The Shelters of Stone (Earth’s Children, Book 5) by Jean M. Auel
By mrs. kirk - Thursday, September 21st, 2006
I have read some duds in my day (basically everything Terry Goodkind has ever written), books that made me practically give up all hope that there is a single author/editor/publisher on earth dedicated to anything but mediocrity – but this…this…catalog of repetitive, slogging, meandering, sixth-grade writing level piece of mammoth dung is one of the absolutely WORST books I have ever not finished. I couldn’t finish it, honestly – I just couldn’t – not after five hundred some odd pages of wanting to go directly to FRANCE and spray paint graffiti all over the cave walls that were Ms. Auel’s inspiration for this mess.
Ayla – who will always be played by the great (NOT) actress Darryl Hannah, in my mind, is not actually just a Caucasian ancestor but Albert freaking Einstein, Super woman and a mythical god-dess of all that is holy and beautiful. I have never loathed a character so much. She is beautiful, has enormous breasts, is the greatest lay ever but is also the single most brilliant person of the era. Everyone is awed by her. She never makes a single mistake. She invents everything, tames animals, makes tea, heals, performs surgery, educates everyone, hunts like a man, is a perfect warrior and can make a hell of a meal out of SPAM. All while pregnant. Everyone else in the book is pathetically stupid and her boyfriend is a complete himbo – he might as well be in an ad for Calvin Klein underwear. All he does is grin knowingly.
There are endless descriptions of the geology and plant-life of the era (like reading an Earth Science book) and this supposed genius research that Ms. Auel accomplished is stuff anyone with half a brain could figure out with no research at all. Plus she basically tells everyone at the beginning of the book that some of it is accurate but MOST is made up – so there! Like it’s my book and I’ll make pre-history anything I want it to be.
Yeah ok. The Earth’s Children geniuses have so much more going for them than people did in as recently as the 19th century. So what happened? Everyone was all new-agey and women were equal to men in complete positions of power and then what – 25,000 years later women didn’t even have the freaking vote. Ok, sure, makes sense to me.
Anyway the rate at which these folks were creating art and items would have had them in computers and Lear jets in record time. So what the hell happened? Everyone got really stupid?
The characters are shallow, there is no plot, the book is filled with repetitive introductions, snippets from the other books and feats of amazing wonder that make Ayla out to be the freaking messiah and all of it is written like a guidebook for writers on HOW NOT TO WRITE.
You could lose your sanity stumbling over paragraphs with sentences like:
That sounded familiar to Ayla. She wasn’t sure why. She decided to make some tea. She dug around in her travel pack for some mint. She liked to bring tea to Jondalar in the morning.
As well as conversations like the following that go on for entire CHAPTERS:
“I know what you are thinking.” she teased Jondalar.
“What I am thinking is that with this new spear-thrower that I invented, only after you inspired me, we will be able to hunt much more efficiently and therefore be in less danger from charging bison.” Jondalar grinned.
“That is right. Charging bison can be very frightening. Remember what the Mog-ur said?” Ayla reminded Jondalar.
“Yes I remember, but tell me again.”
“The Mog-ur said that we should invent a weapon to not be trampled by bison because of his great fear of bison. He was a smart holy man, though I am not sure I know what that word smart or holy actually means,” Ayla decided to make some tea while they continued to talk.
“Then we shall have to invent words for holy and smart Ayla, words like kamakakapoopoo and blerdge.”
“I don’t like those words Jondalar,” though she winked at him knowingly, “Let’s just use smart and holy instead, you himbo.”
If anyone actually does read this kind of drivel and enjoy it please email me so I can say that I have at least been emailed by the most boring person alive.
The fact that this woman has sold millions of books is a sad commentary on how uneducated most people are. I had never read any of the middle books after Clan of the Cave Bear (which I thought was at least mildly entertaining) and I picked this one up because I wanted a good thick beach read.
Apparently the woman (Ms. Auel) is utterly senile (thus the repetitions) and can’t even remember why she wrote this in the first place. Of course her agent and publisher I am sure gently reminded her – FOR THE FREAKING MONEY.
Read this book ONLY if you want to have fantasies of throttling an old senile woman (the author) or if you have no wish to contribute anything useful to the universe on any level.