This is the story of the shaman, Glade, and her apprentice, Ivory . It is the tale of two women’s lives in Ice Age Europe and Africa. Glade is forced to abandon an idyllic childhood in the tropical forests and eventually becomes shaman of a tribe of Mammoth Hunters in the frozen north. Following the death of her parents, Ivory becomes apprenticed to the shaman and learns more about the world than she’d ever believed possible.
Life in the Ice Age isn’t easy. It isn’t only due to the frozen climate in which Mammoths and Cave Lions thrive where humans struggle to survive. There are people from the Mammoth Hunters’ tribe and beyond who are keen to take advantage of a shaman from another land and an apprentice who is as yet innocent of the ways of the world. But through it all, Glade and Ivory are determined to succeed thanks to the shaman’s bitterly earnt knowledge of human custom and nature’s trials.
Google Books — Loading...
(2.5)
Wikipedia in English
1
There are indeed a lot of lesbian sex scenes in this novel, but just as many gay, straight and menage scenes. Besides entirely consensual encounters, there are many sex scenes of the non-consensual and dubious consent variety.
The setting reminded me greatly of the trek Ayla and Jondalar and before that Jondalar and Thonolan make across prehistoric Europe, with the difference that it is the Mammoth Hunters' shaman Glade, who has done most of the travelling, and not as a result of her own free will to begin with.
Of the two main characters, it is Glade and the people she comes into contact with who formed the more interesting characters. Ivory remains a rather more flat character. Despite her name being in the title of the novel, the story being told is really Glade's story.
Because of Glade's wandering, from Africa to somewhere in Eurasia, there is a strong element of exploring by way of description and comparison of the social mores, codes and structures of the various peoples Glade comes into contact with on her journey.
This experience leads Glade to some interesting insights and convictions, and it's a good thing that not more of the tribe she lives with are aware of the texts she uses for incantations and her beliefs regarding the spirit realm.
To call the novel satirical is stretching the definition of that word a bit too far, in my opinion. I did see the tongue in cheek element of writing a novel set in prehistory that is not honey-glazed sweetness like the Jean M. Auel novels are. (In fact, some of the scenes may be far too violent, bloody and/or raunchy for many readers.) And in some places, the description of a particular tribe's characteristics immediately leads one to compare the tribe to modern day societies. There were passages where I smiled at the mild amusement offered. But satire has at its heart caustic wit, and I found that wanting in this novel.
Glade's journey is an entertaining read though. The sequencing and intermingling of her background story and Ivory's story is well executed. I thought the ending was a little too abrupt; I would have liked just a few more pages to tie off the loose thread of the immediate future of Ivory's mix-and-match tribe.
Recommended for those looking for a rather more depraved version of Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear series. (