The premise: From Barnes & Noble: Fire from the Goddess and the meat and furs of the mammoth are all that the People need to live. It is a harsh life but a good one and it is one that all cherish.

Young Geerna knows that the time has come for her to become a woman and take up the tasks to keep her people safe. She waits in the Awakening Place, fearful and hopeful as her ordeals come to an end. Then, on the eve of her Womanhood, a shining light descends upon her and her world is torn asunder.

And she embarks on a journey that none of her people could ever envision...

Eons have passed. Cycle upon cycle the Way of the People have remain unchanged: women are artists, men are hunters. Geerna’s Law is the covenant by which humans live in harmony and peace.

But all is about to change. A call has come for The People to choose their champions, and a summons to meet the mysterious creatures who selected Geerna so long ago.

All is unknown. As the brave souls who are chosen venture forth, they will come to discover just how much that pact that Geerna made so long ago has cost them.

And they will have to confront the choices that might help them to finally know true freedom.

My Rating

Couldn't Finish It: The dust jacket of this book describes it as The Clan of the Cave Bear meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and that's pretty accurate as far as setting and action goes, in terms of how far I was able to get.

To be honest, I was bored. And I don't think that would've been the case if Drinkard hadn't spent pages upon pages upon pages on descriptive detail that doesn't do a darn thing to move the action forward. The prologue--oh wait, sorry, FIRST CHAPTER that might as WELL have been a prologue--takes too long with Geerna obsessing over her passage into womanhood, which wouldn't have bothered me if I didn't hear the same thing said over and over ten different ways. I'm exaggerating, but there's a lot of repetition, and even in regards to world-building, details can be interesting, but not when NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING is happening plotwise. The second chapter barely accomplishes enough to let us know thousands of years have passed and that a Second Judgment is nigh, but any tension built there is shattered when we meet the two main POV characters, who are interesting in and of themselves, but . . .

How to explain? Dera keeps thinking about a way to avoid the traditional mating and choosing of her first partner, and every POV section we get has her thinking about it, but we never get what it is. And Kalmar, while more interesting because of his goal to kill a cave lion, quickly becomes boring because once he meets Snook (who on several occasions reminded me of Smeagol, his skin coloring and love for fish not withstanding), we get inane detail after inane detail that shows us how much research the author has done for his world-building.

I don't fault him for it, not entirely. If the setting and/or characters fascinated me, I wouldn't mind at all. But neither did. We know the Second Judgment is coming, but even the people who seem to be in a position to act upon what's required don't DO anything and keep telling others who know not to tell. Don't get me wrong, something's got to happen in order for the story to move forward, but frankly, I didn't want to read more to find out, even if all these details are build-up for what's necessary for later. But I don't think that three chapters spent on Kalmar and Snook fishing, discussing dreams and staring at the sky do anything to prepare me for the action of the book. Oh, I'm sure the dreams MEAN something (after all, this is a work of fiction, so of COURSE the dreams will actually MEAN something), and Kalmar's confession about the girl he loves will surely have some consequence when it comes to the Choosing ceremony, but I'm just not interested. And since I'm not interested, and the extraneous detail bores me (yes, the pages about fishing I consider to be extraneous), then I figured my reading time was better spent elsewhere, especially once I passed the 100 page mark. So I quit. Other people have enjoyed the book, and I'm not saying you won't. But it's not grabbing me, and everything--from the setting to the characters to the passive, omniscient POV--are too general to keep me invested in whatever unique elements Drinkard might be bringing to the field. It had potential, but it took too long to realize it. And for a book this length, that's not a good thing, in my humble opinion.

Tor's usually sure-footed publicity team stumbles a bit by identifying William H. Drinkard as a 12-year veteran of the Alabama State Legislature. I am sure that the Alabama State Legislature of today is not the Alabama State Legislature of fifty or a hundred years ago, but it's still not exactly a confidence-inspiring background.