People of the Wolf

I liked the premise, but felt the execution lacked finesse. The story was interesting, but the characters were cardboard stereotypes: all the old women were interchangeable; warriors, ditto. I had trouble keeping them apart even with different names. Personally, I also got tired of the "Dreaming." The book could have been about a third shorter and much more interesting. I won't look up the sequels.

I picked up this book because I thought it would be similar to Jean Auel's "Earth Children" series. (Sadly, I love those Ayla books. I read them in high school and have so many fond memories of dog-earing the dirty parts. My parents thought I was reading historical fiction - ha!)

This book was similar since it had a prehistoric setting, but there were a million characters and no dirty parts. Overall I liked it, but I had trouble keeping track of all the people. There were two tribes and the names were all very similar - "One Who Cries", "Dancing Fox," "Ice Fire." Plus, there was "Grandfather White Bear" (polar bears) and "Wind Woman" (the wind.) It made my eye twitch.

I still liked it once I figured out who everyone was and I'll show more probably check out the next one in the series. (Just not anytime soon - reading this was hard work!) show less

I liked the premise of this novel, a tale of the Clovis people of the Pleistocene, the stone age hunters who crossed the Siberian Bering land bridge to become the ancestors of the native tribes of America. The husband and wife writing team are archeologists, and certainly must have the technical knowledge to ground the tale. The problem is the puerile quality of the writing, so bad from the beginning I could barely push myself to persist to at least page fifty. The mystical/spiritual aspect isn't just heavy-handed and takes the supernatural too seriously for my tastes, but given animals are often capitalized, that the gods the People worship are called things like "Wind Woman" and "Grandfather White Bear" and the human characters named show more things like Singing Wolf and Dancing Fox, it was hard to keep straight which was meant at times--person, animal, or divinity. The dialogue is wooden and the characters one-dimensional. I rarely see historical fiction exploring our prehistorical era. Other than Gear's series, Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear is about the only one I've seen (and it's much, much more engaging, and despite Auel not being a professional archeologist, her world seemed better filled out and thought out.) I'm afraid People of the Wolf just isn't worth the time or money. show less

Read it through in one day. When they arewriting as a team, they throw a good story together.
this is the story of a peaceful people who have been pushed out of their hunting grounds by others, also driven out by migrating peoples and disease. It is a time of global warming, the water is rising, the usual grasses hard to find, game is getting scarce from over hunting.
Runs in Light dreams the Wolf Dream - and of a hole in the glacier that leads to a lush new land teaming with food.

Can he find that hole?
Can he convince his people to follow him under a glacier?
Can he control his twin, who has decided the best way is a war of annihilation against all the other peoples of the world?

Will the pursuing enemy follow them through?
Will this small show more band live or die? show less

Gripping, colorfully imagined world of how 1st humans came to North America over land bridge. 1st book (chronologically) in series of similar works by this husband/wife team of archeologists & authors. Like "Clan of the Cave Bear" books, but even more intriguing, ea book deals with diff ancient Native American people. Great storytelling w/ full immersion in mysticism of each "people", and imaginative "what if's" of how ea culture came to be, or came to disappear. I've read all their books & enjoyed each one. This is still my favorite of the series.

This book is a fantastic story about the first humans who came from Asia to America and how they have to struggle for survival from other tribes, the climate change and feuds in their own tribe. One man to guide his tribe to a better place and will he succeed?

The first in the First North Americans series that currently consists of 17 novels, but each book stands alone. Michael W. and Kathleen O'Neal Gear have brought our ancestors and their cultures to life. Each of the book is a 5 Star Rating and deserves to be read and re-read. But because I'm a sentimental sap, The People of the Wolves is my favorite, simply because it was the first one I read.