Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780340824450
Edition: New edition
ISBN: 034082445X
Label: Coronet
Manufacturer: Coronet
Number Of Pages: 976
Publication Date: April 04, 2002
Publisher: Coronet
Studio: Coronet

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Accessories:

• The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children)
• The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children)
• The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children)
• The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children)

Related Items:

• Clan Of The Cave Bear [1986]
• Lords of the Bow (Conqueror 2)
• The Pillars of the Earth
• Quest For Fire [1981]
• World Without End
• see more

Alternate Versions: Click to Display

Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Jean Auel's The Plains of Passage, the fourth volume in the Earth's Children sequence, is one of the most massive yet (running to nearly 1,000 pages) and has all the sweep and vigour of the earlier books in the series. There are few writers who demonstrate the sheer range and ambition of Auel in the fantasy field. The Clan of the Cave Bear was a truly ground-breaking work, with its sweeping historical saga crammed with the kind of detail that had never been seen before in the genre. The Valley of Horses and The Mammoth Hunters continued to enthral readers with their breathtaking panoplies of an ancient world.

The Plains of Passage continues the epic description of our civilisation as it was 25,000 years ago. Auel's protagonists Ayla the orphan and Jondalar the traveller decide to forsake the comfort and safety of life with the mammoth hunters by the Black Sea, and set out on a daunting odyssey. Their plan is to traverse a continent, heading for the Cro-Magnon settlement which Jondalar called home as a young man. Their journey across unimaginable distances is fraught with spectacular dangers, and their only companions are the half-tame Wolf, the magnificent stallion Racer and the mare Whinney.

As so often in Auel's work, it's the brilliantly evocative scene-setting that makes her narratives of high adventure so impressive. Characterisation is, as always, functional rather than inspired, but it's perfectly suited to the Technicolor landscapes the reader is confronted with. And the descriptive passages are as evocative as ever:

The rising sun peaked over the eastern edge with a blinding burst of light that illuminated an incredible scene. To the west, a flat, utterly featureless dazzling white plain stretched out before them. Above it the sky was a shade of blue she had never seen in her life. It had somehow absorbed the reflection of the red dawn, and the blue-green undertone of glacial ice...

--Barry Forshaw




Rating: - I would walk five hundred miles...
Reading The Plains of Passage, one can't help but ponder the similarity between the grasslands of ice age Europe that form the backdrop to the story, and the book itself - they're both very large yet surprisingly empty and devoid of interesting features. A bit like an anorexic's fridge.

Auel herself described this as 'the journey book', which to my mind is a bit like describing Saving Private Ryan as 'a war film'. Despite being a spectacularly useless insight into the creative process ... Read More

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Rating: - A good sequel, lacking a bit though
I loved the three first novels in the "Earth's Children" series - and this too. However, it does lack a bit of what the other three had - originality perhaps most of all - and is a bit long-winded, even for Auel. It is still excellent read, though.

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Rating: - Now she's run out of ideas
This is the fourth book in Jean Auel's Earth's Children series. My mother always taught me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, I should say nothing. In which case, this would be a blank page: I have nothing good to say about this book at all.

Ayla and Jondalar set out from Lion Camp to return to his tribe. They travel across a landscape notable for having many cold rivers which the two humans, Wolf (who is a wolf) and their two horses cross with much trepidation but complete ease. ... Read More

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Rating: - a disappointment
I enjoyed the first three books in the series, and was looking forward to reading the fourth one. But it has come as rather a disappointment. There is far too much sex which does not further the plot or add to the story-line, and there is extensive discriptions of flaura and fauna. Do we really need to know all the information presented here - is it not just Ms Auel again showing off how much research she has put into this series? It is a fairly ok read overall, but, one that I read merely because I'd read ... Read More

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Rating: - Not quite up to earlier standards, but still a fine book
Though still retaining much of the magic of the first three books of the series, I have to say this was my least favourite of the four I have read so far. This was mainly down to the first 300 pages which feature no human characters other than the two regulars and just contain too much endless description of the landscape and flora and fauna. The writing of the latter is high quality and obviously very well researched, but just a bit too much. The encounters with other groups of people are good, though one ... Read More

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