People of the Wolf (The First North Americans series, Book 1)

This book had been sitting on my "to read" shelf for a while, along with all the other books in the series. I was a bit reluctant to pick them up, fearing I'd be disappointed after having read and loved Jean M. Auel's EARTH'S CHILDREN series. I finally decided to buckle down and pick up the first book. Now I'm eager to read the rest of them.
The first thing that struck me about this book was the vividness of the characters. From the beginning, I was sympathizing with the main character. The authors draw the reader in to the plight of the People and their suffering. Underneath, there is a hidden strength within them that rings true to me. Not long after, we get to the antagonists and we immediately dislike them. Instead of being driven by evil (I read a lot of fantasy :), their actions are driven by motivations that the reader see as obviously being selfish. The characters, though, see them as being what are best for the People.
The dialogue was well written, but seemed a little too modern for the time period the story took place. There was a lot of banter and sexual connotation that seemed misplaced. We don't really know how (or even if) people spoke during that time perioud, but the way the authors wrote it, it just felt wrong. This only detracted a little bit from the reading experience, but not at all from the story.
This is another of the authors' strong points: their storytelling ability. The plot was very intriguing and the pacing was excellent. At no point did I feel as if the story was dragging along while the authors took the time to develop their characters. These two aspects of their storytelling were seamlessly blended to produce a cohesive and enjoyable whole.
One final small complaint is the fact that I kept getting two or three of the supporting characters mixed up. I don't know if it was me reading the initial character introductions too quickly or the authors not establishing them well enough, but a couple of times, I had to stop and think of which character they were talking about to keep them straight.
Despite this, I still enjoyed this book. The characters were fun to read and I came to care about them. The pacing kept me interested, but not grippingly so (I was able to put the book down most of the time when it was late at night). If you're even considering reading this book, I recommend you do so without hesitation.

I had a hard time getting into the style of writing and understanding the story line at first, having just finished the Jean Auel series, but in short time I was so enveloped in the book that I could not tear myself away. I have seldom read a book so quickly and with such intent. It was a fabulous story of mystical power, dreams, war, abuse and the power of one dreamer to lead his people to their new beginning. The strength of the charachters boggled me and intrigued me. Must read!

Aside from the fact that this book was like every other Native American or early American book - in fact, it seemed to steal many of the plot points and characters from other series - it was alright. The characters were a little too "proud Native," and not quite.......real. The writing was only so-so, and a few of the exchanges in dialogue were confusing. The only thing completely negative I have to say about it is...... haven't the authors heard of frostbite??? A character can walk in chilled water, at the top of Alaska, with near-freezing temperatures for two day and a night and not suffer anything worse than shivers? Characters can walk for months in the middle of winter with barely any food, the only shelter is a dug-out snow cave, and no water on hand (the reader is left to assume they eat snow), and survive? Hmmmm. This book lacks the information and logic of Jean Auel's, and instead of educating themselves, the authors seem to want to gloss everything over.

All-in-all, it's a decent read on a boring day, but I'll stick to The Earth Children Series.

This is not my usual fare, but was loaned to me by a friend. I found the book so interesting that I immediately purchased a copy for myself along with the rest of the series! I am not a history buff and usually do not spend much time reading history. Yet this historical fiction of the people of the North American continent caught my imagination and provided grist for the mill in a recent presentation I made on the origins of consciousness. A very well written story with detail of the lives of our ancient ancestors and how we might have lived, evolved, and dreamed. It is refreshing to have a shared hero and heroine, with the story of how our patriarchal society might have also evolved from the life of hunter-gatherers.
The Gears bring their considerable knowledge to bare in the weaving of this intriguing story of our heritage. It is obvious that they have paid attention to the details and are trying to put together the most plausible explanation of how life might have been in the transition from the last ice age. The people live in clans and are dependent upon each other for survival. They struggled for leadership just as any other group of humans and fought over the viability for the best ideas of survival. They fought change, they tried hard to maintain their contact with the spiritual side of existence and they were deeply respectful of life.
We follow the mammoth hunters as they struggle for survival during the stress of "others" forcing them from their normal hunting grounds and camps. They struggle with the balance of peaceful coexistence and warring to protect the life they know. And then they face the incredible challenge of going against all their accumulated knowledge to follow Wolf Dreamer under the ice to a new land. In many ways, this is a perfect "Campbell hero story" and as such, is inspiring, interesting, and has lessons for us even in this far removed time. I am looking forward to the rest of the series.

Everything about this book annoyed me. The shallow characters, amature writing style, cliched dialogue, and most of all, the plot that dragged on and on and on and finally anticlimaxed. The female characters were all stereotyped (ie, a beautiful but abused ong woman with no brain, a couple of old hags who know supposedly know everything but actually don't, and the usualy smattering of 'gentle and caring' wives who are so supportive of their annoying husbands that the reader may be moved to the point of nausea) and the male characters spent the whole book engaging in seemingly endless displays of testosterone driven male dominance rituals.
I don't know about you, but I think if an author is going to write about Native Americans, they should make their characters human first, and Native Americans second, rather than the characters being so 'authentically Native' that the reader begins to forget that we even belong to the same species. Somehow, I just don't believe that the American Indians behaved in the idiotic and cliched manner in which they are portrayed in this book.
Bottom line: This novel was poorly written and contained sexual and racial stereotyping. Don't read it.

I so enjoyed The Clan of the Cave Bear series that I wanted to read more novels in the same genre. A story about pre-historic Native Americans, People of the Wolf is set among the mammoth hunters of the ice ages. The people live in clans, and are dependent upon each other for their survival. The undisputed leaders of the clans are Dreamers--men and women who have a connection with the spirit world. The spirits advise them in Dreams, and help them lead their clans. The people must be careful to keep the spirits, happy, of course, or they may abandon the Dreamer or the clan. But what happens when two dreamers in the same clan have differing opinions? The people are forced to choose between the young man with the Dream of Wolf in his eyes and the trusted older Dreamer who may be past his prime. One will lead them to a new land of abundance and promise, the other will lead them to death by slow starvation.
The couple who wrote the novel are anthropologists who obviously know about the lives and customs of the people they portray. Free of the annoying stereotypes that often accompany these topics, the characters are vibrant and original. Even if you've never been a fan of Native American history or novels of pre-history (and I never thought I would be!) you may find yourself loving this book.

Like many Jean Auel fans, I've been looking for prehistory novels to fill the time til she gets around to writing book five of her series...it's been 11 years, glad I wasn't holding my breath!
I'm still surprised by the reviews this book has gotten from other readers...especially Auel fans. While their goal is admirable and it's clear that the authors have alot of technical knowlege about their subject, it's their writing style that needs work. Maybe a case of too many cooks in the kitchen? The characters are interesting but their dialogue is improbable. I've read where the authors say they believe that people had complex language skills as opposed to the grunts and groans that we've stereotypically ascribed to them. The dialogue in this book though is somewhat stilted and really not believable. It's too contemporary. There were several times I found myself rolling my eyes and groaning out loud.
I give it two stars because it is readable and I've continued the series because I bought them and I'm stubborn. I will say that so far (I'm now on book 4) they do get somewhat better with "People of the Earth" far and away better than the first two. I'd give it 3 1/2 stars.
If you're looking for well developed characters and more believable plot and dialogue, try William Sarabande's First American's Series or Sue Harrison's Aluetians series.

I read this book in 1997 and immediately read the remainder of the series. I became enthralled with Raven Hunter and Runs in Light, this book, the first among the series, is referred to in nearly every book as the battle between dark and light, between the First brothers. The myth of these brothers is also talked about by other authors, like William Sarabande. The writing in these books is excellent, as in ALL the Gear's novels. I recommend reading them in succession, as they all tie in to one another. I haven't read any of their science-fiction novels on genetics but I recently read Bone Walker (after I read the preceeding novels), and enjoyed it immensely. You have to love the beginning of these books where some dusty construction worker "happens" to find some Indian bones, then you're hooked on how they got there and you have to know!

I don't think I've ever written a review here, but this was so bad I felt I had to.

I have read ALOT of prehistoric fiction novels, and this one was terrible. The writing was choppy and hard to follow, and half the time I found myself skimming just so I could finish the book already. I had gotten it from the library, along with 5 other 'People of the' books, and I took them all back when I finished the first one. Terrible. I'm not sure if what I'm about to say will make sense to people, but here goes.

I felt as if the writers had no confidence that they could transport the reader back to those times. There was a lame flashback kind of thing in the beginning. You know, archelogist finds artifact. "I wonder who they were" he thinks. Dream sequence into main story. Then , the names of everything! I know another review here talks about how hard it was to relize people were people and Wind Woman was the wind, and he was right. I read that name 3 times in one paragraph. And Runs in Light turns into Wolf Dreamer, as if we didn't already have enough to keep track of. I felt like they used the names to try to place you in that time instead of actual writing

Anyway. Awful. Skip it. Re-read Auel instead. That's more worth your time.

The basic story is better than William Sarabande's and worse than Jean Auel's. However, the underlying mythology of the people interferes in two ways:

First, the people's terminology is used not only in dialog, but also the parts of the text that are only talking to the reader. Because of this, for instance, it took me about 150 pages to realize that "Grandfather White Bear" referred to polar bears in general, and not a person. It made the whole book a very slow read.

Second, the story requires accepting that the people's religious beliefs are actually true. Jean Auel is occasionally guilty of this, but here it is so pronounced that the genre changes from prehistoric fiction to fantasy. This was okay once I started treating it as a fantasy novel, but it wasn't really what I was expecting when I started it.