The Plains of Passage

Large blocks of this book are devoted entirely to landscape description and the movement of the animals that inhabited the land during this ice age story. Although an understanding of the territory and wildlife is necessary to round out the storyline, a little less information would have kept this reader from mistaking the fiction novel for a geography text book.

In addition, the length and elaborate step by step sex scenes are a turn off. Take the reader to the character's timing and mood--most of us can fill in the minutia.

Even though this is the fourth in the series that I am reading, it remains a fascinating, interesting and well-written book. Depending on how it ends, I might take a break and read something else for a while, but I will definitely, at a later stage finish the series. The books are so well researched and the english beautiful. We have just watched a TV programme on the neanderthals and it was interesting to see how similar the research is! Such a lovely way to "study" history!

Book 6 of the "Earth's CHildren" series repeated many parts of earlier books, and it probably could have been edited more severely. But I enjoyed it for its glimpse into the lives of earlier people as well as for the (rather slow-moving) plot. THis is not for those who are wanting an action-filled tale, but for calm sessions that will keep you interested but won't keep you awake at night this is hard to beat.

Loved the journey and resourceful they were . The tension carried through the story. Kept me reading and reading . Recommend complete series to those who enjoy a story with a historic center

This installment of the series could have been reduced to a couple of chapters of the previous book. After you've read about one river crossing or one group of awed observers of Cro Magnons riding horses and accompanied by a tame wolf, you've covered the majority of the book. I felt like there was always something big about to happen but it invariably didn't despite the author's valiant attempts to take the reader through the trials and tribulations of the journey. I don't like being critical when I can't do as well but unless you're really welded to these characters and series you could skip this one and maybe pick up with Shelters of Stone.

This installment of the series could have been reduced to a couple of chapters of the previous book. After you've read about one river crossing or one group of awed observers of Cro Magnons riding horses and accompanied by a tame wolf, you've covered the majority of the book. I felt like there was always something big about to happen but it invariably didn't despite the author's valiant attempts to take the reader through the trials and tribulations of the journey. I don't like being critical when I can't do as well but unless you're really welded to these characters and series you could skip this one and maybe pick up with Shelters of Stone.

This is my second time through this series. I read it so long ago I can't remember. Also, this is the only series I've EVER read twice. I'm discovering now how repetitive the author is from book to book. I'll finish the series, but am bored with the foliage descriptions as well as all the repeat character information.

I find the stories woven through Jean Auel's books very entertaining and a pleasant view of how prehistoric humans may have lived and died. Jean Auel gave me a more three-dimensional view of otherwise two-dimensional pre-history humans and of how we just might have developed through the stages of human development.

Even though I know the events that fall under "suspenseful" I still reread through all 6 novels in Auel's Earth Children's series. Auel, with each novel presents a banquet of images on the time period of Ayla and Jondalar.

This fourth in Jean Auel's Earth's Children series depicts the journey of Ayla and Jondalar (with their horses and Wolf) to the home of Jondalar's people in what is now the Dordogne in France. It is exciting, philosophical, informative and romantic. Theirs is an epic journey across hard and dangerous glacial terrain, in which they come across other Cro-Magnon settlements as well as Neanderthals. The interactions between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, and between Man and other Ice Age animal life illustrate graphically the destructive potential of our most "intelligent" of species. Jean Auel's research is so thorough that it is easy to believe that everything she writes COULD have happened. I have totally loved all the books and I very much hope that Auel will produce another one soon, so I can continue to share the wonderful Ayla's experiences