Prehistoric Fiction Novels
Dive into the best prehistoric fiction novels! Explore captivating stories set in ancient times, featuring early humans, dinosaurs, and survival adventures. Discover top-rated books that bring the distant past to life.
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The Clan of the Cave Bear
by Jean M. Auel
This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Through Jean M. Auel’s magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly—she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza’s way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.
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The Valley of Horses
by Jean M. Auel
This unforgettable odyssey into the distant past carries us back to the awesome mysteries of the exotic, primeval world of The Clan of the Cave Bear, and to Ayla, now grown into a beautiful and courageous young woman. Cruelly cast out by the new leader of the ancient Clan that adopted her as a child, Ayla leaves those she loves behind and travels alone through a stark, open land filled with dangerous animals but few people, searching for the Others, tall and fair like herself. The short summer gives her little time to look, and when she finds a sheltered valley with a herd of hardy steppe horses, she decides to stay and prepare for the long glacial winter ahead. Living with the Clan has taught Ayla many skills but not real hunting. She finally knows she can survive when she traps a horse, which gives her meat and a warm pelt for the winter, but fate has bestowed a greater gift, an orphaned foal with whom she develops a unique kinship. One winter extends to more; she discovers a way to make fire more quickly and a wounded cave lion cub joins her unusual family, but her beloved animals don’t fulfill her restless need for human companionship. Then she hears the sound of a man screaming in pain. She saves tall, handsome Jondalar, who brings her a language to speak and an awakening of love and desire, but Ayla is torn between her fear of leaving her valley and her hope of living with her own kind.
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The Mammoth Hunters
by Jean M. Auel
Once again Jean M. Auel opens the door of a time long past to reveal an age of wonder and danger at the dawn of the modern human race. With all the consummate storytelling artistry and vivid authenticity she brought to The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequel, The Valley of Horses, Jean M. Auel continues the breathtaking epic journey of the woman called Ayla. Riding Whinney with Jondalar, the man she loves, and followed by the mare’s colt, Ayla ventures into the land of the Mamutoi--The Mammoth Hunters. She has finally found the Others she has been seeking. Though Ayla must learn their different customs and language, she is adopted because of her remarkable hunting ability, singular healing skills, and uncanny fire-making technique. Bringing back the single pup of a lone wolf she has killed, Ayla shows the way she tames animals. She finds women friends and painful memories of the Clan she left behind, and meets Ranec, the dark-skinned, magnetic master carver of ivory, whom she cannot refuse--inciting Jondalar to a fierce jealousy that he tries to control by avoiding her. Unfamiliar with the ways of the Others, Ayla misunderstands, and thinking Jondalar no longer loves her, she turns more to Ranec. Throughout the icy winter the tension mounts, but warming weather will bring the great mammoth hunt and the mating rituals of the Summer Meeting, when Ayla must choose to remain with Ranec and the Mamutoi, or to follow Jondalar on a long journey into an unknown future.
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The Shelters of Stone
by Jean M. Auel
The Shelters of Stone opens as Ayla and Jondalar, along with their animal friends, Wolf, Whinney, and Racer, complete their epic journey across Europe and are greeted by Jondalar’s people: the Zelandonii. The people of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii fascinate Ayla. Their clothes, customs, artifacts, even their homes—formed in great cliffs of vertical limestone—are a source of wonder to her. And in the woman Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of the Ninth Cave (and the one who initiated Jondalar into the Gift of Pleasure), she meets a fellow healer with whom to share her knowledge and skills. But as Ayla and Jondalar prepare for the formal mating at the Summer Meeting, there are difficulties. Not all the Zelandonii are welcoming. Some fear Ayla’s unfamiliar ways and abhor her relationship with those they call flatheads and she calls Clan. Some even oppose her mating with Jondalar, and make their displeasure known. Ayla has to call on all her skills, intelligence, knowledge, and instincts to find her way in this complicated society, to prepare for the birth of her child, and to decide whether she will accept new challenges and play a significant role in the destiny of the Zelandonii. Jean Auel is at her very best in this superbly textured creation of a prehistoric society. The Shelters of Stone is a sweeping story of love and danger, with all the wonderful detail—based on meticulous research— that makes her novels unique. It is a triumphant continuation of the Earth’s Children® saga that began with The Clan of the Cave Bear. And it includes an amazing rhythmic poem that describes the birth of Earth’s Children and plays its own role in the narrative of The Shelters of Stone.
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Beyond the Sea of Ice
by William Sarabande
Stunningly visual, extraordinarily detailed, powerfully dramatic, here is the first volume of a remarkable new series . . . The First Americans. When humans first walked the world, when nature ruled the earth and sky, a proud tribe is threatened by a series of natural disasters. A bold young hunter named Torka, who lost his wife and child to a killer mammoth, leads the survivors over the glacial tundra on a desperate eastward odyssey to the save their clan. Through attacks of savage animals and encounters with strangers not unlike themselves, they must brave the hardships of a foreign landscape and learn to live in an exotic new world of mystery and danger. They must travel toward the land where the sun rises for a new day for their clan—and an awesome future for the American.
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Corridor of Storms
by William Sarabande
Panoramic, authentic, explosively dramatic—this is the breathtaking new series The First Americans, which began with Book I, Beyond The Sea Of Ice. Now the heroic great hunter Torka, his woman Lonit, and his adopted son Karana emerge from a land forbidden to all men, a land where mountains walk and spirits speak. Across the fierce glacial tundra Torka leads his people—survivors of a horrifying natural disaster—to a winter camp where many bands gather to hunt the great mammoth. There he and his followers encounter an evil more dangerous than the wild lands—the magic man called Navahlk, who vows cruel destruction of the bold hunter Torka. To survive they must draw upon the courage of one brave boy who will grow to manhood and see with his mind’s eye where the sun’s light has led them—to the dawn of man on the American continent.
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Forbidden Land
by William Sarabande
The spellbinding epic adventure of a time when mankind took its first steps and the icy wilds claimed the earth. Breathtaking, vivid, unforgettable—here is the third volume of the panoramic new series The First Americans which began with Beyond The Sea Of Ice and continued with Corridor Of Storms. In this untamed prehistoric time, the great hunter Torka has led a group of survivors across a frozen sea. Now he is their proud headman, a leader who defies the old ways. For this, the will of the tribe turns against him—and he must act quickly to save his children from those who would see them killed. Together with his family and a small band of faithful followers, Torka and his wife Lonit strike out a dangerous journey to an unknown land feared by all men . . . the forbidden land. With supreme courage they will struggle against its savagery, its strange creatures and ancient mystical beliefs to build a future worthy of a noble people . . . worthy of Americans.
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Walkers of the Wind
by William Sarabande
A breathtaking epic of humanity’s first courageous struggles . . . for survival Mesmerizing, dramatic, unsurpasses in scope and suthenticity, this is the fourth exciting volume of the magnificent new series THE FIRST AMERICANS, which began with Beyond the Sea of Ice and continued with Corridor of Storms and Forbidden Land. Following the trek of the woolly mammoth, the great hunter Torka leads a brave band of survivors across the Arctic tundra. But his leadership is threatened from within by a deadly rivalry between the handsome twins Umak and Manaravak for the love of a beautiful, sensual girl, and from without by a mysterious creature called the wanawut, whose howling awakens primitive and terrifying fears. Now, as a firestorm races across the frost-brittle land, Torka and his faithful woman, Lonit, must begin a dangerous odyssey to the home of the wind—a dark and forbidding region from which no human has ever returned.
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The Sacred Stones
by William Sarabande
Courageous, passionate men and women battle for survival of their clans—in the shadow of the great mammoth who speaks with thunder . . . As the massive glaciers fade and the wide seas rise, the warm grasslands of the Americas bring prosperity to the gentle People of the Red World, followers of the Great Ghost Spirit, the White Mammoth. But farther north, where the harsh dry winds howl, another nation, the People of the Watching Star, are enmeshed with legends of an evil shaman and the man-eating monster called the wanawut. Relentlessly they have hunted the mammoth to near extinction. Now, as raiders and ravagers they are coming south to invade the villages of the People of the Red World. The only ones who can prevent the murder of innocents and the final slaughter of the mammoth are a young boy shaman to whom the animals speak, a man whose strength equals his conviction, and a woman who hopes that, beyond violence and cruelty, humankind will recognize a stronger power—the force of love.
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Thunder in the Sky
by William Sarabande
The grassy Great Plains shake with thunder and deadly tornadoes whirl down from storm clouds as the First Americans begin the battle the will determine which peoples--the savage or the gentle--will shape the future or humankind. On one side is the young shaman Cha-kwena, who has led his tiny band along the trail made by a magnificent white mammoth, the totem he believes will lead the People to a land of safety and abundance. But they are pursued by enemies, a race of vicious and relentless hunters who want to steal Cha-kwena's magic, kill his sacred mammoth, and possess his passionate woman.
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The Edge of the World
by William Sarabande
From William Sarabande, whose brilliant re-creation of the prehistoric world of the First American has thrilled readers everywhere, comes a major new novel that awakens us to the true spirit of our ancestors. Following their destiny into an unknown land took more than courage--it demanded a belief in a future they would never see, a certainty that braving a path no human had ever taken was their only choice. Now, in a time of mystery and magic, when all they had protected the People from their enemies for the eons of prehistory seemed to be vanishing along with the animals they once hunted, the young shaman Cha-kwena must break a terrifying taboo, estranging him from his woman and his tribe. Driven by a vision, he vows to follow the forbidden trail of the mammoth to where the fate of his kind will be known: extinction or the possibility of a land where all their dreams may become real.
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Shadow of the Watching Star
by William Sarabande
Ravaged by tribal fighting, cursed by their enemies, abandoned by their sacred spirits, the People wander, hungry and desperate, across a frozen and forbidding land. The leader who guided them, the vision that inspired them, the magic that moved them--all have vanished from their midst. Far away, across a sea of ice, alone and desolate, the young shaman Cha-kwena must make a fateful choice. While he yearns to return to his loved ones, he is sworn to protect the sacred herd of mammoth, the last of their kind. The path he now takes will determine the future of his race: whether they will perish in savage conflict or flourish in a new age of bounty and hope.
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Face of the Rising Sun
by William Sarabande
A warmer sun fills the sky as the great Ice Age is ending and a new and savage epoch descends upon the land. Warakan, son of war chiefs and spirit masters, wanders alone in the primeval forest, searching for the mysterious great white mammoth and the totemic power it can give him. He escaped into the wilderness as a boy and has now become a man, torn between his yearning for peace and companionship--and his desire for blood and vengeance. Under the shadowing wings of a golden eagle he is about to fulfill his destiny.
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Time Beyond Beginning
by William Sarabande
Dark forces are at work within the realms of earth and sky, and a savage new dance of life and death is about to begin....the internationally acclaimed saga of the First Americans continues in this long-awaited novel from bestseller William Sarabande. As the Ice Age draws to a close, the men and women living on the northeast coast of the North American continent struggle to adapt to their rapidly changing environment. Ancient cultures clash as warriors battle for vital hunting territories. When a mammoth is seen in a forest, the shaman, who is also brother to the headman, conjures wondrous and terrifying visions for his imperiled band as he goads them to hunt a beast that may be the last of its kind. Although an ancient legend promises death for the People on the day that the last mammoth dies, the shaman counters with a legendary promise of his own--that those who dare hunt, kill, and consume the flesh of the mammoth will be made invincible in battle. The hunt is successful but the headman is killed--and the shaman comes to power and takes possession of his brother's woman and daughter. Although he has no suspicion of his uncle's treachery, the eldest son of the former headman must live with the fear of the charging mammoth that caused him to feign injury rather than risk his own life to save his father's. Now, as the last mammoth walks the land, a young warrior who has lost nearly everything to his enemies must learn new ways, or die in a world where men, women, and even children dare not be less than heroes.
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Spirit Moon
by William Sarabande
The First Americans Saga continues... As the retreating ice age scars the land, old rivalries between the survivors threaten the first Americans. As the Age of Ice ends, the People must follow a new path for survival. Led by their powerful headman Tôrnârssuk, they begin a treacherous journey to the Great River of the White Whales, where they hope to hunt, trade, and reunite with friendly tribes. But a young shaman has foreseen a sign of doom. Tôrnârssuk is filled with grave doubts. A fierce wildfire, a blood-red moon, and rumors of a great white mammoth could foretell the death of the People. Tôrnârssuk also faces treachery from both within and without his clan. There are those who believe he has lost his ability as headman. Even as he leads his people through danger, an enemy is waiting for him with a plan that could break not only Tôrnârssuk but the uneasy truce that exists between the northern Inuits and the forest dwellers. Soon clan could turn against clan, and brother against brother, in the bitterest struggle for survival. Bestselling author William Sarabande has once again captured the fierce and savage splendor of a prehistoric continent--and at the same time painted a vivid and unforgettable portrait of our first American ancestors in a bold and magnificent novel filled with adventure, treachery, discovery, and courage.
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Wolves of the Dawn
by William Sarabande
As the Stone Age slowly gives way to the age of Bronze, a proud warrior clan faces the challenge of a new life in an alien land. Led by the great chieftain Fomor, once called the Wolf of the Western Tribes, the clan MacLir knows the limits of stone against the strange new weapons of their sworn enemy, Nemed MacAgnomian. And so the people of the Ax have settles in the fens of Albion, exchanging flint weapons for farm implements, trading the ways of the warrior for the path of peace. But prosperity has not followed on the heels of their decision, and many in the clan urge their lord to become the Wolf once more . . . or threaten to rise up against him. It is Fomor’s firstborn son, Balor, headstrong, and defiant, who receives the sign of the gods that the time of the Wolf is at hand—as the cruel Nemed and his raiders sail toward Albion's shores to wipe the clan MacLir from the face of the earth. And it is Balor who will take up the forbidden sword Retaliator to avenge the past . . . .
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People of the Sea
by W. Michael Gear
The story of life and love, death and adventure in North America eleven thousand years ago.
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People of the Silence
by Kathleen O'Neal Gear
In A.D. 1150, the Great Sun Chief of the Anasazi people learns that his wife has given birth to the child of another man, and now that daughter, Cornsilk, with the help of a young man named Poor Singer, must flee the wrath of the Great Sun Chief.
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People of the Masks
by Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Rumbler, a young Iroquois boy, is considered to be a power child who can change the fate of his tribe forever, and when he is captured by Jumping Badger, he must find a way to escape and save his village from the evil warrior.
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People of the Owl
by Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Four thousand years ago, a young boy is thrust into manhood long before he is ready after his heroic brother is killed and his become the leader of America's first city.
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People of the Raven
by Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Rain Bear, the leader of Raven People, must decide what to do when encountered with environmental changes and a beautiful stranger.
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People of the Moon
by W. Michael Gear
A tale inspired by the Native American builders of the famous Chimney Rock finds reluctant young Ripple dispatched by the goddess of winter on a perilous quest to destroy the hated Chacoan conquerors of the First Moon People.
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Song of the Axe
by John R. Dann
In the tradition of Jean Auel's famous Clan of the Cave Bear, Song of the Axe is about the rich panorama of prehistoric life spread out on an epic canvas, and the origin of myth in historical events. Song of the Axe is the story of two lovers, Agon and Eena, and their family, who lived 30,000 years ago. Agon is a great warrior, a master of the deadly axe song, the music of his weapon. Eena, beloved of Mother Earth, can fight like a man and cast a spear better than anyone. They and their tribe live by the banks of a huge, glacier-fed river at a time near the end of an Ice Age, when fearsome invaders threaten their lives.