Scifi gets a petting out in the prairies. I can hear the wind blowing and sighing in the wheat… as the mothership lands and slowly releases more Saskatchewanianeseites into the wild. How do you think that province got populated originally? Settlers? Boy are you niave. They are among us!!

Robert J. Sawyer, probably Canada’s best-known science fiction writer, rigorously researches the scientific concepts which inspire his novels … but even he would admit that he doesn’t really think that, as happens in his novel Hominids, a gateway will soon open in Sudbury, Ont., between our world and a parallel world where Neanderthals instead of homo sapiens dominate — and discharge a Neanderthal scientist.

Pshffft. Um, hello? Excuse me? Didn’t this already happen with that boxer dude Tyson a few years back? Who’s to say those extra-dimensional Neanderthals don’t have scientists as well? You bigots.