Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge

A weird combination of shame and bombast. From the point of view of an alien who's able to see the "history" of any artifact, a sort of scan of human history - in which every visible person is a killer or worse. There's one story that's relatively light - OK, almost all the animals are dead and the

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viewpoint character delights in seeing a squirrel, but at least s/he is delighted and happy about the animals, and doesn't kill anyone. And that story is presented entirely in diary form, no "living" characters at all. On the other hand, we get a detailed life history of a man taken as a slave, who becomes a slaver and a murderer and a pedophile himself - the entire course of his life. Ew. Oh yes, the reason the alien and his team are there is because they're studying the history of this species that swept out from their planet and ruled the galaxy harshly and ferociously for a long time, before they died out (because of fighting among themselves? Not sure). So shame - humans are horrible to one another as well as to other peoples and to animals, they destroyed their planet, and so on - and bombast - because of these traits they ruled the galaxy and they may come back and do it again. I repeat, ew. There's no redeeming aspects to the stories at all - one glimpse of the Leakeys leaving (off to make discoveries and expand human knowledge of themselves and their world), but that story is focused on mutual murder and racist hatred. I'm actually sorry I read the book, and I'll be getting rid of it as soon as possible.

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