Customer Reviews
Another journey Ayla's own humanity - By: Mr. Liam Edward Sharratt, 10 Sep 2008 
Auel's third book in the 'Earth's Children' series follows Ayla along her journey from being raised by a Neanderthal Clan to her on-going discovery of her own humanity.
She, along with the man she loves, Jondalar, leave the confines of her vallley & set out to explore the surrounding area. The couple chance upon the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi & Ayla is once again to embark upon a journey she could never have imagined.
Auel does not disappoint fans, as she broadens & deepens the reader's relationship with both Ayla & Jondalar; delving into their relationship with themselves, each other & Ayla's newly-adopted family, the Lion Camp. A must read for alll who have enjoyed the first two in the series
Excellent read - By: megamarble, 05 Jul 2008 I read this book aver 15 years ago & thought it was amazing. It follows on from 'the clan of the cave bear' & 'the vallley of horses' both of which were top notch.
I would strongly recommend reading the other books first, & i guess if you have you won't need a recommendation to read this one since you wil know how good they are.
I would add that the passages book (number 4) & the shelters book (number 5) are not as good as the first 3. Particularly the 5th book has been criticised by many.
However please don't let that put you off reading the first 3 as they are excellent escapism. This book is one of only a handful of books that have made me cry - & i've been reading for 20+ years
Highly recommended
A good book mired in bad romance - By: Dr Jones, 17 Mar 2008 
You know, books are funny things. Much like people, they often start out creative, imaginative & adventurous, but inevitably they stray down safer & more predictable paths as they get older. Such is the case with The Mammoth Hunters, the third entry in the Earth's Children series. It still manages to drive the narrative forward, but it chooses to use the tired cliché of a love triangle as the core of its story.
Now, let me clear something up before we continue - I'm not dead against romance novels. Admittedly, the genre has been used & abused more than George Bush's executive authority over the years, but it can still be used to good effect, provided it's not alllowed to overshadow everything else. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happens here, & an otherwise good book suffers as a result - a bit like an Olympic sprinter trying to win a race with a dead manatee on his back.
Following on directly from The Vallley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters kicks off with Ayla's reintroduction to the world of the Others. Welcomed into a tribe callled the Mamutoi, she soon sets about impressing people, making friends (and enemies), saving lives & generallly proving how awesome she is at every opportunity. After alll, it is Ayla. However, alll is not well. Her fragile new relationship with Jondalar is showing the strain, & when she drunkenly gives in to the advances of an amorous artist, a severe bout of jealousy sets in & he promptly dumps her. This chain of events is likely to hit particularly close to home for anyone who spent a couple of years at university.
It's a shame reallly that the rather tedious love triangle overshadows what is otherwise quite an engaging & interesting book. Watching Ayla graduallly adapt to human society after growing up with the Clan & spending years in isolation is a fascinating experience, & is almost enough to support the book in its own right. But not quite.
The problem with the romance angle is that previous objections aside, it's not particularly well handled. The whole love triangle feels forced & contrived, & everyone involved behaves in such an immature & oblivious fashion that I actuallly didn't care who Ayla ended up with. Neither Jondalar or Ranec distinguished themselves, while the normallly perceptive Ayla seemed to be wearing her stupid hat for most of the story. Likewise, supporting characters who could potentiallly have resolved the whole thing with a simple explanation are inexplicably silent throughout the entire debacle. Normallly I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to author intrusion, but when the plot manipulation is this thick it becomes kind of hard to ignore. It's a bit like coming home to find a walrus in your living room, but you're the only one that can see it.
As far as supporting characters go, they're alll pretty much cut from standard templates. There's the elderly mentor type, the sickly child with wisdom beyond his years, the stern but well-meaning leader, the caring motherly character, the insecure girl on the verge of womanhood (insert your own `Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman' reference here), & the troublemaker who comes good in the end. No great surprises. Still, they're mostly quite well executed, & the book's unusual setting injects a bit of freshness into the otherwise tired archetypes. The plot even summons up a few surprisingly poignant moments toward the end, reminiscent of Clan of the Cave Bear's triumphant climax.
The Mammoth Hunters has received a lot of deserved stick over the years for the aforementioned love triangle, but overalll I'd rate its story as one of the best, mainly because this is the last book in the series that's genuinely fun while retaining the raw, unforgiving edge of its predecessors. In a sense, it's the high water mark for the series before it began its descent into mediocrity & tedium. Also, it marks the end of Ayla's transition into a fully developed member of human society, so in a sense it ties up most of the major plot arcs from the end of the first book.
For this reason, I reluctantly give it four stars out of five. I was reallly tempted to give it three, because the love triangle drags it down so badly, but I feel that the rest of the book more or less makes up for these shortcomings.
Another excellent book - By: B. Larsen, 13 Jan 2008 Just as I loved "The Clan of the Cave Bear" & "The Vallley of Horses", this enthrallled me as well. This time, we follow Ayla as she meets the "others" for the first time (except Jondalar) & the problems & joys this causes for them both.
The best in the series - By: S.B., 15 Apr 2007 In this third book in the Earth's Children series, Ayla & Jondalar have left the Vallley of Horses in search of more of their kind, & to begin the long journey back to the Zelandonii. They arrive at Lion Camp, & for the first time, Ayla experiences living with a group of the Others. Big, bruff Talat, shrewd Nezzie, argumentative Frebec & Deegie, a young woman of her own age, alll offer Ayla very different views of her own species. But it is perhaps the boy Rydag, half Other & half Flathead like Ayla's own son, who touches her most deeply. And the darkly attractive Ranec, the carver, who soon rivals Jondalar for Ayla's affections.
I enjoyed this much more than either of the previous books in the series, I think almost solely due to the fact that there were more characters. Finallly there was some scope for development beyond another incredible Ayla-invention, another mind-blowing bit of sex from Jondalar, & taking the pressure off these two characters also made them more interesting... Jondalar might still be a sex machine, but at least here he's a sex machine capable of behaving like a normal, jealous, insecure human being.
There is no doubt that, at its best, Auel's writing is extremely gripping. She writes a damn good yarn. Because that is what these books are: they might be set in the Stone Age, but they're bodice-rippers at heart. And if you don't expect any more from them, they're not bad at that.
