Rating: 
Summary: I waited HOW LONG for THIS?
Review: After waiting with great anticipation for 12 looonnggg years, I actually took the day off work when my copy arrived so I could immerse myself back in the Ice Age! 300 pages later, I gave up and decided to clean house instead. I now know why the book has the shortened title of SoS - 'cause if I EVER saw a book in distress this is it! I am now perfectly willing to believe all those rumors that Jean is dead - she couldn't possibly have written this drivel.(well actually she did, it was just in books 1-4) This has been my favorite series of all time and now, sadly, I don't care if she ever gets around to publishing book 6. Even Ayla's skills as a medicine woman can't revive this victim.
Rating:
Summary: Puh-leese...
Review: ...hindsight being 20/20, I would have wished that Auel had spent an ADDITIONAL 12 years revising this book and gotten a better editor instead of dumping this horrible parody of our beloved Ayla on her fan kingdom. Not even a brief "thank you for your patience" on her dedication page to all of us who put her financial portfolio in the stratosphere these 20+ years. It apprears she took her loyal readers for granted in a big way. It's obvious from the writing that she doesn't care about her characters or fans anymore. That's her right. It's also my right not to buy any more books from her - not that she needs the bucks. This book was an insult to her fan's intelligence. She wrote it like we had complete amnesia about Ayla's previous exploits. It was like she was more concerned with making the last 4 books understandable to a brand-new reader - as if any new reader to Auel would pick up book #5 from her series on purpose! My biggest gripe (and they are legion) is the spooky feeling that Auel didn't really write this book. It's hard to put a finger on, but the writing just doesn't have the same "punch" as the last 4. I think she simply lost her momentum and interest for the story in 12 years. It's obvious that her interests lie more with the archaeology/anthropology aspect than with the creative writing aspect - and it shows. I still give Auel kudos on her prior masterpieces - she deserves them, but I'll be very cautious about anything else she writes from this point forward, and I won't buy her books sight unseen. I'll read them from the library first! Jean, I hope you read all these reviews and take them to heart. We love Ayla's story, but are real disappointed in this offering. Fire your editor, and spend more time with your character's lives. Use your prodigious research to enhance the story, not detract from it.
Rating:
Summary: I waited 12 years for THIS?!
Review: Oh, I hate to write this, but Shelters of Stone is a TREMENDOUS disappointment! Stephen King often says that he is accused of having "diarhhea of the word processor," but that condition is better applied to Ms. Auel and this monstrosity. To bring you up to speed: Ayla, after many fantastic, interesting and wonderful adventures, finally arrives at the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii. Yay! We look forward to meeting many intriguing people (we meet one, two tops), we look for conflict because of her upbringing (no big deal), we look for lots of interesting details of her pregnancy (the birth takes, like, 2 pages total), and we grudgingly expect descriptions of the landscape (TONS), and of the flora (EVEN MORE). The book seems to have been written with the aim of a stand-alone novel in mind. Fans of the series will quickly tire of the endless repetition of past stories from the previous four books. Once or twice wouldn't be terribly hard to deal with, but three, four or five times? And oftentimes the passages are lifted straight out of the previous books! However, even new readers will tire of the lack of plot, lack of character development, lack of adventure, lack of everything except constant repetitive description. The editors of this book either were out to tea for 12 years, or they are incompetent. I can only hope that the few dangling mini-precursors lead to a more satisfying sixth book (said to be finished and locked in a safe-deposit box waiting for the next decade). One can only hope....
Rating: 
Summary: One more thing I want to add...
Review: ...
Egads, what a let-down. I won't repeat the criticisms so eloquently conveyed in the other reviews on this page (99 percent of which I agree with, especially the ones that point out that Auel smuggles in a geography lesson and calls it a story because she couldn't come up with one), but I would like to add one point of my own about why I'm so disappointed: After 4 books of being told how Jondalar's people won't accept a woman who had borne the child of a "flathead" and dreading the struggles she would face when she finally arrived, we find these Zelandonocrats to be a California-style culture who receive the news with a shrug and a "whatever" attitude, and now it's time for Lamaze class. They'll probably invent the analyst's couch and liposuction before they get around to inventing the wheel. And I waited 12 years for this? Come on, Jean, I know you can do better. Can't you???
Rating: 
Summary: Kinda Boring
Review: I rushed into the store to pay the 20 dollars for this book thinking that it would live up to the excitement of the others. i began thinking that maybe i was less exciting 10 years ago and didn't know any better. But i really have to believe that the writing of the previous 4 books in the series did not have such predictable sex scenes and "caveman" language. The dialogue is so staccato as to be baby like. very annoying.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book, Great History, Wonderful References
Review: I think a lot of people are giving this book a bad rap for no reasons. I read the first four about ten years ago, and have been eagerly awaiting the next installment. It turned out to be just as good as I expected. I did expect there to be a great deal of telling about the place that Ayla and Jondalar spent so long getting to. It was necessary for Jean to very clearly describe to us the people, customs and setting that we had finally gotten to. Ayla's first months were full of almost constant movement that lasted most of the book and then accelerated towards the end. Personally, I could have had more story and less backstory and description, but I fully understand the reasoning for it and the book stands alone as a result of it. Truly a marvelous work, I would recommend it to anyone and can hardly wait for the next book!
Rating:
Summary: Nothing new.
Review: Clan of the Cave Bear is on my top 10 list of favorite books. I have read it and others in the series many times over the years, both in book form and on tape. Though the other 3 books were not as tightly written, they were entertaining and interesting. But not The Shelter of Stones. It is 700+ pages of nothing. It is a rehash of what happened in the past with no depth or creativity. Nothing new happened and even the old stories was told in a very shallow way. All the talk in the earlier books about how Jondalar's kin felt flatheads were so abhorent - the supposed reason for Jondalar's strong reaction in book 2, and embarassment in book 3. They get to his home cave and his kin just say, "huh - there're human? Gee, that's interesting. Thanks for telling us. We'll have to think about it. " I suppose the next book could actually have some plot to it. But I'm not going to hold my breath. 700+ pages and we didn't even meet anyone from the Clan. I agree with the readers that disappointment does not even describe my feelings. If you are a fan of the series, you may want to skim through it just for continuity. There is always hope that the last book will be better. But I wouldn't put it high on my list of things to read. Re-reading the other books (which did over the last year) is much more enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Shelters of Stone
Review: I didn't know if I would live to read the next enstallment of Jean Auels mighty series. I have read all of the Earth Series Books, except the last, four times through, and love it. I love the way Jean starts the book with the next obvious breath from the last exhaliation of the previous book. Always with the curious and fearful people wondering just who Alya and Jondalar are. I love the way she jumps right in with the action of the story of the main characters greeting then finding something to do. Had it been my journey, I think that I would have wanted to sleep for a week.
The characters blended very well, and I see that she has left herself open for a sixth in the series. I just hope we do not have to wait fifteen years. I was totally blown away as Jean Auel explained the number of trips to and from Europe. My feelings of gratitude have grown in such leaps and bounds, because I know, now, how much work goes into these kinds of series. Jean Auel, if you get to read this, please know my great thanks for the book you just finished, and for them all, as I have been so antsy to read it. Like a child waiting for a holiday, for when I read your books, I see myself in the situations you write of. Truly and totally enjoy, do I, your ability to tell such wonderful stories. I thank you for doing it to entertain us readers that know the good stuff and don't waste time on those that are not. I also love the series by Kathleen Gear and her husband, Michael. Sue Harrison is not to be left out, nor in a different setting, I love Tony Hillerman for his modern day mysteries of the Four Corners area of the US.
I apologize for and am sorry that I was so anxious that I became greedy with your time. I just felt 'the book wasn't here fast enough.' But when I finally saw that your new book was out, my heart was singing a new song. I ordered my book from my book club, and within 5 days, I had finished another great book of the life and love of Alya of the Mind of Jean Auel. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being this kind of human, to share the results of your very talented mind and thought processes with us. You truly do make your fans wait with such anticipation of excitment, like waiting for a great and precious present.
I am glad Wolf was not killed. Nearly thought he might be when I got to that part, but breathed easier at the next chapter.
I find myself from a range of feelings all throughout this book - tears of joy, guard-like watchfulness of the ones who would be envious of Alya and Johdalar, barely controlling the sexual arousal that come with the couplings of Alya and Johdalar. I have no husband and, whew, they really love each other. Glad you wrote them this way. It seems like we are peeking through a key hole to spy on them when these parts are read. Whew! Anyway, takes me back to when I had a love to share pleasures with.
Thanks again. Hope to live long enough to read your next one, when Alya joins the Zelondia for she is truly a great and good character, she deserves to honor the mother earth.
Well, I have gone on, haven't I. Sincerely and with great gratitude, I sign,
Penny Haulman
Rating:
Summary: DEJA VU'!!
Review: I absolutly LOVED the prior Jean Auel books but-holy cow-what happened here?? The descriptions are way too descript-they ramble on and on and its all remnisicient of books gone by. Im truly sorry to have to write this review about a beloved Author, but she definately needed to give us more content and less of the repetitous drone provided here. Even the Jondular/Ayla sex scenes-puhleese! Read one-read 'em all! I found myself skipping a great deal of this book just to try to move on to bigger and better things and found I had almost literally skipped the entire book. Im seriously suffering readers let-down and plan to throw myself into meatier books like her first-Clan of the Cave Bear & Valley of Horses-really A++++ books.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth the Read
Review: I am a huge fan of Auel, and I love all of her books. I was thrilled when I found out that the fifth book in the series was finally being released. Overall this installment is not as eventful or fresh as the first four, but I think that it is definitely worth the read. I think that some of the previous reviewers have been a bit hard on this book. More than once, I stayed up late into the night to read just one more chapter. Also while the book may start out slowly, if you stick with it, you'll find that the last couple hundred pages are worth the wait. Auel also does a huge amount of foreshadowing and character development that she obviously plans to create stories around in the next and final book. I think the next book will be a winner if she stays on the track that she started at the end of this one. Since it looks like the next book will also be set in the same geographical region, it will hopefully not take her as long to write. I, for one, enjoyed this book, and look forward to the next one as well.
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