The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children 6) [Paperback]

Like most other fans I discovered this series many years ago, and it has been a constant companion and well-loved read ever since. When it was finally announced that she would be releasing the sixth book, I immediately began rereading them from the beginning to refresh the story in my mind and re-familiarise myself with the characters. Perhaps that was a bad idea.

Throughout the books she builds up a steady stream of foreshadowing and allusions to future, pivotal plot points, for instance: the vision of the falling stone above the Ninth Cave, the vision of Ayla's two sons fighting, and better relations with the Clan. But none - absolutely none - of the build up is completely satisfied. Allusions are made to some points, but others are ignored entirely. Despite her intimate relations with the Clan throughout Ayla's life, including her meeting with the the pair of Clan members being attacked by a band of men in Plains of Passage, nothing is extended down this avenue. All the talk of overcoming the prejudice of Jondalar's people, assuaging the mounting difficulties with them over the caves in the region and perhaps even establishing trade with the Clan amounts to nothing - there isn't even contact made. To top that off with Ayla abandoning her heritage, along with her amulet, was just distressing.

Another disappointment was her daughter. Jonayla receives little to no mention or development in the book further than a few brief descriptions of her beauty. Given Ayla's large focus and almost desperation throughout most of the fore-running books, when she finally has the child it's mentioned even less than the Wolf. For an unaccountably long time Jonayla isn't even given a description, and could quite as easily have been substituted for a small bag that Ayla carried around. I can't really understand this, and it seems deeply out of character. Given that the author herself has five(?) children, I'd have thought she'd have easily included some bonding scenes between the family and a gradually emerging new character. But it wasn't to be.

The final blow really came in the last third of the book, where it seems that all the action has been packed. Unfortunately most of this 'action' involves a complete 180 in Jondalar's character, without any of the run up or hints that might have made it less out of the blue. This, coupled with a strange change in Ayla's character and values, is what really saddens me, because it seems as if all of the careful building and establishment of Ayla and Jondalar's relationship has been dashed against the wall for the sake of a little excitement.

All in all, the main thing it seems to get across is that something in the author's life has changed, and it's affected the story because of it. Where once there was a delight in detailing the lush, in-depth (sometimes slightly /too/ long) descriptions of the changing landscapes and daily life of these people, now it seems as if that passion has diminished. The time leaps through the years and even the strangely chopped up chapters make it a difficult read in places, and the overall flow and 'weight' of the book in terms of action don't compare with the much tighter, more structured earlier novels. For the most part, I think a lot of these problems can be laid at the feet of the editor. A good editor would have picked her up on this, found ways to make the time jumps smoother, and also given her some constructively critical advice on the advancement and pacing of the plot. Unfortunately, either the editor didn't spot these or wasn't capable of doing what needed to be done and the book suffers for it.

After all of the build up to this climatic last book it seems a great disservice to the series to have ended it like this. I can only hope she regains her passion and writes one last book that goes some way to tying up the loose ends. To leave it like this would be heartbreaking.

Echoing what all the other reviews have said - this book is a waste of time, and certainly not the 'conclusion to the Earth Children series'. Were ANY of the questions that the previous books set up answered at all? A few examples: what is the meaning of Ayla's dream of her two son's meeting? Why aren't the Zelandoni starting trade with the Clan? What is going to happen to the spirit of the Clan which Ayla is still carrying in her amulet? Is anyone going to take them back? etc. etc.
I understand the caves are beautiful, Ayla's going to be first Zelandonii when Zelandoni dies, but really was that worth a whole book. Would definitely recommend against purchasing, get it from a library if you must read it.

Oh I am so disappointed - this wasn't worth waiting all those years for. Die hard fans of Earth's Children will have no doubt already got and read their copy by now, but if you're someone thinking about it and aren't a die hard fan, you might want to get it from the library or wait a bit longer for the paperback.

This book is intended as the final part in Ayla and Jondalar's story. They travel around to summer meetings and on a Zelanadoni tour for Ayla to complete her Zelandoni training. But while doing so we hear the same story of meeting people we've already meet, eating and drinking things we already know about and having the conversations we've had for at least two books now. Part of Ayla's tour is to see lots of cave paintings and this is obviously where the author has spent lots of time on research as we hear a lot about various caves with paintings and then another cave with other paintings and then another cave and quite frankly, seen one cave, seen them all. I didn't need to hear so much. There is such a lot of repetition from the previous books that is unnecessary, seems like the author trying to dump loads of information on us and perhaps dare I say it, is there just to pad out the length as we've come to expect quite lengthy books in this series. Some examples apart from the endless cave paintings; there must be at least 20 mentions of Ayla being foreign to the Zelandoniis because of her accent and her way with animals, endless repetitions of titles of Ayla and those she meets - I get it, I was here from the start, I don't need it rammed down my throat every 30 pages. Nor do I care what Ayla and the First are making tea with for the thirtieth time in this book. And that is pretty much it for two thirds of the book.

The most annoying thing that got me was the repetition of a song sung by Zelandoni called The Mother Song. This has 35 verses (I counted) and it was repeated in full three times with extracts scattered throughout. The Mother Song does become pivotal to the plot about two thirds of the way through but by that point you've been banged around the head with that and other repetitions so much that frankly that point is destroyed by apathy by the time you get there and I was so bored of reading that song that I had actually skipped it and had to go back to re-read it to get the point. Once the point is made there is then endless discussions of the point and it's implications then it all ends abruptly, almost like the author thought "right that's enough pages, I'm done now". There were a couple of loose ends left which made me feel that as well, for example some of the troublemakers just disappeared into the wide blue yonder without further comment.

All in all, I think Earth's Children's fans will need to read this to complete the story, but you should know you can pretty much skim it until you find the third recital of the Mother Song and you really won't have missed anything. Everyone else, wait for paperback (and skip as required). Unlikely that anyone else is likely to start from this book, number 6 of 6 so I doubt the author cares for bad reviews. But if you're thinking of reading the magnificent Clan of the Cave Bear for the first time, be warned that that could be as good as it gets.