History Literature / TheNeanderthalParallax

* CanadaEh: The book takes place in Canada (specifically Ontario) on this Earth, as well as its geological analogue on the Neanderthals' Earth. Sawyer likes to set novels in his native country, especially in or around his home town Toronto, as most sci-fi has been US-based.

* BisexualLoveTriangle: Mary, Ponter, and Adikor. Partially subverted, in that Neanderthals all have two lovers, but that Adikor wants Mary to follow the Neanderthal rules, and Mary wants Ponter to follow human rules. [[spoiler: Eventually solved by Mary going [[EveryoneIsBi bi]] (or at least in for SitchSexuality) and taking a Neanderthal woman-mate.]]
* ButNotTooBi: Ponter explicitly states only PIV sex falls under the classification of sex. Anal sex isn't something all male-male couples do in either fiction or real life, but furthering this, it's made clear frottage is all he and his male-mate do. Whether oral, handjobs, pegging, and/or anal sex happens between other Neanderthal couples is unknown.

** Also subverted, in that [[spoiler: we see in ''Hybrids'' a weak link in the Neanderthal justice system: a case of domestic abuse which would normally be punishable by castration. Unfortunately the woman refuses to press charges because she does not want to be responsible for sterilizing her children too, and only escapes by going to live on Human Earth, which obviously would not work for all Neanderthal abuse victims. It's a ''major '' flaw if the couple has children.]]
*** Even this solution isn't a guarantee. Without access to her, the abusive male-mate could hurt someone else, this person could report him, and her children and any grandchildren would still be sterilised.

* SuperStrength: Neanderthals are, compared with ''homo sapiens'' incredibly strong, capable of easily killing or severely injuring people far more easily simply with their bare hands. It's stated in the past most assassinations in their society were simply down by walking up to a target and caving their skull in with the attacker's clenched fists. When the Neanderthal ambassador to Earth is attacked as well, she easily smashes her attacker's skull into a pulp, shocking her police bodyguards. It's affected their culture as they've taken extreme measures against this spreading, castrating not only any person convicted of violent crimes, but also immediate family members to prevent aggressive genes from being propagated and using Companion implants which constantly record the wearer for easily solving cases mostly (the recordings are only accessed when a formal accusation has been made however), with far less tolerance for violence generally (they lament that in their last war, about seven hundred people died, with it being over a thousand years back, which is treated as high-they're shocked by how violent ''homo sapiens'' are).

* AllAbusersAreMale: Sexual violence is a theme explored heavily in the books, as a result of Mary's rape and its aftermath. While causes are discussed, they focus solely on men. There is not a single mention of the idea that women can also be the perpetrators (nor {{domestic abuse}}, which also comes up), with a biological explanation that could ''only'' apply with males given for its occurrence.

%%* MarySueTopia: The Neanderthal society in the first book.

* MeaningfulName: In-universe. Due to Neanderthal jaw anatomy, Ponter can't pronounce the "ee" syllable. Therefore, he pronounces Mary's name as "Mare," which happens to mean "beloved" in the Barast language.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while wearing the God Helmet [[spoiler:and again at the end.]] However, as we find out, [[spoiler:none of it is real]] and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus (that is, "Hay-SOOS"), she probably would have seen Christ.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while in the God Chamber [[spoiler:and again at the end.]] However, as we find out, [[spoiler:none of it is real]] and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus (that is, "Hay-SOOS"), she probably would have seen Christ.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while in the God Chamber [[spoiler:and again at the end.]] However, as we find out, [[spoiler:none of it is real]] and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus (that is "Hay-SOOS"), she probably would have seen Christ.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while in the God Chamber [[spoiler:and again at the end.]] However, as we find out, [[spoiler:none of it is real]] and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus, she probably would have seen Christ.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while in the God Chamber {{spoiler:and again at the end.}} However, as we find out, [[spoiler:none of it is real]] and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus, she probably would have seen Christ.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while in the God Chamber {{spoiler:and again at the end.}} However, as we find out, [[none of it is real]] and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus, she probably would have seen Christ.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as well with Mary, who has a vision of the Virgin Mary while in the God Chamber {{spoiler:and again at the end.}} However, as we find out, {{none of it is real}} and Mary herself acknowledges the power of suggestion from her name and that if she were a Hispanic man named Jesus, she probably would have seen Christ.

%%* RapeAsDrama: [[spoiler: Mary is raped in her first appearance by a masked man. Over the rest of the trilogy, she's dealing with it.]]

* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: The trilogy involves opening contact with a parallel world wherein Neanderthals instead of Cro-Magnon humans are the dominant species (with our species long extinct there, just as theirs have here). Among the many differences they have, bisexuality is apparently universal for Neanderthals, with every person having both a male and female spouse. They largely live with their same-sex mates as PopulationControl.

* VillainousLineage: Neanderthals strongly believe that violent urges are genetic, and the punishment for crimes of violence is castration. They sterilize the offender's close relatives along with them so it won't be passed on, though it's never made clear if these urges ''were'' hereditary. In any case, they admit castration has the second effect of lowering aggression when testosterone has dropped. Further, it's stated that in the past they sterilized people with low intelligence, raising their IQ a standard deviation.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: The Neanderthals are quite militant in the view that they can breed social harmony into their species by eliminating violent individuals from their gene pool - a policy enforced by [[{{Squick}} surgically sterilizing]] not only the offender, but also anyone sharing more than half of his/her genome. Of course, [[WriterOnBoard in-universe this seems to be true]]. Not to mention that they also sterilized everyone of low intelligence, raising their collective IQ a standard deviation, and also those with genetic disorders, which are also goals of eugenics.

* AuthorTract: ''Hybrids'' spends a lot of time talking about how evil human males are, and how they've done nothing but bring evil into the world.

* LoveTriangle: Mary, Ponter, and Adikor. Partially subverted, in that Neanderthals all have two lovers, but that Adikor wants Mary to follow the Neanderthal rules, and Mary wants Ponter to follow human rules. [[spoiler: Eventually solved by Mary going [[EveryoneIsBi bi]] and taking a Neanderthal woman-mate.]]

* EveryoneIsBi: Every Neanderthal shown has a male and a female mate. "Nearly all" are said to, but the exceptions aren't seen. Enforced by virtue of living in a segregated society (females all live in the city center, males all live on the rim; the two meet for four days out of every month that they periodically adjust to avoid or encourage fertility, with the latter occurring only once a decade to limit population growth). May also invoke SitchSexuality and/or IfItsYouItsOkay.
** It's unclear if the "exceptions" are those who aren't Bi, or are those like Ponter, whose woman-mate Klast died of cancer before the events of the series, so he just has a man-mate [[spoiler:until he and Mary are bonded at the end of the third book]]. Daklar Bolbay was Klast's woman-mate, and she split up with her man-mate as well after [[spoiler:he was castrated when his brother assaulted somebody]] so she has ''no'' partner as of the time of the novel.

** It's unclear if the "exceptions" are those who aren't Bi, or are those like Ponter, whose woman-mate died of cancer before the events of the series, so he just has a man-mate [[spoiler:until he and Mary are bonded at the end of the third book]]. Daklar Bolbay was also bonded to Ponter's woman-mate until she died, and she split up with her man-mate as well after [[spoiler:he was castrated when his brother assaulted somebody]] so she currently has ''no'' partner.