, he meets Shadia, a woman in the same circumstances as he is in. At first, it seems like they’re the only people there, but they soon find themselves confronted with a choice by a group that’s keen to experiment on them: submit and stay in captivity for three years or attempt to flee and possibly die. They also find out that their captors are Neanderthals who, instead of going extinct on Earth, went to the stars and made a home for themselves on another planet. Omar and Shadia do their best to resist their captors and break for freedom, but soon they give in and accept their fate. Along the way, they grow closer, and what starts as an association full of friction turns to love as they rely on each other to stay alive. Throughout the book, they’re given different reasons for their capture, and the author makes it clear that divisions run as deeply in Neanderthal society as they do on Earth. Mixed in with the chapters set on an alien world is the story of Omar, in an Earth hospital, telling the tale of his ordeal. The book ends with a warning from the friendly Neanderthals. Monier’s greatest strength is his ability to write characters who remain sympathetic even as they show the reader the worst aspects of themselves. Although Omar and Shadia are both skilled in different areas—Shadia has useful medical knowledge, for example—neither of them are superhuman; they’re just regular people in an unusual and terrible situation, and the way that their relationship develops feels organic. They, and readers, learn limited and often contradictory information from their captors, as well, which reinforces their status as abductees.

An often gripping tale of love and interplanetary survival.