PLANET OUT OF THE PAST

by James Lincoln Collier ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 31, 1983

Something like a plotless, thinly fictionalized reprise of Collier's dreadful, nonfiction The Making of Man (1974). Planet Pleisto is an exact duplicate of the Earth of two million years ago, whose savannas swarm with apes and hominids of all descriptions. Arriving by spaceship to study the fauna are: anthropology professor Joher; narrator Char, his bossy student; and his offspring, rebellious Nuell and peacemaker Weddy. When the professor disappears, Char, Nuell, and Weddy--armed only with cattle prods--set off in pursuit. Soon they come upon Handy, a young male Homo habilis with a knife-cut on his foot. They save Handy from attacking australopithecines, ramapithecines, saber-tooth tigers, etc., and learn a few words of his proto-language. Handy accepts them as friends and leads them back to his tribe, where Nuell and Weddy are captured and confined with the professor; so Char must persuade Handy to go against his ingrained tribal loyalties and help rescue them. One-note characters and stagy dialogue in a slick but coy and didactic treatment; older readers may want to try Michael Bishop's No Enemy But Time (1982), a meatier and more thoughtful Pleistocene adventure.

Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION