People of the Sea

From Publishers Weekly As they have in past works ( People of the River ; People of the Earth ), the Gears illuminate American prehistory by focusing on a personal story. Here, the setting is coastal California 12,000 years ago. Melting glaciers are causing the waters to rise, the huge animals that once populated the area are disappearing and the human inhabitants have to learn to adapt to the changes. Sunchaser the Dreamer, powerful spiritual leader of the People of the Sea, is tormented by his inability to explain or correct recent adverse events, including disease and the disappearance of food sources, when a strange woman wanders into his shelter. Kestrel is pregnant by her lover and, pursued by her vicious husband, has fled from her native inland marshes toward the sea, hoping to find a home among her lover's people, the Otter Clan. Kestrel and Sunchaser fall in love, and together they make their way to the Otter Clan village, whose residents are on the verge of falling under the dangerous influence of an unscrupulous Dreamer, Catchstraw, whose desperate search for power threatens everyone. The Gears, integrating a tremendous amount of natural and anthropological research into a satisfactory narrative, have again produced a vivid and fascinating portrait of early human life in America. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal YA-A story that depicts Native American life about 11,000 years ago in the area now called California. The setting and conflict revolve around a world that is changing too quickly. The glaciers are melting, the weather is changing, the mammoth are disappearing. The clans in the area rely on the seer Sunchaser to Dream into the Spirit World and to find answers. But for unknown reasons, Sunchaser suffers from diminished Power. Meanwhile Kestrel, a fugitive from a clan in the Marsh region, is seeking protection from an insane husband who wants to kill her and her baby, and Sunchaser offers her first protection and then love. This novel combines adventure, survival, romance, and fantasy all painted on a historical canvas. The flawed protagonists are credible and the plot is exciting, but the greatest strength of the novel lies in the detail and description that immerse readers in prehistoric culture, providing a view of religious ceremonies, burial rights, and food and medicine preparation. Demonstrating the most rewarding trait of good historical fiction, the story transports readers into another time and place. People of the Sea will have immediate appeal to YAs who enjoy this genre, and the cover will attract that audience. The mysticism and "other world" atmosphere may also interest fantasy fans. Booktalk this novel to both groups!-Sue Davis, Cedar Falls High School, IACopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal With the fifth novel in their "First North Americans" series, the Gear husband-and-wife archaeologist team presents a fascinating saga of prehistoric Native Americans in contemporary Arizona and California. Pregnant with twins by her lover, Iceplant, Kestrel flees westward from her abusive husband, Lambkill, who carves Iceplant to death with a hunting knife. Kestrel's only hope for survival is to travel to the seacoast and seek refuge with Iceplant's people. Sunchaser, a visionary and legendary healer, is troubled by the escalating extinction of the revered mammoths and has gone into seclusion to dream for answers when he runs into an exhausted Kestrel. Meanwhile, a vengeful Lambkill tracks Kestrel as Sunchaser leads her to Iceplant's tribe. The story concludes in a fever-pitched climax when Kestrel's and Lambkill's paths cross. Kudos to the Gears for gracefully combining historical facts with a compelling adventure saga. - Mary Ellen Els bernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews From the authors of People of the River (1992) and other novels (in paperback) set in America's prehistory: a rather rousing tale of deadly pursuits and spiritual journeys that is, in general, free of the dusty earnestness that so often clogs the movement of other fictional efforts by conscientious anthropologists like the Gears. Here, in a story set about 11,000 years ago on the West Coast, Kestrel--a pregnant woman of an inland clan who's condemned to death by her violent, mad husband Lambkill--escapes and heads for the oceanside Otter Clan, kin of her dead lover. On the way, she bears twins, then must leave one to die--and because the Otter Clan reckons descent from the female line, Kestrel leaves the boy. (Throughout, the baby's soul, trapped in decay, holds a dialogue with a wise Being about Life and Death's meaning.) Also alone and searching to find answers--as well as a Way to lure back the disappearing mammoths so needed by his people--is Sunchaser, the Dreamer of the Otter Clan. He will find Kestrel and her baby girl, who are hunted not only by Lambkill--who travels with a baby's body--but by the brothers of a man she was forced to kill. Meanwhile, a witch is also on the loose, a rival Dreamer who becomes a wolf at will. There's a happy close, and, a few years later, the mammoths miraculously come once more. Despite the overhang of myth and metaphysics and the turgid present-day prologue: essentially an action tale embellished by epigrammatic wisdom and a touch of very modern humor. (Cries the false Dreamer: ``I see death! Death and Destruction! Oh, it's terrible!'' Cracks a grandmother: ``Some news.'') It's all without the character-centered pep of Mary Mackey's The Year the Horses Came (p. 959), but the scholarly base gives a sheen of credulity to the time and place and predicaments. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Read more