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Not among my very favorite KSR novels, but fun from the jump and by the end had moved me in unanticipated ways. I knew going in that this would be a story of early humans in what is now Europe, and the cover image of a lone figure in desolate ice, and the title Shaman, had me envisioning a serious epic. But while it can be serious and epic, it was also far more pleasant and off-beat than I expected. The early human societies Robinson describes are different than our own in so many ways, but he also makes them so recognizably human: prone to petty squabbles, occasionally vulgar, and especially in our young male protagonist, desperately horny.
Outside of a couple genuinely thrilling scenes, most of the book is leisurely paced, with many descriptions of how these people must have lived: how they hunted and stored food, made fire, prepared for the seasons, told stories and painted caves. I found this mostly fascinating, but if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea you may find this book hard to get through. Particularly intriguing was the relation between groups of humans (“packs”) as well as the “old ones” (who the reader would know to be Neanderthals) who share their landscape. And I’ve come to look forward to the scenes in many KSR books of extreme physical exertion; he writes them well, and this had a couple.
Outside of a couple genuinely thrilling scenes, most of the book is leisurely paced, with many descriptions of how these people must have lived: how they hunted and stored food, made fire, prepared for the seasons, told stories and painted caves. I found this mostly fascinating, but if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea you may find this book hard to get through. Particularly intriguing was the relation between groups of humans (“packs”) as well as the “old ones” (who the reader would know to be Neanderthals) who share their landscape. And I’ve come to look forward to the scenes in many KSR books of extreme physical exertion; he writes them well, and this had a couple.