Paul G. White

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Whilst walking on his local beach, Joe Laing chances upon a tunnel in the cliffs, which is a time gateway leading to the Neanderthal Britain of 35,000 years ago. He contacts the primitive hunter-gatherers and is recognised as 'the Futama', whose legend has survived amongst the tribesmen for 250,000 years. Although Joe cannot understand the reason for the legend, he settles easily into the lives of his new friends. He witnesses the Neanderthal methods of hunting game and introduces flint-tipped throwing spears to replace the fire-hardened stabbing spears that have served the primitive people for so long. He also makes bows and arrows to enable them to bring down game from a distance. Koo-ma, the tribal shaman, is extremely intelligent, and he is quick to realise the benefits to be gained from the new technology and from other ideas Joe discusses with him. Joe is attracted to Lar-na, one of the Neanderthal women who resembles modern humans, but he must remain faithful to Ciara, his fianc e in the twenty-first century. Lar-na, however, administers drugs in Joe's food, and whilst he is under their influence, seduces him. Returning from hunting aurochs, large ancestors of modern cattle, the hunting party detours to a 'sacred' cave. The reason for its special status becomes obvious to Joe when he discovers carved friezes on the cave walls depicting two types of human: these are Neanderthals and mysterious tall figures who, he assumes, were the builders of the time tunnels. The cave contains an entrance to an extensive subterranean complex, so Joe decides to explore. When he accidentally touches one of the friezes, the carved images and strange script are translated in Joe's mind. After several months in the past, Joe reluctantly returns to his own time, only to discover that his meddling with the lives of the primitive Neanderthals has changed his own future. Instead of dying out some 25,000 years ago, the Neanderthal race has survived to inhabit the British Isles and Iceland, which they call Tarmis. Having begun their technological rise 25,000 years before modern man, the Neanderthals are far more advanced than Joe's natural timeline. (The rest of the world is inhabited by modern humans, who covet the advanced technology of Tarmis and the threat of war is never very far away.) Eventually, the rulers of Tarmis recognise Joe as the Futama from 35,000 years ago, whose son, the Na-futama built on the legacy of knowledge that Joe had left with them. Prua Landi, the new leader of the Southern People (the non-Neanderthal world) is from the distant future and is on a mission to capture Joe as a means of locating the builders of the time tunnels. When her attempt fails Prua Landi initiates a nuclear attack on Tarmis. Joe escapes back to the Neanderthal past, determined to reverse the effects of his meddling and thus reinstate his own timeline. This he finally achieves by means of a time-controlling device, which he locates in the underground complex of the sacred cave, and he is eventually able to return to the twenty-first century. He now has to explain to his fianc e why his physical appearance has changed so much when, to Ciara, he has been away only a matter of hours. And there is also the Neanderthal scientist Joe has rescued from certain death in Tarmis. The Neanderthal Paradox - Journey to the Past is the first book in a four-novel series spanning space and time. In the second book, Every Future has a Past, Joe Laing finally meets the builders of the time tunnels and discovers that his destiny is to lead them into a final, violent encounter with Prua Landi in the distant future. The third story, Future's Children, tells of Joe's son, Jo-na's fight for survival when he falls foul of the tyrant, Prua Landi. In the fourth novel, The Evil Returns Joe and his family must cross over into an alternate reality to save his people from extermination by another version of Prua Landi.