I've just finished reading Humans by Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer. It's a sequel to Sawyer's earlier book Hominids and while it is possible to read Humans without reading the first one, events referred to become clearer if you have.
To summarise, on a parallel Earth, Homo Sapiens never achieved supremacy. Instead, Homo Neanderthalis, or Neandarthal Man, survived. A Neandarthal scientist Ponter Boddit, accidentally creates a gateway to our world and falls through it. In our world he meets genetecist Mary Vaughan who is recovering from the trauma of being raped. Through Ponter's travels around Canada and the US, and through unfolding events on the alternate Earth we learn about the structure of the Neandarthal society and something of our own as well.
The second book, Humans, starts a few weeks after the end of the first one. Boddit returns to our Earth, this time as an official envoy. Mary goes to work for a US think tank while the reasons for the split in the timeline are explored. It has something to do with the spontaneous reversal of the Earth's magnetic field but the details of that won't be resolved until Hybrids, the third book in the series due later this year.
Humans suffers from the same disadvantages as any second book in a trilogy. The novelty of the characters introduced in the first book has worn off and the conclusions have to be kept for the third. However, Sawyer overcomes these be expanding further on the Neandarthal society. One of the most fascinating passages in the book is a conversation among anthropologists on the long term impact of farming on our world.
12:26:24 PM 
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