Igenlode Wordsmith

Two contrasting books that I picked off the shelves in passing because I recognised the authors' names:

1. "The Land of Painted Caves", Jean Auel: I had no idea that the last in this series had finally come out - it's been a long time since 1981 and the success of "Clan of the Cave Bear"... Sadly, like the "Harry Potter" books and the Pern novels, it has been a story of diminishing returns in a series that largely depended on describing the minutiae of everyday life in another world. The previous volume, "Shelters of Stone", was a big disappointment even after its predecessor, which failed to live up to the earlier books -- possibly a blessing in disguise as I wasn't expecting too much from this one in consequence.

   It really is pretty bad. ( Too long, too slow )

   Reviews on Amazon more or less sum it up: it's a tired book that fails to tie up the myriad loose ends of the series, and is hard work to get through, with far too much repetition not only from earlier books but between chapters. I actually found myself sympathising with the 'villains' (well, nothing new there?) -- but their stories too are left unfinished. It's a novel that badly needed an editor at a much earlier stage of writing, both to excise vast hunks and to point out the strands that are left dangling; all in all, it feels like a giant rehash of previous work with the characters reduced to two dimensions.

2. (I was going to write in contrast about my happy experience with Mary Renault's "The Friendly Young Ladies", but since the browser subsequently crashed and lost everything I had written, I'm afraid my effusions will have to go as read: suffice it to say that this is technically a very much better book despite being an apprentice work, and a much easier read!)