Rating: 
Summary: its ok
Review: When I finished "Valley of the Horses" I could not wait to read her next book about the trials and tribulations that were going to happen to them. As I this book, I was disappointed that she was so involved in the sex and every action of it. I felt that this book would have been just was good without the trashy sex in it.
Rating: 
Summary: Go Back to Czechoslovakia and do more research
Review: Clan of the Cave Bear was excellent, though a little hard to chew. What happened with the rest of the series? I found Valley and Mammoth to be lost among the reeds and both novels could have been paraphrased within a few pages to spare us the outre desires and lusts ill-afforded to cave women, much less to any enlightened female in this age.
Rating:
Summary: Not the same quality as Cave Bear or Valley of Horses
Review: I read "Mammoth Hunters" after "Clan of Cave Bear" and "The Valley of the Horses" hoping to get something similar, but I just found in "Mammoth Hunters" some kind of love & jellousy novel running in prehistoric times. This book is not as fresh, as precedents, it is not as interesting as precedents and it is not as good as precedents. Characters of both "lovers" are not well design, character of Ayla becomes soft and, so to say, wishy-washy, rhythm becomes slow and imagination falls to none. Before reading "Mammoth Hunters" I bought "Plains of Passage", after reading it I have not found courage enough to read "PoP".
Rating: 
Summary: Too tedious for words
Review: If Ayla was really as smart as she's supposed to be, she wouldn't be appearing in any more sequels. The love triangle is straight out of daytime TV: "he acts one way, but for some reason I'll just assume he feels completely the opposite". Ayla's accent is continuously described as too small to notice...but everyone does the instant she opens her mouth. Everyone in the book is just great, except for the token one-dimensional bad-guy who turns good in the end. These savages are so elegant, we expect to see a pre-historic Martha Stewart behind the next mammoth hide. Ayla is already Amelia Earhardt, Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa rolled into one. Read it if it's the only book in the house (this includes the dictionary and the phonebook).
Rating: 
Summary: A incredibly worhty sequel!
Review: Of the four bokks in the Earth's Children series, I think this one must be my favorite. You finally get to see what the "Others" life is like.It well written, and well researched.
It was fun to see Ayla, Whinney, and Racer's reaction to the people, and the people's reaction to them. Ranec's reaction in particular. The black Mamutoi man falls in love with Ayla when they meet, making Jondalar jealous, of course. During their time with the mamutoi, Ayla invents something new, and is made a mamutoi herself. This involves a ceremony where Ayla must exchange gifts with everyone in the Lion Camp. Of course, she amazes everyone by showing them the firestone, and by the many thing she had collected in her valley.
Living with the mamutoi is a young child named Rydag, whom Ayla becomes immediately attached to, for, like her son, he is a child of mixed spirits. She shows the camp Clan language, so that Rydag can speak with everyone.
Ayla, "confirming" the Mamutoi's belief that she is Mamut, brings home a baby wolf and raises him, and Wolf turns out to be a wonderful, faithful companion, and is great with children.
I would have to say my favorite part of the book is the evolution of Frebec. This character, nasty at the start, judging her because of her origins, shows signs of humanity when Wolf arrives. Bit by bit, he becomes a likable character, who even stands up against his camp of origin to defend Ayla and Rydag.
Rating:
Summary: amusing entertainment for nursing a child by
Review: I've read the series once already and picked them up again as part of a batch of trashy novels I indulge in now and then. They are amusing, and Ayla and Jondalar are heros of the type to inspire. They make me wish I was a hunter/gatherer and could hang out with the hunky Jondalar. The "love triangle" between Jondalar, Ayla and Ranec was so tedious though. That part could have been done away with easily.
Sure I'll read the fourth and fifth of the series, but I'm a really fast reader, and they are amusing.
Rating:
Summary: A promising series turns into a ludicrous soap opera.
Review: Ayla and Jondalar, those prehistoric Edisons, invent the sewing needle, domesticate a wolf and make passionate love in their new temporary home. Of course, in true soap-opera fashion, Ayla falls for another man, thereby making Jondalar wild with jealousy, so much so that in one particular scene he all but rapes her (what a mature response). Naturally, this convinces her that he loves her and at the end of the novel, she walks out on the man she is supposed to marry (leaves him at the prehistoric version of the altar) and runs after her one and only love. Although I didn't like the plot, I did like Ayla as a character and this book pretty much ruined her. Of course, the book takes after 'The Valley of Horses' in its copious sex scenes, which make you wonder if these are necessary for the book to sell. They probably are
Rating:
Summary: Charlee Tidrick-15
Review: I first read "The Clan of the Cave Bear" three yaers ago. It was wonderful, and I couldn't put it down. It was the same way with all the other three, and of all of them, "The Mammoth Hunters" is my favorite. It tells of the heroine, Ayla, and all of her troubles and hardships in her first meeting with other people of her own kind. With her many inventions, different types of medicines, tame animals, and breathtaking beauty, she is awed, and immediatly accepted to the Mamutoi though some people have trouble with her Clan (flathead) background. All-in-all, this is a wonderful, exciting book, and I would reccomend it to anyone over the age of 12. And may I say that I have been waiting for the fifth book in the series for over TWO YEARS! So if you read this, Ms. Auel, your book is two years over-due. Where is it?!
Rating:
Summary: A passage to the hardships and times of early humans.
Review: A chance to be trasported to the times when humans are trying to set off into a world when the only other humans are are the small clans or tribes scatered over the earth. Alya and Jondlar are taken in by a tribe of people that rely on the Wholly Mammoth to suvive. While waiting out the winter in the cave the Lion Camp the relationship between our two heros is rocked by Alya who is not shore if she realy is in love with Jondlar. Will they get back together or will Ayla stay with her new friends
Rating:
Summary: The worst of the series
Review: Some thoughts. It's repetitive. In the first two books, we learn a lot. In this one, the third in the series, Auel feels like she needs to teach us everything all over again. While this may be helpful to someone who may not have read one of the other books the fact that she makes these references several times in each books is just annoying. There's too much sex. Honestly. There's only so much a person can handle when forced to read about "her petal-like folks" and his "throbbing manhood". Granted, some of it was for a reason, such as the beginnings of Ayla's "relationship" with Ranec, but much of it is repetative as Auel's constant references to wolverine fur, the knots in Ayla's herb pouches, and Ayla's menstral cycle. It's boring. When I get it in my head that I want to read through the series, I will either skip this book entirely, or skip about 400 pages in the middle. The Ayla-Jondalar-Ranec love-triangle in the middle of the story serves no purpose in the plotline. Much of the relationship is based on sex, which just ties into my previous point.
|
