Book Review - 'Final Warning: Return of the Neanderthals' by David Drum

Sci-fi or (hopefully improbable) futurist history?

David Drum is a longtime friend and colleague. At various times we’ve served on the board of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC).

I was a beta reader of his previous novel Heathcliff: The Lost Years. It’s a sequel to Wuthering Heights, and I expected a dark romance. But in recounting the details of Heathcliff’s disappearance, Drum gave us instead a seafaring yarn reminiscent of Master and Commander, combined with bitter depictions of the slave-trade brutality and British mercantilist greed.

The cover of Final Warning suggests a broad-scope science-fiction adventure, and the book is every bit of that. I was surprised to see this genre from this author, but then I reflected how Margaret Atwood turned a corner from literary to dystopian fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale, then into sci-fi with Oryx and Crake. Like Atwood as in Drum’s historical novel, the brooding social themes are there in Final Warning, just beneath the surface - including the destiny of human evolution and the fatal consequences of unchecked avarice.

Final Warning - improbable fiction with real-world consequences. Released today!

The engine of the plot kick-starts when scientists stumble upon a group of Neanderthals. To complicate matters, powerful interests in the developed world are bent on exploiting the find, compounded by their misuse of a new telecommunications technology. Oh, and if this mashup isn’t bizarre enough, there are elements of extraterrestrial visitation, Wiccan traditions, and Celtic prophesies.

Humor is clearly the intent of the entertainment. Brooding on the fate of human civilization would be all too gloomy if it weren’t so amusing.

Final Warning: Return of the Neanderthals is released today, October 31, available in Kindle and paperback here.

---

Feed your curiosity with a paid subscription to this Thinking About Thinking blog. You’ll gain access to all the content that’s here, and you’ll be helping us build our worldwide community through storytelling and self-expression.