I missed mentioning at the time but I finished The Shelters of Stone last week. What an excellent book! Ms Auel has really tightened up her story telling. Whilst there were plenty of the long-winded technically accurate descriptive passages as in the earlier books; there was plenty more ‘meat’ in this one. There are a couple of good new characters introduced in this one too. One in particular has the potential to develop into a major player in the story. For a while at least. Was it worth waiting 10 years? I don’t think so. But I do appreciate Ms Auel had other things to do besides write books. However it is a very good book.

Recommended. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another 10 years for the next one.

Phew, I’ve finally finished The Plains Of Passage. It was very good… in the end. I found it painfully slow in the beginning. It took me from a week last monday until yesterday afternoon to get past halfway. I’ve finished the last 300 pages since then. A big difference.
I love authors that pay attention to detail, but Ms Auel seemed to go too far in this book. The repetition of the same facts got quite irritating at times. But the strong characters and (eventually) the excellent adventures made it worth it.
Recommended.

Finally, I’m on to The Shelters of Stone next.

Phew, I’ve just finished The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M Auel. It’s a much more of a girly love story than the first two books, but a fantastic read anyway. There is definitely a change of pace in this book compared to the first two. The two main characters meeting the mammoth hunters of the title allows for much broader character development. The constant repetition of known facts was a little annoying, but in all, a good tale very well told.
Recommended!

It’s on to The Plains Of Passage next. I remember this being a slow book. It’s certainly a lot thicker than the first three.

Phew! I’ve finished The Valley Of Horses! It’s a fantastic book. I found it absolutely breathtaking in parts. In others it was so touching, I had tears in my eyes!

Recommended.

I’ve started The Mammoth Hunters now.

I’ve just finished Jean M Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear, this evening. It truly is an awesome book. She does an incredible amount of research for each book, but the story alone is worth it. Absolutely fantastic.
Recommended.

On to the next — The Valley of the Horses.

I’ve just started (yesterday) rereading Jean M Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear. If you remember I got her latest book in the series — The Shelters of Stone and it’s been so long; 10 years since she wrote the last one and since I read it, that I decided I needed to reread the whole series before tackling this one. It’s as wonderful as I remember it!

Recommended.

I finished the new Terry Pratchett book, Night Watch, the other day. It’s another classic. What a fantastic story. The guy is a real genius.
This is another story around the night watch of Ankh Morpork (no surprise there!), but very much centred around commander Sam Vimes. I already loved this character, but I think this is Sam’s best story yet.

Recommended!

I’ve started reading the Gaean Trilogy by John Varley. This must be at least the fourth time. I’m currently on the first of the trilogy – Titan. This series of books is a must for any Science Fiction/Fantasy fan. Truly awesome story. I’ll try to write more when I’ve finished the first one.