Product Description

Fourth novel in Jean M Auel's magnificent epic of life 25,000 years ago when two kinds of human beings, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, shared the earth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80650 in Books
• Published on: 1990-11-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 700 pages

Synopsis
In this sequel to "The Clan of the Cave Bear", "The Valley of Horses" and "The Mammoth Hunters", Ayla and Jondalar make an epic journey from what is now Russia to what is now France through the landscape of the Ice Age.

About the Author
Jean M. Auel is one of the world's most esteemed and beloved authors. She lives in Oregon, where she is currently engaged in researching and writing the fifth novel in the Earth's Children series.

Customer Reviews

Enchanting
Despite the fact that these books are totally fictional, the author has written them in such a way that in just a few pages you are totally drawn into the world of Ayla and Jondalar and you too are living the adventure. I have read this book and the three others that came before it more times that I can count and waited in anticipation for almost 8 years for the fifth book. These books have travelled with me every time I have moved and hold a special place in my heart. A sincere thanks to Jean M Auel for creating such treasures.

An epic about long ago travellers
...I hope Ayla is wrong when she says that she will not see her half-Clan firstborn again - Durc. If not, would we ever know what happens to him? There are hints though that he will reappear on the scene at sometime. In the Mammoth Hunters Ayla has a nightmare where two of her sons - Durc and a future son, which she has yet to conceive presumably with Jondalar, face other in a confrontation!!

Otherwise the fourth volume is a very enjoyable read. The way the author describes the animals and landscape is breathtaking and in parts it's gripping where they face an Amazon style female dominated community with a cruel and ruthless leader of course.

I am still waiting for the 5th volume. I hear there are going to be six in total?

Terrific pre-history anthropology, romance and adventure!
I only discovered "The Clan of the Cave Bears" (the first of Auel's Earth's Children series two years ago and have since read all four books so far published more than twice each. It is fiction/fantasy, of course, but with such a convincing Ice Age backdrop in its description of geology, climate and flora and fauna (lions as big as modern horses, sturgeons 30 feet long), combined with stupendously creative characterisation of the saga's Neanderthal and CroMagnon characters, their supposed mythologies, spiritual and social ethos - as to make the entire series so far immensely complelling and addictive.

I am sure I will be re-reading these books to the end of my days - and what greater tribute can there be to a writer. It is unfortunate that Ms Auel's ill-health has delayed the appearance of the promised fifth and sixth books. (Perhaps an Asimov-ic solution may emerge - Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is now being augmented by other authors)