More than thirty thousand years ago, mankind was not alone on the planet Earth. No, it's not science fiction, but reality. Homo sapiens shared the planet with Homo neanderthalis, otherwise known as Neanderthals. Short and stocky, with a pronounced ridge of bone over they eyes and with receding chins, Neanderthals have captured the imagination of people ever since this subset of the human family was discovered. For at least sixty thousand years, Neanderthals competed with Homo sapiens -- us -- for food and living space. It was a competition the Neanderthals didn't win. Eventually, they went extinct.

Or, at least, that's what we're led to believe by the Neanderthals' absence from the fossil record. However, according to Colin Harvey's Lightning Days, Neanderthals didn't go extinct, but, rather, fled across the multiple worlds to find a place to call home where they didn't have to compete with humans. Using psychic talents unknown to modern man, the Neanderthals fled across a number of worlds until they ran into something very, very nasty: a gestalt-mind race of Sauroids.

In the mountains of Afghanistan, British soldiers embark on a secret mission into a nest of caverns, investigating the sudden appearance of hundreds of people. Josh Cassidy -- a sort of government spook -- leads the British soldiers into the middle of a war that encompasses more than one world. The Sauroids have launched a war designed to destroy every timeline but their own. Cassidy and his soldiers get caught in the middle and the survival of the human race depends on whether they are up to the task of defending their world.

I will admit that I'm a bit of a sucker for all things Neanderthal. The idea that there was another race of almost-humans living alongside us is just fascinating. Harvey does a fantastic job of bringing that fascination to life. Using a plethora of settings and characters, Harvey fully fleshes out his intriguing premise.

Harvey does a great job of showing us soldiers caught up in something so far over their heads there's not even a hint of light above. I especially enjoyed his detailed look into Neanderthal (Thal) culture and how the differences found in Thal physiology can lead to a vastly different outlook on the world.

Lightning Days was a fantastic read and I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Richard Jones
© March 2007