The Land of Painted Caves: A Review

After waiting almost 9 long years for the sixth and final book in the Earth Children's Series to be written and released, it ended up being exactly what I expected it to be.

A complete disappointment.

I doubt that anyone who has read the entire series is surprised by that. Jean Auel's early books are among my all time favorites, with interesting, well-developed characters. But as the series continued, Ms. Auel seemed to lose all interest in the people in her books and began concentrating on long descriptive chapters of the land they were living on, hunting techniques and herbs. Information about Ayla and Jondalar became nothing more than recaps of all the things they has done and invented in previous books.

It only got worse in The Land of Painted Caves.

There are so many things that I wanted to see happen in this final book, and virtually none of them did. We learned nothing about the Clan that she left behind and her son Durc. Despite extensive travels, and discussions in The Shelters of Stone about trading with local Clans, there were no meetings with any members of any Clans at all. There were no additional children for Jondalar and Ayla, and we really spent very little time with Jonayla. There was really no development of any of the characters we have met so far, though many new ones were introduced, pretty much in name only, for no real reason. In fact, on a long list of things I was hoping for, only one of them happened in any way, shape or form, with the appearance of visitors from Ayla and Jondalar's past around page 550.

What we do get is endless repetition of the Mother's Song, endless descriptions of boring caves, endless recaps of things that have happened in previous books, and, strangely, numerous re-tellings of things that happened earlier in this book itself. The small amount of new stuff is largely unsatisfying and, in some cases, the development seems completely out of character for the people involved.

So, should you buy this book? Well, if you own the whole series, it is the final book end for your collection on the book shelf to make a pretty collection. Don't pay full price for it, and don't expect much from reading it though. In fact, if you're looking for a satisfying conclusion to the series, I would recommend checking out some of the fan fiction that is available on the internet. At least it's interesting.

Book 6 Release Date News!

OMG! There is finally news about Jean Auel's Book 6 release date and about Book 6 itself - and it's both good and bad!

The title is The Land of Painted Caves and it will be published on March 29, 2011. That's right fans! It's still a long time from now (bad news!), but at least there is a date (good news!)!

It was also announced that it will be the last book in the series - no book 7 (sad news). That is too bad, but hopefully it means The Land of Painted Caves will be full of character development to conclude the story. I can't wait!

Click here to read the article where I received this news.

Fan Fiction 2

Well, I finished the Fan Fiction story that I mentioned below. It was good. I wish it had been longer, but I quite enjoyed it and would recommend it. So now it's time to find another one!

I usually look for stories about the Clan. I figure that sooner or later Jean is going to tell us what happens to Ayla and Jondalar, but I don't get the sense that she intends to re-visit Broud's Clan (as much as we might like her to). So it's fun to see how other fans imagine their lives continuing.

The first story I tried had some interesting ideas, but I ended up having to abandon it because all of the spelling and grammatical errors were killing me! I tried to ignore them for a while, but by the fiftieth time that Brun was misspelled (or probably mistakenly auto-corrected) to Burn, I'd had enough. Plus the writer didn't know Jean's characters very well. For example, he or she thought that Durc was 2 years old at his first Clan Gathering (he was actually only a few months old).

So I started reading this story. It begins pretty much right where The Clan of the Cave Bear finished off, and is very well written so far. The characters are recognizable, and I find the story plausible. Plus, the author is very prolific writer, and the story is fairly long. I'm still only on the first page of the topic, but have reached chapter 5 of the story.

Do you have any Fan Fiction stories you would like to recommend?

Book 6 - What I Wish For...

Well, just finished another internet search looking for any information about the release date for Book 6. Of course, there is nothing new! So, I thought I would make list of things I am hoping to see (or not see!) in Book 6. You know, other than just the book itself before I'm 80!

1. Character development! I get that Jean likes to research a lot, and likes to give us every detail of that research. But lets be honest - all we really want is to know what happens to the characters. So I wish for very few long descriptions of landscapes or vegetation or caves or animals and lots of information about what the people are doing!
2. Minimal recaps. Yes, I know. Ayla has discovered/invented pretty much every modern convenience imaginable. But can we please not spend half the book "remembering" how she domesticated animals? Can we not rehash the fire stone discovery? Or talk about the thread puller? And while we're at it, I don't need to be reminded of salient moments from previous books unless they directly impact what is just about to happen. Even then, keep it brief!
3. No more Mother's Song. How many times did it appear in The Shelters of Stone. Six? Eight? I don't really know, because even the first time I read the book I stopped reading the Mother's Song after the first time. In fact, I grew to hate the Mother's Song, and I don't even read it once anymore when I re-read the book.

Well, those are my first three, and main wishes. Another time we'll talk about things I'd love to see in the storyline!

What are your wishes for Book 6?

Memories - The Valley of Horses

I would have been around 12 or 13 years old the first time I read The Valley of Horses. My Mother and I had both really enjoyed The Clan of the Cave Bear and were eager to find out what happened next!

My Mom read it first because it was her book, and afterwards she was actually reluctant to pass it on to me because of all of the sex scenes (I was probably a little young for that). Of course I begged and pleaded... so in the end, she stapled all of the sex scene pages together and let me read the rest of the book!

I don't remember when I finally got to read the whole book - probably a couple of years later when The Mammoth Hunters came out and she got sick of stapling pages together! Ironically, the sex scenes are a part of the story I usually skip now when I re-read the books.

Can you believe that there was once a time when we only had to wait two years for a new Earth's Children Series book?

What are your The Valley Of Horses memories?

Fan Fiction

If you're jonesing for a story about Jean Auel's wonderful characters, there is actually some really good Fan Fiction out there. I've read quite a few postings - some better than others. It's actually interesting how some of the stories are very similar to what happens to the characters in the "fan fic" in my head.

Of course, IMHO, you really need to learn the major character traits and plot lines before you start to write. Nothing will make me leave a fan fic story faster than reading that "a smile played at Brun's lips".

Here's the link to the one I'm reading right now. It starts with Durc as a young, newly mated adult, and is quite good so far.

Let me know what Fan Fic you have read and enjoyed!