Plot Introduction
The plot of Neanderthal revolves around two rival scientists, Matt Mattison and Susan Arnot, who are sent by the United States government to search for missing anthropologist James Kellicut. Their only clue for their search is a neanderthal skull. The skull should have existed 40,000 years ago, however carbon dating shows it is only twenty-five years old.
The Russian and American governments are competing to study the surviving Neanderthals, because of their power of remote viewing. The Neanderthals are split into two tribes, a peaceful valley tribe and a cannibalistic, violent mountain tribe. Soon, the protagonists are captured by Neanderthals and must try to escape from the cannibal tribe. They hope to do so without jeopardizing the safety of the peaceful tribe. It eventually, however, becomes necessary to train the peaceful tribe for war. The novel explains that such a completely peaceful society was doomed in any case, and would have been destroyed soon by the mountain tribe.
Read more about this topic: Neanderthal (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or introduction:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“We used chamber-pots a good deal.... My mother ... loved to repeat: When did the queen reign over China? This whimsical and harmless scatological pun was my first introduction to the wonderful world of verbal transformations, and also a first perception that a joke need not be funny to give pleasure.”
—Angela Carter (19401992)