The Land of Painted Caves (with Bonus Content)
Earth's Children, Book Six
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3.8 • 1.5K Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this, the extraordinary conclusion of the ice-age epic series, Earth’s Children®, Ayla, Jondalar, and their infant daughter, Jonayla, are living with the Zelandonii in the Ninth Cave. Ayla has been chosen as an acolyte to a spiritual leader and begins arduous training tasks.
Whatever obstacles she faces, Ayla finds inventive ways to lessen the difficulties of daily life, searching for wild edibles to make meals and experimenting with techniques to ease the long journeys the Zelandonii must take while honing her skills as a healer and a leader. And there are the Sacred Caves that Ayla’s mentor takes her to see. They are filled with remarkable paintings of mammoths, lions, and bears, and their mystical aura at times overwhelms Ayla.
But all the time Ayla has spent in training rituals has caused Jondalar to drift away from her. The rituals themselves bring her close to death, but through them Ayla gains A Gift of Knowledge so important that it will change her world.
BONUS: This edition contains a reading guide and an interview with Jean M. Auel.
Sixth in the acclaimed Earth’s Children® series.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thirty thousand years in the making and 31 years in the writing, Auel's overlong and underplotted sixth and final volume in the Earth's Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear; etc.) finds Cro-Magnon Ayla; her mate, Jondalar; and their infant daughter, Jonayla, settling in with the clan of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonaii. Animal whisperer and medicine woman Ayla is an acolyte in training to become a full-fledged Zelandoni (shaman) of the clan, but all is not rosy in this Ice Age setting; there are wild animals to face and earthquakes to survive, as well as a hunter named Balderan, who has targeted Ayla for death, and a potential cave-wrecker named Marona. While gazing on an elaborate cave painting (presumably, the Lascaux caverns in France), Ayla has an epiphany and invents the concept of art appreciation, and after she overdoses on a hallucinogenic root, Ayla and Jondalar come to understand how much they mean to one another, thus giving birth to another concept monogamy. Otherwise, not much of dramatic interest happens, and Ayla, for all her superwomanish ways, remains unfortunately flat. Nevertheless, readers who enjoyed the previous volumes will relish the opportunity to re-enter pre-history one last time.
Customer Reviews
Very good!
I enjoyed the story, but dwelt there was too much reiteration on previous info from the previous books. I was wanting more story. I read all previous books twice. This was a good '6th' book. Would like it to keep going. To see meeting of Ayla's sons. Keep writing. I will read them all.
Repetitious
I loved all the other books in this series but this one was repetitious. Too much about nature and not enough about the characters. I was disappointed. Strange ending too.
Didn't like it
Repetitive. Really, really repetitive. It was hard to read for that reason. It doesn't seem like a good conclusion. There really wasn't a story here.