Rating: 
Summary: Boring - a HUGE disappointment
Review: I really loved the first 3 books in the series and liked the next 3 in the series, but felt the books were becoming too much formula plot lines. This book was such a disappointment! She has so much to work with to create great drama and has seemed to instead repeat herself endlessly about the animals, the crafts, the history, geology, etc... Not to mention the laughable descriptions of the sexual eposides.
This is a definate must miss.
Rating: 
Summary: A good enough instalment; more, please!
Review: It was to be expected that, after keeping her reading public waiting so long, Jean Auel would attract some pretty harsh criticism for this book. I think this is because, sadly, readers want to "punish" her for making them wait. I would agree that this part of the saga is not as sharply written as the first four books but, perhaps this is because, the first book especially was such a phenomenon that all succeeding stories would suffer by comparison.Although some of the descriptive passages are rather tedious, if one was coming new to Auel and the Earth's Children series, the background is necessary to understanding the setting and parameters within which the author places her narrative and characters. However, the author does tackle some pretty universal issues here even if the development of them is less than completely satisfying. There is a core of a love story; a romance, if you will. However, I can't really see how else Auel could move the story along unless she centred it on domestic (eg emotional) interaction. This is, afterall fiction and entertainment! I felt the criticism some of have made of her justifying years of research a little unfair for she does use a great deal of intuitive and imaginative flair to create and people a world that, frankly, none of us can really comprehend. I usually run a mile from anything that smacks of fantasy or sci-fi. I had, in the beginning, to be dragged kicking and screaming to the Earth's Children series many years ago but have come to appreciate the great original effort and unquestioned reflective scholarship that has brought such entertainment to so many around the world. I hope to see the concluding book soon and I hope to see it more sharply written. I will, undoubtedly, read it!
Rating:
Summary: TEDIOUS ITERATION
Review: It is apparent Mrs. Auel wrote this book to cash in on the popularity of her first four Earth's Children books. Much of the writing in "Shelter's of Stone" seems to be copied from the other books. The descriptions of caves, clothes, tools, etc. are wordy and endless. The character's are weak and if there is any plot, I can't find it. Auel uses 741 pages when she could have told the whole story in 25. Save your money and don't buy this one and you can be sure I will not waste my money or time on reading her sixth.
Rating: 
Summary: Wait for the Paperback
Review: If you are a fan of the past 4 volumes, please wait and read the paperback...then you may skip the majority of the book as none of the characters are developed, it is a total rehash of the past four books, and it lacks Jean Auel normal details....it reads more like a Danielle Steele novel than the Earth Children Series I have loved for almost 20 years. There was not nearly enough character development nor excitement...my own imagination has been better than this total waste of time. I adore these books but this was not worth waiting 12 years for...it either needed to be longer or have some characters cut or something! Huge disappointment! Will not be nearly as excited about the next one even though it is the final one...
Rating:
Summary: Sequel Fatigue
Review: It was like seeing "The Phantom Menace"--you wanted to like it, you tried to like it, but halfway through you realize you just want to finish it because you've waited so long for it. Nothing really compelling here. It feels like an in-between story, a filler, except it's 700 pages long! Unlike the previous books, which would keep me up till the wee hours (even with a full days work the next day) immersed in another place, another time, this one can be read with one eye on the TV and you won't miss much. It's too bad because so many of us have anticipated this book with good feelings for so long and would have been generous in our reviews had we been given a little more than the bone thrown at us.
Rating:
Summary: Fresh Voices Needed!
Review: After a decade, both Jean Auel and Robert Waller produced follow-ups to previous hits. I read both and wished I had not wasted my time nor money.
Rating: 
Summary: One Star! I don't think so......
Review: I bought this book with the expectation that it would follow the same line of writting. And it did. To say that the writting on and on about the flora and fauna of the time was tedious to read is rediculous. To say that it's too convienient for Ayla to just happen to be around when a person needs to be saved is ludicris, especially since it is her job as a medicine woman to provide aid and assistance. To say that the amazing sex lives of Ayla and Jondalar are too amazing is expected of people looking for something other than a Jean Auel novel. These are expected moments when it comes to an Earth's Children novel. These are moments her reader's can depend on, and frankly those who were looking for something else, should have purchased another author's work. I loved this book because it was a continuation of the same story, following the same lines of thought as in the previous four novels. You get what you pay for when it comes to Auel, and to expect something else and act surprised or even disapointed is truely niave. If you're interested in other work of the same genre try Joan Wolf's Daughter of the Red Deer or The Reindeer Hunters or Brenda Smith's Secrets of the Ancient Goddess or Elizabeth M. Thomas' Reindeer Moon instead.
Rating: 
Summary: At Home in the Shelters of Stone
Review: The Shelters of Stone is Jean Auel's Pleistocene Utopia. It is a beautiful, though somewhat simplistic world, and I think it can do us considerable good to live there a little while. Ayla has traveled an unimaginable distance to reach the fertile region of present-day France where the people of her lover have built their world. And so, from the time of leaving the Valley of Horses, we are led to anticipate the land of the Zelandonii as the goal at the end of the journey. And that is what it is. Auel has created a just, harmonious society of good people, where there is healing, caring, co-operation, mutual respect, sharing, plenty and love. This is a society built on a framework of sacred customs, a hierarchical society where leaders, temporal and spiritual, cherish the people and hold their good paramount, and where the people respect and align with the wisdom and guidance of their leaders. It is a society where having no self-control is frowned on, where jealousy and selfishness are frowned on, where there is freedom of a kind so attuned to the greater good that it fosters a joyous uprush of artistic creativity and scientific inventiveness. All of which Auel describes for us in the kind of detail that brings us right in, so that we, too, become part of that world. Possibly it is because the detail is so very rich that it took me a while to realize that not much is actually happening. There is very little plot, certainly of the discord, danger, conflict and then resolution variety that came before, and that may come again, later. And how such a wise and well-ordered society would deal with situations of discord, with crime, with trespass, with any of the other inevitable difficulties that would come when two hundred people live together in a cave -- even a very spacious one -- is never addressed. It is hinted at for the future, by means of the envious musings of a handful of the Zelandonii who do not wish Ayla and Jondalar well and who seem to be biding their time to do something about it. But how such a society would decide it should justly deal with such people is never addressed. The Shelters of Stone is a book about conflict deferred, and seems to be there, essentially, as a bridge to the final book. There is a sense of moving toward the true conflict and resolution to come, and a series of tantalizing hints about how all that will take shape. But this next-to-last book of the series is like a day spent at home, which doesn't really go anywhere, and after a while I found myself missing the tension and vitality of a stronger plot. Or any plot. I missed, too, genuinely interesting, strong male figures. Jondalar has become almost decorative, and no other man emerges with the compelling presence, stature or significance of Creb or Mamut, the two holy men of earlier volumes. But, most of all, I miss the Clan, the Neanderthals. The signs are that we will see them again, but the possility of having to wait another twelve years -- the time it took Auel to write the present book -- is something I don't like to think about too much. I'm not as young as I used to be and I made up my mind that, before I go, I would find out who Deep Throat was, and what ever happened to Ayla's son Durc. Auel is already working on the final book now, and I have the feeling she knew where she wanted to end up right from the start. The final volume of the Earth's Children saga will, I think, make up abundantly for whatever disappointments there may have been in this one.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: Not surprised to see reviews that agreed with mine. Waited over 10 years for this book - loved the first four. Fifth is a re-hash of books 1-4, no depth or richness to characters - very superficial. I kept "waiting for it to get good." I periodically re-read the first 4 books simply because they are so complex and always learn something new. Not in this one. Don't see how Ms. Auel can wrap this up in only one more book. As an avid, avid fan - I was totally frustrated by this read!
Rating:
Summary: Too much information and not enough plot or emotions
Review: I discovered this series right before the 4th book was published and loved the first three books, devouring them all in a row and cherishing them. I found that Plains of Passage (4th book) began to be more about anthropology and history than story line. This 5th book has the same problem. I was waiting anxiously, for about 10 years, for this book to be published and ran out to buy it in its' first week of publication. Reading the introduction, I realized the author has spent many years researching the anthropology and sociology and history and that is to be commended. It seems apparent that she jumped through many hoops to be accurate and informative in her writings. Unfortunately I felt the story was a bit lost in the details of the factual writings. (I feel sad writing anything negative about this book though, as I do love the series and appreciate Jean Auel's hard work and dedication to "getting the information correct".) Despite my love of this series and of the characters, I found it hard to be captivated by this book. With her previous writings (especially the first two), I stayed up very late at night because I just could not put the book down. That didn't happen with this novel, I am sad to admit. There were too many facts, more detail than I ever care to know about. Yes, I am interested in the ways of life way back then, but I don't care to hear of such detail about how a food storage bin made of rocks is constructed-to me, that is boring. I guess I am a visual person and many times in this series I have wished for small line drawings on the sides of the page to illustrate some things such as the spear-thrower, a hide being stretched out, or the weaving loom, or the appearance of an herb used for medicinal purposes. I want more story and plot and emotions than information about their lifestyle. Just when I was curious about what would happen next, there was too much detail about things. For example, just taking a walk to take a bath ends up being a lesson in biology of plant life. I kept thinking, "get back to the story" and "for goodness sake, just take a bath". Another example is that near the end when Ayla is very close to going into labor (to give birth) they are talking about how to make a knife blade. At that point with less than 40 pages to go I'd had enough of the academics and wanted her to have the baby, for goodness sake! In the beginning of the book the days drag through, one day's time spans many pages. With the business of the story in those first days, added in with the factual information, it was too much. Then at other times of the story they suddenly zoom by in number of weeks or months. I would have preferred more story and more emotions. There were many times when I felt Ayla should have had stronger emotions and they were not written about. There were also some occurrences that I thought could have been played out in more detail or picked up later in the story, although perhaps that will happen in the next (and last) novel. For the diehard fans of the Earth's Children series, I think we'll read the book (despite any negative reviews) and cherish the book anyway, (reminding ourselves it is still superior to most fiction out there). The fans will anticipate the last installment of the series, and to see how Ayla makes out in her next phase of life.
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