Review: The Earth's Children Series, books 3-5, By Jean M. Auel

The Mammoth Hunters is book three in Auel's Earths' Children series, and it makes a rather sudden jump to perpetually racy. For a people who existed before internet, TV, books, or games of any kind, I guess it would make sense that s-e-x was the only form of entertainment available to them, but I think she overdid it a little in this book. I may have spent more time cringing than reading. The story between all the spicy goings on is a good one, though. Auel moves a little away from the focus the time period and enters the realm of human relationships. She started this with the second book, of course, but this one takes it a step further. Cattiness, religious idiosyncrasies, power struggles, intolerance, it's not all that different from modern day society (not to forget that this is pre-historical fiction), except that, while men tend to be relied on for jobs that require strength and size, the groups are nearly matriarchal in form; they worship a feminine god and it's the women, and their lines, that bring status to families and even whole groups. It's an understandable arrangement since they have no means of knowing that men have anything to do with the creation of new life. Women are honored, revered.

The fourth book in the series is The Plains of Passage, and thankfully this was a return to the traveling and descriptions of the Paleolithic landscape and its flora and fauna, that I love so much. The fifth book, Shelters of Stone, is a little lighter on the sex, but heavier on the cattiness. It's a series, and each book builds well on the previous one, but reading them in quick succession like this has made it painfully obvious how repetitive Auel's writing can be, not just between the books, but within them. She phrases and rephrases feelings, memories, and actions all through the book, and I think each book got a little longer than the previous one because she recaps so much, and so often. That worked in my favor. I couldn't have finished all five books in one week, in time for the new release tomorrow, if I hadn't been able to skim so many pages of recap. But the characters are true and well defined, and the descriptions of life and land so well studied that these books are pure joy for me. Tomorrow Calvin and I will travel to Borders to pick up the sixth book, The Land of Painted Caves.

Books 4-7 on my way to 52 2011