Earth's Children Series

[iceblink]

I have to give some credit to Colleen McCullough too. The Thorn Birds is very educational when you're eleven, and not just in the matters of the innerworkings of the Vatican and Australian sheep farming.

[Karen]

The first book was really interesting, but the rest? When Ayla was by herself in the second book or with the mammoth hunters in the third her perfection wasn't impossible to bear, but I loathed, loathed, loathed Jondalar. Bland, sulky, jealous bastard. And so amazingly dumb in the third book!

[wprock]

I read the first four books when I was a kid. Another series that my grandma would leave laying around, so I picked them up and got interested. Must have been the sex that caught my attention.

I think I had a crush no Ayla. Damn talented woman, you know. Jondalar always kind of bored me and he was a huge ****. ETA: Oops, Jondalar was easy. Always with the most beatiful women ever and all the virgins.

The fifth book was really disappointing to me for some reason. I only read it once, but I remember just being pretty bored by it. All the build up of her meeting his family and then it's just...eh. I'll read it again one day to see if it still bores the crap out of me.

[Deleted]

Ken -- uh, Jondalar's supposed to be this amazing lay, but somehow he only ever seems to last about two and a half thrusts before he's overwhelmed by Ayla and her super-pussy and blows his wad.

I really liked the first book, and the second until Ken showed up in the valley. It's been all downhill since then. How many frigging introductions is Jean Auel going to cram into this series, anyway?

Curiously, I liked a lot of the incidental characters more than Ayla'n'Ken. Willomar seems pretty cool, and I liked Iza, Deegie from the third book, and S'Armuna/Bodoa. Auel is capable of writing interesting people, but I guess the siren call of Mary Sue is too much for her.

[Auroranorth]

dwanollah said:

*hysterics*

I also love that All We Ever Knew About Sex We Learned From Jean Auel and VC Andrews. We are one fucked up generation, y'all.

Word. I think I did get the basics in 6th grade, though I wasn't terribly interested. Seventh and eighth grade were when I started reading Harlequin romances and, uh, "expanded my education." Sometimes I'm amazed that I didn't come out assuming that the prerequisite for a good marriage is the guy treating you like crap beforehand.

[ladymadonna]

I just finished re-reading The Mammoth Hunters, and man, Jondalar is a giant wad, isn't he? Me so angry, Ayla screwing better man, me self-destruct.

I first read these books a loooong time ago, when I was like, 11, and I loved them. I got into the sex, and at 11 years old, I was all about the Mary Sue-ness. But, reading it now at 33, I'm just rolling my eyes at every page. Jondalar had the perfect cock, Ayla had the perfect pussy, plus she invented EVERYTHING. Ayla, Ayla, AYLA! [/Jan Brady]

I waited sooo long for Shelters of Stone, and of course I will buy and read the next one, if it ever comes, but I think I'm kind of over Ayla and her Greatest Love Of All.

[dwanollah]

No pun intended, but Jondalar is a huge tool.

For some reason, I'm currently re-reading these in the bath. And I'm annoyed because when I re-read COTCB for the first time in, like, 10 years, I noticed that a lot of the stuff asserted in later books isn't that way in the first book. Like "Ayla never learned to lie." Bullshit! She's deceptive all the time in the first book, and for all the "their body language totally gives away lies so lying is impossible" stuff about the Clan in the following ones, it's totally inconsistent. In all the following books, Ayla can't help reverting to "good Clan woman" behavior, but in the first book, she does nothing but rebel against "good Clan woman" behavior. So... when she's with the Clan, she's disobedient, sometimes knowingly flouts custom, challenges leaders, and disobeys, but when she's away from the Clan, she supposedly "can't refuse" doing this or that because she's a "good Clan woman"? Or "Clan people don't say 'I love you' or say goodbye because they don't share emotions like that"... yet a half-dozen times, Ayla's throwing her arms around Creb or Iza and telling them she loves them and they're telling her they love her too. In subsequent books, there's limited contact with/about Clans, and Ayla finds out that Mamut was "the man with the broken arm" and the Clan couple they meet on the way back to Jondalar's know all about Creb and Brun and Iza as legendary figures... but no one ever talks about the Clan that had a member of the Others as a medicine woman? Supposedly Ayla showing up at the Clan Gathering was one of the most insanely shocking things EVER... yet no one's told stories about it?

So! What's gonna happen next? Obviously, from all the premonition dreams about "one brother killing another," you gotta figure that a grown-up Durc will show up in some capacity, with a Clan v. Others face-off, and a big ol' "I Believe the Mixed Offspring Are Our Future" rally. But what else?

[ladymadonna]

Well, since Jonayla (stoopidest name EVAH, btw. I cringed the first time I read it.) is a lowly girl, Ayla will have to have a son early in the book, so he can encounter Durc in an emotionally painful battle later on. Perhaps he will be named Jondurc.

I think Jondalar is going to "cheat" on her, and Ayla will get all passive agressively pissed off, of course, and decide to become Zelandoni. She will reluctantly succumb to her AWESOME psychic powers as a way to punish Dyondar for his "infidelity". This will cause much hand wringing between the couple, and Marthona and Willomar and everyone else in the Exalted Ninth Cave. Ayla will perhaps leave Jondalar and take the kids to go live in a cave and think about things. She will of course invent the telephone or something while there, and everyone will adore her for it.

Eventually some monumental, catastrophic event will force Jondalar to realize what a horrible ass he has been to Ayla, and they will reconvene The Greatest Love Of All. Jondurc will defeat Durc in a non-lethal battle. Durc will return to the Clan and become a Marty Sam (or whatever you call the male equivalent), eventually becoming THE most powerful Leader or MogUr of. All. Time.

Oh, and Whinney, Racer and Wolf will become the All-Powerful Animal Totems/Goddess Messengers for both the Clan and the Others, thus entwining their fates for all eternity.

LOL, see Jean? I wrapped it up in about three paragraphs. You just need to add the hyperbole.

I'm addicted to these books in the same way I am addicted to VC Andrews and Stephen King. I jist cain't quit 'em. ;D

[dwanollah]

Maybe she'll be too wrapped up with her spiritual journey, and this will force Jondalar to have to "share Pleasures" with some other skank....

Jondurc. Hee hee hee!

ETA: Another thing that annoyed me.... For all their travels, Jondalar and Ayla NEVER came across anyone who knew of/heard about an entire tribe/group of people who disappeared in an earthquake twenty years previously...?

I guess Jeanie's building up for the Big! Reveal! about Ayla's heritage in the next book. You know, where we find out Ayla comes from a line of matrilinial prehistoric biochemists who invented the concept of nuclear proliferation. In the meantime, Ayla will have confronted the deep issue of racial essentialism with one "dazzling smile," developed a written language, invented disposable diapers, and discovered BBQ sauce.

[ladymadonna]

ETA: Another thing that annoyed me.... For all their travels, Jondalar and Ayla NEVER came across anyone who knew of/heard about an entire tribe/group of people who disappeared in an earthquake twenty years previously...?

See, I read this as Ayla's parents going off on a hunting trip with their kid and getting caught in the earthquake. At least, that made sense in the first couple of books. But then I started thinking, if they went off on a little hunting vacay, why would they take their kid? Why not leave her with an aunt or someone? It makes no sense to me that Ayla's family would be out camping by themselves. But now I'm thinking (and it's been a while since I read COTCB), that maybe there was no mention of her dad. Perhaps Ayla's mom was turned out of her Cave/Camp for some reason. I could totally see Jean spinning that. "Ayla's mom was a feminist outcast, and her daughter grew up just like her. How cosmic!"

Clearly I have read these books way too much, lol.