Genus Homo (novel)
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| Genus Homo | |
 dust-jacket of the first edition of Genus Homo |
|
| Author | L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Edd Cartier |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Fantasy Press |
| Publication date | 1950 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | ix, 225 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
Genus Homo is a science fiction novel by L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller. It was first published in the science fiction magazine Super Science Stories for March, 1944, and subsequently published in book form in hardcover by Fantasy Press in 1950 and in paperback by Berkley Books in 1961. It has also been translated into French, Italian and German.
The book has the distinction of being the first science fiction novel of de Camp, and the only novel of Miller. It is perhaps the earliest work of fiction dealing with the afterwards popular theme of humanity being replaced by intelligent apes in the future, later epitomized by Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes.
[edit] Plot
A bus is trapped in the cave-in of a tunnel, and its passengers are preserved for millennia in a state of suspended animation. When their vehicle is ultimately uncovered they awaken to a future in which humankind has vanished from the face of the earth, and gorillas have evolved to intelligence and become the dominant species. The preserved humans must now adjust to a world in which they have become obsolete.
[edit] References
- Laughlin, Charlotte; Daniel J. H. Levack (1983). De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco: Underwood/Miller, 87.
