Resumo de The Valley Of Horses

Being the second part of the epic storyline that runs through the Earth's Children series, I really need to provide a bit of background information to put the rest of my review into context. This book is set in the Palaeolithic era (Old Stone Age - the first and longest period of human past as classified by archaeologists), around 30,000 years ago. The landscape in which the story is played out is one completely different to that of today's Europe, as this is during an Ice Age, when huge ice sheets from the arctic swept as far as northern Europe, and the mountain ranges of the continent were filled with massive glaciers. The ice changed the geography of the continent, as sea levels were lower, and the regions we now think of as central and southern Europe were in the grip of a cold, periglacial climate, much like you would get in northern Canada today. In this landscape there lives two distinct types of human - the Neanderthals (the older of the two, who had been around for some 200,000 years) and the Cro Magnons (the newer species, and an early version of Homo Sapiens).

The central character of the Earth's Children book is our heroine, Ayla. She is born to the Cro Magnon people, but orphaned at age five by an earthquake - lucky to survive it, she is left wandering alone in this icy environment until rescue arrives in the form of a band of travelling Neanderthal. Nursed back to health by these people, Ayla is adopted and raised by them, having to learn their language, culture and traditions to be able to survive: these people are the Clan of the Cave Bear. However, as she grows, she finds herself to be very different from the Clan, and unwittingly gets on the wrong side of Broud, who is destined to become leader of their community. This is the worst thing possible as far as her new adoptive mother Iza is concerned, as she knows one day Ayla is bound to be forced to leave by him - a prediction which comes true, when Broud makes his first task as leader to put a death curse on Ayla. The death curse means that for all intents and purposes, Ayla was then dead to the rest of the Clan, and doomed to wander alone in a world where only groups of people have a hope of surviving. So, at age 14, Ayla is forced to gather what little belongings she has and leave the Clan - including her adopted sister Uba, and her son Durc, a child of "mixed spirits" conceived after Broud takes his anger out by repeatedly raping her. This is where the first book of the series ends, and where The Valley of Horses picks up the story.

Personally, I enjoyed The Valley of Horses every bit as much as the Clan of the Cave Bear - although I will concede that perhaps the writing isn't of quite such a standard as the first book. The world into which the characters have been placed has been recreated magnificently, using all of the evidence available to build up the Palaeolithic into a reality as near as you can get to what we think it would have been like then. A world in which there are two forms of human is an intriguing situation, and sets up the possibility of the ultimate culture clash, as each of the two groups is ignorant and wary of the other. This is a truly fascinating period into which to set a story, and you have to admire the amount of effort that must have gone into the research for it!

The main character, Ayla, is believable and highly likeable - and it is very easy to empathise with her situation. However, I have to admit that as the book progresses she seems to be something of a perfect woman, almost a Disney-like character in the way she is tall, beautiful, intelligent, a fast learner, able to invent several new technologies, etc. Sometimes I just found myself wishing she would get just one thing wrong just to be that bit more human, and a little more rounded. Of the other two characters we meet, this isn't a problem - although I am quite sure from the author's description than Jondalar is far too handsome for his own good!

The plot s book is in some ways highly predictable - you know as soon as we are introduced to the men that these are the Others that Ayla will somehow meet, and that one of them will undoubtedly become her mate. Still, it didn't stop me enjoying the subtle sub-plots of the story, and you are almost willed to read on until you finally have the main characters meeting one another. The writing is very good, but I just didn't feel it had quite the edge of the first book somehow.

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