A review by porsane
The Color of Neanderthal Eyes / And Strange at Ecbatan the Trees by Michael Bishop, James Tiptree Jr.

3.0

I do enjoy James Tiptree Junior, but this novella felt a bit tired and dated. Human meets alien, falls in love with alien , saves her species. It's adequately written, but nothing all that special. The Michael Bishop novella, however, is a gem. I think he's one of those tragically under appreciated sf authors that more people should read. His novella, about a zoo of Homo sapiens, subtly genetically engineered into an emotionally stunted underclass and a passionate over class by post humans is a complicated tale of loss, inevitability and fragility. On the surface it's about the losses of war, but there was enough layering and shading in it to remind me of Gene Wolfe.