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Jean M. Auel

I've collected all but the first Clan of the Cave Bear, I wanted to read in order (natch) and now I have "Clan" on order. :)
 
muggle said:
Ayla and Jondalar are fictional characters. Auel is only telling how fire, horses, etc may have come about.
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I understood that, but I still found it amusing that she attributed the inventions to two characters - she could have come across other people who had found these things out.
 
pontalba said:
I've collected all but the first Clan of the Cave Bear, I wanted to read in order (natch) and now I have "Clan" on order. :)
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I believe you will enjoy "Clan". It, along with "Horses" were my two favorites.

MC, part of the story is making Ayla a person that is "extraordinary" for that era and to be loved by all. I would be dissapointed if it "was not" Ayla that made all the discoveries. It would change the story completely. Auel has made Ayla a person that I love, for sure.
 
I read the first 3 books of the series years ago. While I enjoyed them - they were pretty good stories - I found Auel's writing to be rather childish, with little subtlety or nuance. Embarassingly so. The plots were contrived and the interactions between Ayla and the other characters were forced and seemed unrealistic. Still, the books had their moments.
MC is right on in her observations about Ayla. Absurd that one person, living practically in total isolation, could come up with all those inventions. Why didn't she just invent a helicoter and fly herself out of there?
Just one opinion.
 
In one of Stephen King's short stories (I believe it was "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet") he called this series "The 'sex-among-the-cave-people' books." I found it amusing :)
 
muggle said:
MC, part of the story is making Ayla a person that is "extraordinary" for that era and to be loved by all. I would be dissapointed if it "was not" Ayla that made all the discoveries. It would change the story completely. Auel has made Ayla a person that I love, for sure.
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I think that being raised by Neanderthals made her extraordinary enough. You're completely entitled to your opinions, of course, but I didn't think that her inventing stuff helped people to love her. I liked her because of her kind nature and innocence (well up until she started playing around on Jondalar with that black guy (can't remember his name :eek: )). The inventions made her admirable, sure, but not loveable, IMO. I thought that the stories seemed less believable since she invented everything, but again, that's just they way that I saw it.
 
I liked her because of her kind nature and innocence (well up until she started playing around on Jondalar with that black guy (can't remember his name )).
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She was just exploring her options.:D
 
MonkeyCatcher said:
I liked her because of her kind nature and innocence (well up until she started playing around on Jondalar with that black guy (can't remember his name :eek: )).
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Ranec :) ....
 
I love the series, although the last book seemed less "authentic" than the first four. I saw an interview with her in which she stated that she was very busy with grandchildren, and that it made for less time to research and write. Having 3 grandkids myself, I can say that it is hard to find time to write, let alone travel extensively to do the research! I will be sad to see the series come to an end. I think "Horses" is my fave, because it shows strength, courage, tenacity, growth and ingenuity with a dash of serendipity...
 
I liked them all except one: Shelters of Stone...I never read it. I have a copy of it but for some reason I have fogotten about the EC series.

Question: The upcoming book, if there is one, is the last one in the series or is SoS the last one?
 
Your guess is as good as mine...I heard it was the last, but she also said that there might be more....

SoS was disappointing, considering the depth of the previous four novels. I just didn't get that feeling of standing on the edge of civilization in a frozen land with a glacial wind in my hair and my atlatl (spear-thrower) in my hand that I had with the other books, but for continuities sake, it should be read...
When the new one comes out, I will AGAIN re-read them all in order before I read the new one.
 
In one of the threads linked below in the similar threads, it says there will be more than 6 books in the series.
 
Auel is supposedly writing the 6th and last book in the series. I liked all the books, especially Valley of Horses. Shelters of Stone was pretty good. It kind of slowed down a little too much. The first four were adventure filled and kept me wanting to read more, but the 5th one wasn't like that as much because their journey pretty much came to an end.
 
Jean's son Kendall said the following in an online fan forum:

Jean is still busy-busy-busy writing, at her house on the Oregon coast. I know she's very anxious to get the book finished but she has her own way of working, and it wouldn't be a good idea trying to change it.

I'm going to re-read all five volumes over the summer, my brain cells need to be refreshed!
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So book #6 is still a work in progress!
 
I love these books, but did feel that there was something missing with the last one.

It was kinda drawn out to me, with certian passages being repeated a couple of times.

Keep in mind though, it had been a long period of time between me reading the other books and the last one.

It's also been a few years since I've read the whole series.

I started reading them in middle school, at my mother's suggestion since she knew I loved to read.

Back then, I loved the first two books...but felt that the two that followed weren't as good.

I'm 20 now, and haven't read the series together in a long time. So, I'd like to give it another whirl. Read them all again.

I may enjoy those last three books more than I did before now that I'm older.

It's good to hear that the author is indeed working on the last book.

I was disappointed with the abrupt ending of the last one (seriously...it just stopped out of no where, I thought I got a book that was missing the last few pages at first.) and have been dying for the last book!
 
I was disappointed with these books. The first one was interesting because of the clan and taking Ayla in as one of their own. The rest were boring, especially when she was in the cave byherself for practically the whole second book. I thought it was never going to end. Never bought SoS, and I don't think I ever will.
 
I've heard similar sentiment from my sister or some damn body. Shame to suffer through such lengthy tomes too.
 
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