I just finished reading Philp K. Dick's The Simulacra. Kind of a weird read because a lot of elements of it feel like predictions of what the world is like now. I know it doesn't work like that, but it's still an eerie feeling.
One thing amuses me, though. A set of characters run into mutans whose teeth are messed up so that they can't eat meat. One of the regular human characters says that makes them like Neanderthals.
I don't know how long scientists clung to the idea that Neanderthals were obligate vegetarians, but it must have landed with a thud.
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I've always liked the books I've read by P.K.D. but I haven't read them all - like this one, for instance. Now I've looked up the overall plot on wikipedia it's easy to see this one may be the most convoluted, mystifying - and potentially dangerous - political thriller ever written. It has everything that made him the paranoid visionary we love: a repressive police state, a ruling elite in conflict with huge cartels, a charismatic cult leader, a ruthless woman, time travel, psychic powers, Nazis, androids, Mars, and mind-manipulating media. He was brilliant but I'm glad I don't have to live in his head.
Then there's the Neanderthals who gather at the book's abrupt conclusion in hopes of getting a second chance at civilization. There were a number of strange prejudices that have since been cleared up. One wonders how many other beliefs might be destined to land with a thud.
It is an effective political thriller. It's also an unusual one, since Dick's tone is more ironic and self-deprecating than you'd expect in a thriler. There are little things, like the reactionary street gang everyone is afraid of coming off as more of a scapegoat for most of the book. (That's one of the aspects that read as very current to me.)
The whole field of paleoanthropology is very volatile. For example, the Denisovans weren't even known of when this book was written. They've only been discovered within the past 15 years. And since we only have very partial remains of them, what we think of them could be turned on its head. Science tends to weave facts into a more satisfying whole. The trouble recently has been that those running it are satisfied by very different things from the average man or woman.
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