The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children, Book Two) by Jean M. Auel
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Book Reviews of The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children, Book Two)
Book Review: Valley of the horses
Summary: 2 Stars
This is my 2nd time with Valley of The Horses. I read the story when it first came out in 1982. This time around I listened to the digital audio version from the public library.
I guess 20 years ago the frank sexual content did not bother me, but now that I am older, I think it should have been left out of the book. It slows the pace and seems unnecessary to get any points across. Much of the historical culture content that made the first book "Clan of the Cave Bear" interesting is lost in the gothic romantic style of this book.
Still, it was an interesting book even though I did fast forward through many sections.
Book Review: The time you will waste.
Summary: 1 Stars
Reading the Valley of Horses is a chore.
If you thought Clan of the Cave Bear was saturated with far too many lengthy pointless and uninteresting segments--just subtract interesting characters, suspense, conflict, plot--and you get Valley of Horses.
I had hoped that the sequel would improve upon the flaws of the first book, which I found was an enjoyable read once I drudged through the incessant pointless details about Ice Age flora, fauna, and primitive medicinal techniques. The second book compounds on this problem by making the characters of the story predictable and downright boring.
I never thought I would miss the days of reading about the irritable, sexist, and subdued Neanderthals of Clan Cave Bear. At least their behaviors were driven by tradition and indoctrinated culture and religion. Instead, we encounter two male Cro-Magnon characters that embark on a perilous journey for no apparent reason, (or maybe just to score some major Cro-Magnon tail).
And score they do. The book devolves into a smutty romance novel, sans the romance. Jondalar is a brooding, flawless physical specimen of Cro-Magnon-kind and apparently god's gift to women. His sole purpose for existence seems to be to please women sexually, and be emotionally distant. Oh, and he makes tools too.
While these guys are sidetracked from their "journey" by their sexual exploits with another tribe, Ayla is busy evolving into a killing/nurturing survival machine. She develops into a near invincible god-like being that discovers major technological breakthroughs in quick succession.
Whatever she's eating for breakfast I'll have some of that. She's everything and more! Survivalist, healer, lone-wolf hunter, inventor, wild beast tamer! To top it off, she's compassionate, kind, beautiful, practical, and intuitive. She has no character flaws. Her aloof demeanor makes it hard to believe that she is such a skilled survivalist. Complex solutions come to her naturally, everything practically falls in her lap with little struggle or effort in spite of her perilous predicament. She fails at nothing.
Never in the story is the reader concerned with her well being. There is no sense of danger, conflict, or suspense to drive the story forward. Any conflicts she does encounter are quickly solved with little effort.
In summary, reading through this book takes a lot of patience. There are some parts that can be entertaining, but the majority of the book is boring with empty characters, bad dialog, and no plot.
Book Review: Caveman Porno
Summary: 1 Stars
Alas.
This is the all-encompassing impression I have of this book, the absolutely, heart-wrenchingly dissapointing sequel to a truly admirable first installment, "The Clan of the Cave Bear." I beg of all readers who so enjoyed this first book to steer well-clear of "The Valley of Horses." It begins in a beguilingly similar fashion, yet much slower, and with a plot that appears aimless and wandering. It takes a while to comprehend exactly what Jean Auel has in mind for her sequel, but the reader eventually figures it out around the middle of the book. I can summarize it thus:
1.) Ayla is the most disgustingly perfect woman to ever walk the earth. Gorgeous, modest, capable, perpetually clean(obviously one cannot have one's glistening heroine possess gingevitus or B.O, so Auel has handily provided cavemen equivalents to soap and toothbrushes that any decent ancestor of ours would have stayed righteously away from), she is one of the flattest characters I have ever encountered. Keep in mind I am describing her personality, as Auel makes us perpetually aware that Ayla is buxom to the extreme, just as her perfect match, Jondalar, is better-endowed than Ayla's famous horse, "Whinny."
2.) The aforementioned Jondalar is, if possible, even worse than Ayla. Imagine for a moment an Abercrombie model/Colgate commercial/pornstar caveman. Voila! The hero! No woman can satisfy his magnificent sexuality--until, of course, he meets Ayla.
3.) When this charming encounter occurs, there ensues half a book of pornography. But not just any pornography--absolutely PERFECT, perpetually orgasmic, screaming, (and totally clean and perfumed, of course!) sexual paradise. Ayla and Jondalar put rabbits to shame. In fact, they are so sickeningly addicted to love-making that I am sure that, had they truly lived in cave-man times, they would have had no time for the simple acts of survival and would have wasted away in Narcissist-fashion.
Good readers, buy this book if you feel the need for hard-core caveman/rockstar porn, depressingly stale characters, and totally ridiculous plot-lines(oh, by the way--Ayla learns Jondalar's language overnight, in a dream! We couldn't have her grunting cave-man style during love-making, could we? Thus we have her poetic commentary on the size of Jondalar's "manhood" to appreciate). I, whilst you peruse the book, may be writing to Jean Auel to inquire whether one day she simply felt extremely bored and horny, and whether she blushes when she gives talks about her bestsellers.
Book Review: A pathetic prehistoric loincloth-ripper
Summary: 1 Stars
I couldn't even get halfway through this one because Ayla's character just becomes too ridiculous to believe. Clan of the Cave Bear was a decent book, but this sequel finds her inventing and discovering so many more things completely on her own that the plot loses all credibility. Between CotCB and the first half of this book, she:
Discovers the connection between sex and pregnancy
Invents the bra
Becomes the greatest hunter in the Clan and invents the double-stone throwing technique
Creates weavings, mats, and other wares that *of course* surpass everyone else's
Invents the hairbrush and the concept of braiding hair
Domesticates a wild horse, decides to ride it, then turns it into a draft animal after inventing the travois
Discovers how to make fire from pyrite and flint
And so on. All of this completely on her own. Plus, she's tall, blonde, and perfect with no character flaws. Or any broken bones or illnesses despite living alone for years (because she's a medicine woman, natch). I won't be reading any more of the series, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ayla winds up inventing the wheel, agriculture, aquaducts, and call waiting.
The part of the book I was not prepared for was the sex. I don't read romance novels, and I really didn't want to read a Pleistocene loincloth-ripper. I never did reach the part where Ayla meets Mr. Stud Muffin, but given the three-page description of how he brings a young girl to gasping ecstasy as he ravages her maidenhood, and the constant reminders of his throbbing manhood and chisled good looks, I knew immediately where the book was heading and I gave up in disgust.
Book Review: Waste of time
Summary: 1 Stars
Auel used all her talent in her first novel, "The Clan of the Cave Bear". This book, and the others after it, follow the same formula. Mary Sue character meets Gary Stu. Mary Sue is gorgeous, intelligent, gorgeous, resourceful, gorgeous, tough, gorgeous, courageous, gorgeous, kind, gorgeous, loving, and gorgeous. Gary Stu, equally gorgeous, is also very well hung, as the book reminds us constantly.
The books go even further into fantasyland as the series progresses, with Ayla Mary Sue given more and more amazing qualities, so that she achieves near-superhuman status, while Gary Stu Jondalar is, as we all know, very well hung.