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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Representations of women are ridiculously offensive. Especially the justification of marital rape. Wouldn't recommend to anyone.
no, usage of words not in existence until the 1700's got me
An almost meditative experience. The plot and characters weren't so intense that I had to pay great detail to them to keep it straight. So mostly I just rather absorbed the atmosphere, the setting. As always Robinson is an amazing world builder, whether a space ship or the stone age. His text is lyrical and evocative.
This is my fourth book by Kim Stanley Robinson. I guess they can't all be winners. He's capable of so much more; I gave the last book of his I read, "The Years of Rice and Salt," 5 stars.
Creepy sexual metaphors, sexual thoughts/imaginings and sexual habits on the page. How does this help the book? How is this appropriate for prehistoric man? Super boring, slow paced description of starting a fire for 12 pages is pretty typical of the lack of pacing. Modern speech patterns with random made up words do not equal prehistoric.
"Clan of the Cave Bear" has many of the same elements but it is, in every way, a superior book. Go read that instead. I am not dragging myself through this. DNF.
Creepy sexual metaphors, sexual thoughts/imaginings and sexual habits on the page. How does this help the book? How is this appropriate for prehistoric man? Super boring, slow paced description of starting a fire for 12 pages is pretty typical of the lack of pacing. Modern speech patterns with random made up words do not equal prehistoric.
"Clan of the Cave Bear" has many of the same elements but it is, in every way, a superior book. Go read that instead. I am not dragging myself through this. DNF.
Robinson is a master world-builder. He is especially good at it when he has real facts to work with. In Shaman he puts us inside the Ice Age world of the cave painters. The plot is a straightforward initiation story. Loon is an engaging protagonist. One cannot help but be fascinated by the drama of Loon's struggle and by his inner experience of the world he lives in. This book does what good science fiction does. It puts us in an alien world and makes it seem familiar.
When I first read this book I wasn't ready for it, in the sense that I was expecting science fiction or even fantasy but not a story so far back in our pre-history. No space travel, no climate change, only the most rudimentary technology.
This time I was looking for good writing and a good story. Kim Stanley Robinson delivers on both counts. Great characters with real relationships. I'm glad I went back to reread Shaman. If you liked Clan of the Cave Bear, you will love this.
This time I was looking for good writing and a good story. Kim Stanley Robinson delivers on both counts. Great characters with real relationships. I'm glad I went back to reread Shaman. If you liked Clan of the Cave Bear, you will love this.
Curious book, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I love Robinson's Mars Trilogy but every time I've dipped into anything else he's written it hasn't worked for me. Shaman seems the furthest from the hard sci-fi I'd prefer, it's a straight up Clan of the Cave Bear kind of pre-civilization story. (Or possibly post-apocalyptic, although there's no tokens of that). But something about the personification of the main character worked well for me. It's also a fun coming of age / heroic journey narrative, particularly the twist where our hero pretty much only ever survives because of the help of the people around him. All in all a pretty solid book. I'd be glad to read a sequel.
Hard to call this book historical fiction, since it's really pre-historic, but it is fascinating. Seems like it would be a good book for pre-teen and teen boys. Certainly not the type of book I usually read, but I really liked it.