The BEST and Worst in Prehistoric Fiction
Explore the best and worst in prehistoric fiction with our curated list of top reads and disappointing picks. Discover must-read gems and books to avoid in this thrilling genre.
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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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The Year the Horses Came
by Mary Mackey
A novel that evokes the violent moment inprehistory when marauding nomads brought horses, make gods, and war to Europe.
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The Horses at the Gate
by Mary Mackey
As nomad invaders ride south to attack the peaceful, goddess-worshipping people of Shara, the priestess Marrah is initiated into the cult of the Dark Mother. Armed with powerful magic, she and her nomad lover, Stavan, must fight for the survival of their children and their people. Volume two of The Earthsong Trilogy. "A heart-pounding evocation whose lessons lie in the hearts of the characters." -Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul. "Literary grace and powerful storytelling." -Theodore Roszak
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The Fires of Spring
by Mary Mackey
In prehistoric Europe, Keru, the son of the Queen of Shara, has been kidnapped by a nomadic diviner wishing to turn him against his own people. A band of warriors led by Keru'; s sister Luma and her best friend Keshna--who is passionately in love with Keru--set out to find him before his soul is completely corrupted by the nomads.
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Call Down the Stars
by Sue Harrison
Two storytellers, the quick-witted female Qumalix and the silver-tongued man Yikaas, vie to entrance their tribe with extraordinary and magical legends that detail the origins and adventures of their people.
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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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She who Remembers
by Linda Lay Shuler
"Kwini. A beautiful woman born in the American southwest long before Columbus ... whose beautiful blue eyes marked her as a witch and set her apart from the Indian tribe that raised her ..." Back Cover.
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Voice of the Eagle
by Linda Lay Shuler
In the sequel to She Who Remembers, Kwani returns to the Cicuye village as the wife of Tolonqua, a hunting chief in the 13th century.
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The Horsemasters
by Joan Wolf
A saga of the paleolithic Kindred people focuses on Ronan, an outcast from his tribe, as he struggles against a group of invading northerners.
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The Reindeer Hunters
by Joan Wolf
When a fierce band of British tribes arrives in the Pyrenees mountains, the native tribes, faced with the loss of their livelihood, unite to fight the newcomers for their very survival. This is the third novel in a prehistoric trilogy.
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Children of the Ice
by Charlotte Prentiss
At the end of the Ice Age, young Laena embarks on a great journey across a continent. In a world dominated by mammoths, ruled by nature, and enforced by primitive tribes, she must rely on her incredible courage and intelligence to endure. Destined to become the Chosen One, this is Laena's story.
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Sun Priestess
by Judith Redman Robbins
She was a passionate priestess in the Anasazi tribe with a mysterious past and the gift of prophecy. She was called Coyote Woman, and was prepared to make every sacrifice for her people. The Majestic Mayan-Toltec Eagle warrior was determined to seduce the young priestess into his arms and onto his land until she sensed a calling by the people of her tribe and she fled to answer their needs as Sun Priestess and healer. When their endangered future seemed to be collapsing in their hands, she helps them. But when she is the source of another battle - between the warrior and a priest of her own tribe - her powers as Sun Priestess bring to her a different fate.
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The Mammoth Stone
by Margaret Allan
Born to the People of the Mammoth, Maya, believed to be an evil spirit by her people because of her mismatched eyes, journeys with the mate she has chosen across the plains on an adventure of beauty and danger.
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Keeper of the Stone
by Margaret Allan
A beautiful outcast woman in a passionate epic of prehistoric America--the sequel to The Mammoth Stone. The legend of the powers of the mammoth stone continues with the torrid ostracizing of Maya, the Shaman and keeper of the stone. An intensely dramatic and highly erotic story set in the prehistoric American Southwest.
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The Last Mammoth
by Margaret Allan
A descendant of the Great Maya sets off on a journey to fulfill a holy prophecy. This expedition sends him to unknown worlds to recover the Mammoth Stone, an object that holds the key to humanity's salvation. From the author of The Mammoth Stone and Keeper of the Stone comes the compelling final novel in the successful Mammoth trilogy.
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Spirits Walking Woman
by Margaret Allan
Set thousands of years ago in the ancient Olmec culture of what is now Mexico, this is the epic tale of Spirits Walking Woman, who is worshipped by her people and possessed of the gift of divine prophecy. Now, as the mate of a powerful warrior king, she is expected to take her place in the vast empire he rules with an iron fist. But another destiny calls to her that will take her far from the royal court and the dangerous plotting of her blood sister- one that will draw her to a proud, noble stranger who offers a passion as powerful as it is forbidden.
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Sisters of the Black Moon
by F. J. Pesando
After their tribe is annihilated by invading warriors at the end of the Ice Age, the beautiful Tidelander sisters, Morning Land and White Bird, use their strength, skill, and spirit to survive. Original.
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Daughter of the Sky
by Amanda Cockrell
Deer Shadow, a young tribal member who is believed to possess mystical powers, pursues a forbidden love with a handsome, exiled warrior who bears maize seeds but whom the Yellow Grass People fear is a threat to their ancient ways. Original.
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Touches the Stars
by Lynn Armistead McKee
Feared by her own people as a power of darkness and an omen of troubled times, shaman's daughter Mi-sa battles hatred and hardship and uses her magical gifts to forge her own destiny of love. Original.
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Walks in Stardust
by Lynn Armistead McKee
From the national bestselling author of Keeper of Dreams comes the story of a woman wandering a tropical forest. Unable to remember her past, Cimmera's only link to her tribe is a mysterious knife. With her heroic rescuer Cherok, Cimmera uncovers the key to her identity--and her destiny--in this novel of unbreakable spirit.
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Keeper of Dreams
by Lynn Armistead McKee
Stranded by a storm and separated from her escort by an enemy attack, the beautiful shaman Mi-sa wanders through the Everglades until she finds a clan whose leader, Cota, has appeared often in her dreams. Original.
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Daughter of the Fifth Moon
by Lynn Armistead McKee
Centuries ago in what is now the Caribbean, a young woman loses all she loves when her peaceful seaside village is attacked by savages. Now Nyna is surrounded by strange people who will never accept her. Frightened and weak, she knows that Joog is her only true friend. And his love is the only thing that can save her.