Rating: **
Tags: Fiction, General, Europe, Women, Historical, Sagas, Ayla (Fictitious character), Prehistoric peoples, Glacial epoch, Lang:en
Summary
Thirty thousand years in the making and 31 years in the
writing, Auel's overlong and underplotted sixth and final
volume in the Earth's Children series (The Clan of the Cave
Bear; etc.) finds Cro-Magnon Ayla; her mate, Jondalar; and
their infant daughter, Jonayla, settling in with the clan of
the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonaii. Animal whisperer and
medicine woman Ayla is an acolyte in training to become a
full-fledged Zelandoni (shaman) of the clan, but all is not
rosy in this Ice Age setting; there are wild animals to face
and earthquakes to survive, as well as a hunter named Balderan,
who has targeted Ayla for death, and a potential cave-wrecker
named Marona. While gazing on an elaborate cave painting
(presumably, the Lascaux caverns in France), Ayla has an
epiphany and invents the concept of art appreciation, and after
she overdoses on a hallucinogenic root, Ayla and Jondalar come
to understand how much they mean to one another, thus giving
birth to another concept—monogamy. Otherwise, not much of
dramatic interest happens, and Ayla, for all her superwomanish
ways, remains unfortunately flat. Nevertheless, readers who
enjoyed the previous volumes will relish the opportunity to
re-enter pre-history one last time. (Mar.)
What began 30 years ago with Auel�s best-seller The
Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), namely the phenomenally popular
Ice Age�era Earth�s Children series, comes to an
end in the sixth installment. Now a wife and mother, Ayla lives
among the Zelandoni, the people of her mate, Jondalar, but she
hasn�t forgotten the ways of the people who raised her.
Ayla is training to become a spiritual leader, and her devotion
to this calling takes its toll on her union with Jondalar. On
their journeys, Ayla and her friends contend with earthquakes,
a band of marauding rapists, and even an outbreak of
prehistoric chicken pox. When Ayla and Jondalar get wistful for
the days when they were alone with their animals, readers might
find themselves feeling similarly. As was the case with The
Shelters of Stone (2002), there�s not a lot of urgency
in this final volume, but the millions of readers who have been
with Ayla from the start will want to once again lose
themselves in the rich prehistoric world Auel conjures and see
how this internationally beloved series concludes. HIGH-DEMAND
BACKSTORY: Auel�s novels have been record-breaking
mega-best-sellers, with 45 million copies worldwide, ensuring
that readers will clamor for the series finale. --Kristine
HuntleyFrom Publishers Weekly
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