I just finished reading the first book (never seen the movie), and am not sure I want to continue.
So I just have some brief questions on the next books in the series. Not really spoilers, and won’t affect my decision to read further. That said:
1) Does Ayla meet up with Broud again?
2) Does her son Durc appear in the later books?
Good god, I wasted some time I’ll never get back on the first could of those books many years ago. Ms. D., much as I love and respect her, is unable to see them for the dreck they are. Oh well, she also likes Anne Rice.
Stick with the series as she meets Long Dong Jondalar, stud-muffin of pre-history, and fucks her way across Eurasia.
I’ve read all 5 books, and supposedly there are going to be six. By the end of book 5 (Shelters of Stone) the answers to your questions are as follows:
No
No
Be warned, the first book of the series is by far the best. The second is OK. The third… well, it turns into a stoneage soap opera. I never read any further than that. Like Dinsdale said, she meets up with long-dong in book 2, and it all goes downhill from there.
IIRC, the third book involves a love triangle worthy of The Young and the Restless - the kind of thing that could be easily cleared up if the characters involved simply talked to each other once in a while rather than simply gazing longingly at each other over the stoneage firepit.
In book four, they walk a really long way, approximately from the Ukraine to France. (hence never seeing Broud again). They have a bunch o’ sex.
In book five, significantly less sex. They get married, Ayla has another child, she gets adopted into Jondalar’s tribe… and… um that’s about it.
My God, people, how could you not tell about the alien invasion?
Book 5 was not worth the 12 year wait, although after waiting so long I don’t know that anyone could have satisfied the fans. The mirror and wine are invented, there’s about forty thousand characters to keep track of, even though they only pop up for about three pages and then disappear, never to be heard from, and except for a rather childish prank from Jondalar’s ex that backfires, there’s no burning conflict like there was with Broud and Ayla. Kind of makes me wonder what the heck Auel was doing for 12 years.
One of the things that bothered me about the series is that it’s like … These few people invent SO MUCH. They domesticate animals, invent sewing, invent this and that and so on.
WAY too much stupid sex of the “glistening mound of honey” sort.
Book 2 starts with about 900 pages of walking. She could have just put “left, right, left, right” for all of those pages for the same impact.
NOt worth reading, IMO
Oh, Ayla did discover the blowjob in Book 5, but she was rude and spit, instead of swallowing:D
I wanted them to invent nukes and find Broud.
Damn.
Glad I didn’t read the rest.
Wow, that’s the last thing I would’ve guessed! It seems like such an obvious sequel opening. She goes out into the world, finds her fellow “Others” and returns to claim Durc. Then the final confrontation with Broud ensues.
Or was I just being too Hollywood?
ouldn’t they just invent bamboo splints and find Broud?
Boiling oil?
Melted lead?
I Love Lucy reruns?
Thanks. I’ve been mentally debating reading the fifth book. Yeah, isn’t the ‘I just wander around inventing things’ bit annoying? I think I read the series when i was in grade nine… eight years ago. I thought they were neat, for their descriptions of wildlife and stuff. I got rid of all my copies about four years ago.
It would be fun to have them invent hot waxing and go find Broud. I’d fogotten about him…
*** HUGE MEGA_SPOILER FOR CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR BELOW ***
.
.
.
.
It’s got prehistoric people in it.
Actually, she invented the blowjob in book 2.
I loved that book when I was 14, since (unlike the Playboys) I didn’t have to worry about my parents finding it.
Spoilers, sort of:
Ayla bangs Jondalar like eighty million times. She also bangs this other guy named Ranec or something. He has dark skin; Jondalar’s blonde. So the Other Man is black, but she goes back to the white man. Make of that what you will.
Ayla invents the following things; animal husbandry, 150 forms of medicine, sewing, the lever, the pulley, the screw, the hammer, the Philips screwdriver, the internal combustion engine, the printing press, the airplane, and the transistor. She invents agriculture, trigonometry, and chemistry and calculates the distance in light years to all the Messier objects.
Ayla also changes prehistoric society to be fairer and more democratic, teaches them that sex makes babies (This is true; Jondalar’s tribe doesn’t realize the connection until she tells them) invents currency, representative democracy and the central bank, writes the Magna Carta and The Economics of Political Behaviour and founds the United Nations. She also wins the women’s singles titles at Wimbledon (twice) and is elected President of the United States.
Did I miss anything this amazing super-woman did?
She watched mammoths boink, too.
You mean besides laughing all the way to the bank? 
(Only read the first book, don’t care about the rest. Who needs prehistoric porn when you can get the contemporary kind?)
You mean these books are full of sex?! What have I ben missing? Which one has the most sex in it?
I hate to break it to our dear Ayla, but our primate ancestors probably invented the blowjob several million years before she did. (I know bonobos do it, and I’ll bet dollars to donut-holes that chimps do it too.)