If there is a part of the historical fiction as a genre that requires large doses of projection and deduction from archaeological vestiges, without a doubt that is prehistory. AND Jean-Marie Auel is one of the largest writers of that remote time so suggestive that by itself it sounds more like literature than science. Because it is true that from bones, from caves, from the initial samples between the proto-artistic and the communicative, there are undoubtedly aspects to learn from. But from there the imagination shoots towards endless possibilities.
For Auel, it seems easy to collect the information and stage its remote plots of a memorable saga, with the precise brushstrokes of temporal and spatial location on a much more complex canvas enriched by captivating developments that address the particular, the intrahistorical (or rather the intra-prehistorical, take my word)
Afterwards, getting these stories to arrive is a matter of the ability to set the mood for the reader. And in light of the millions of books sold by Auel, he undoubtedly achieves this with connoisseurs of the scene and with laymen who come to experience that distant world.
Top 3 best novels by Jean Marie Auel
Cave Bear Clan, Children of Earth 1
There are great stories in literature or cinema that succeed without the fundamental resource of dialogue. I remember Apocalypto by Mel Gibson or Cast Away by Tom Hanks. And it turns out that when you hardly speak, you end up soaking up more of the scenario, of the nuances of a situation that, because it is very particular, shines more when no one generates that noise that, after all, is the voice.
Not long ago we commented on the novel «The last Neanderthal»By Claire Cameron. Without a doubt, that plot takes from the example of this beginning of the saga. Because the thing goes from Neanderthals, evolutionary leap, adaptation to the cataclysm.The spark that produces change is always a progression, even more so on a planet Earth that was too large for its then inhabitants. The Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons already anticipated the current human being. But coexistence between them could also have its edges.
And the law of the strongest of yesteryear also pointed to the selection of species. Ayla is a Cro-Magnon under the auspices of Neanderthals. A stranger in a closed clan ...
The valley of the horses
Once Ayla's protagonism has been discovered, we already guessed that her journey is an epic of a whole heroine who could inhabit our world when it was not yet ours. Ayla doesn't quite fit into her new clan.
Risks mount and threats creep through the dark nights. But the first notions of xenophobia start from the rest of the clan towards her. And it is the group that ends up abandoning Ayla to her fate.
But the fate of the classic heroes and heroines always find in hard dilemmas alone a start over again towards adventure, tragedy and love, all in the same company undertaken from the simple instinct of survival. In this installment, Jondalar appears, a companion on many new adventures.
Plains of Transit
Everything that involves embarking on a new journey is transformed in any of the novels in the saga into that taste for adventure filled with a descriptive setting that some readers find too exhaustive. And yet, it is thanks to that goldsmith's meticulousness of the letters that the whole is seen as a whole like the jewel.
Because everything is linked to that great work of lofty magnitude. Few series like this deepen and make live those days of the world in the making. During nights and days the couple formed by Ayla and Jondalar will travel many lands of the past Europe towards a more amiable south.
Hundreds of kilometers with their faithful animals, the horses and the wolf that they have managed to tame for their service and defense. Because the dangers are many and the third traveler, the wolf, will have to keep them away from many threats.
AS NOVELS ONLY THE VALLEY OF THE HORSES AND THE HUNTERS E MAMMOTH ARE GOOD.