This book has no conflict. This book has no action. This book has positively no character development. This book practically deconstructs any good done in "CotCB" and "VoH". In fact, this book has absolutely *nothing* to justify spending 28 dollars and 12 years of anticipation. Any first-time writer sending this in would be firmly rejected and laughed at. "SoS" indeed--very apt. Send out the distress call and load the lifeboats, because this one plummets to the bottom fast under the weight of its own bloated self-importance. A solid F. (A partial of one of the hundreds of similar reviews)
I must say that I've never seen such blistering, scathing reviews before for an A-list best-selling author as I have with Jean M. Auel's The Shelters of Stone. Even Ann Rice never took such a beating, or Terry Goodkind, for that matter. There must be over 900 reviews of this book, which was released in 2002, after a 12-year hiatus, and most of them are dreadfully explicit and quite accurate in what they are trying to portray. I think SoS has an average 2.5 stars across the board, and a good percentage of the reviews are current and still creeping in.
I read over 250 reviews, facinated by the accounts of both fans of the series and one-time readers. The consenses is that there is something tragically wrong with this tome, even evidenced by the readers who gave it high marks. And it has everything to do with ALL of the basic craft techniques associated with capable writing. How could verbosity, repetition, lack of plot and conflict, cardboard characterization, stilted dialogue, massive info-dumping, deliberate padding, and all other elements be that prevalent in a work put out by a seasoned writer? Nearly all of the people who read it admitted to skipping paragraphs, pages and whole chapters. Apparently it was that boring. All of them confessed that it was the most contrite, sluggish read they've ever encountered. Dozens accussed her of using a ghost writer, and many blamed a complete and total lack of editing. A few people blamed her publisher, Crown.
Now, to be fair, I've always liked Jean and always will, having followed her articles and interviews. She was a very early inspiration to me. Sadly I've never read ANY of her books. So I cannot, and won't speak on that matter. It seems that no one really considered that she's not the young bird that she was when she came out with CotCB. What is she, about 71 years-old now? Is it possible that she had a stroke that we're not aware of? Maybe the onset of senility has taken its toll.
Or is this one of the biggest rip-offs in literary history? Why has it taken her over 29 years (aprox) to knock out only five, count em, five books in an award-winning series? You would think that with such success, her books would be delivered to an eager public in a timely fashion, at least with some exhuberance and gratitude for the wealth accumulated. Why was this book seemingly cobbled together, containing identicle information that was present in the others, and passed off as a new work? Who were the real authors? Has Jean lost interest in her storyline, and is she really the textbook version of a doomed series writer?
It would be interesting to hear any accounts from her fans out there. Could somebody who has read Shelters of Stone (or any of the others) chime in here and give us their thoughts on this? I'm insanely curious about what happened in this author's case.
Thanks,
Tri
I must say that I've never seen such blistering, scathing reviews before for an A-list best-selling author as I have with Jean M. Auel's The Shelters of Stone. Even Ann Rice never took such a beating, or Terry Goodkind, for that matter. There must be over 900 reviews of this book, which was released in 2002, after a 12-year hiatus, and most of them are dreadfully explicit and quite accurate in what they are trying to portray. I think SoS has an average 2.5 stars across the board, and a good percentage of the reviews are current and still creeping in.
I read over 250 reviews, facinated by the accounts of both fans of the series and one-time readers. The consenses is that there is something tragically wrong with this tome, even evidenced by the readers who gave it high marks. And it has everything to do with ALL of the basic craft techniques associated with capable writing. How could verbosity, repetition, lack of plot and conflict, cardboard characterization, stilted dialogue, massive info-dumping, deliberate padding, and all other elements be that prevalent in a work put out by a seasoned writer? Nearly all of the people who read it admitted to skipping paragraphs, pages and whole chapters. Apparently it was that boring. All of them confessed that it was the most contrite, sluggish read they've ever encountered. Dozens accussed her of using a ghost writer, and many blamed a complete and total lack of editing. A few people blamed her publisher, Crown.
Now, to be fair, I've always liked Jean and always will, having followed her articles and interviews. She was a very early inspiration to me. Sadly I've never read ANY of her books. So I cannot, and won't speak on that matter. It seems that no one really considered that she's not the young bird that she was when she came out with CotCB. What is she, about 71 years-old now? Is it possible that she had a stroke that we're not aware of? Maybe the onset of senility has taken its toll.
Or is this one of the biggest rip-offs in literary history? Why has it taken her over 29 years (aprox) to knock out only five, count em, five books in an award-winning series? You would think that with such success, her books would be delivered to an eager public in a timely fashion, at least with some exhuberance and gratitude for the wealth accumulated. Why was this book seemingly cobbled together, containing identicle information that was present in the others, and passed off as a new work? Who were the real authors? Has Jean lost interest in her storyline, and is she really the textbook version of a doomed series writer?
It would be interesting to hear any accounts from her fans out there. Could somebody who has read Shelters of Stone (or any of the others) chime in here and give us their thoughts on this? I'm insanely curious about what happened in this author's case.
Thanks,
Tri
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