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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Niche literature, July 9, 2009
This review is from: Daughter of Kura: A Novel (Hardcover)
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Mother of Kura / 978-1-439-11266-3
According to the dust jacket for "Daughter of Kura", author Debra Austin is an amateur writer with an avid interest in paleontology. As a result, "Daughter of Kura" is a mix of interesting paleontological ideas and factoids, a rather basic and thin-worn plot, and poor overall characterizations. As such, although this is a decent first attempt at a novel, I think the bulk of the book's happy readers will be interested due to the niche appeal of pre-history literature.
A crippling factor in the poor character development is that author Austin is deeply concerned about writing only what we 'know' about these pre-historical races. In the epilogue, for instance, she explains that she refrained from giving the characters in the book a spoken language because we don't yet know whether they had the requisite voice boxes needed in order to speak and she didn't want the novel to be rendered inaccurate due to future discoveries. This timid "but I might be wrong later" approach is a terrible way to write a novel and means that after the basic "must have" characterizations are filled in, we are given nothing else about the characters. There are literally *no* physical descriptions about any of the characters in this book except that the head-woman is old, the villain has a shaved head, and the men have varying degrees of erections when they meet with the main character (male erections are featured prominently in whether or not she feels she can trust a man).
As a general rule of thumb, when a detail might be wrong, Austin therefore gives us none. After reading this 300+ page novel, I cannot tell you whether the characters wear clothes for either warmth or decoration, whether they bathe for either sanitation or vanity, whether or not they (or others in the area) have attempted to domesticate animals or tried to create their own groves of edible plants. I can't tell you whether the characters have purely decorative items like statues or 'mirrors' made from, I don't know, reflective turtle shells or something. I can't tell you if they wear beads or jewelry or have any kind of ornaments to indicate status. I can't even say with authority how much body hair they have, although it's suggested that they are hairier than us. How much hairier? Austin doesn't know, so neither do we. The practical upshot of this is that it is next to impossible to tell all the characters apart when the only thing we know about them is their name. Is 'Whistle' the mother of 'Snap', or was it 'Warble'? Was 'Hum' the older aunt or was that 'Bubble'? What is the gender of 'Rustle' or was it 'Ripple' or am I thinking of 'Rumble'? This complete lack of characterization means that each character is forgotten as rapidly as the turn of a page.
The plot, unfortunately, is as two-dimensional as the characters. The villain shows up early and might as well be twirling a mustache for all the subtlety he presents. (Snap knows he is evil because he doesn't have an erection when he first meets her, unlike all the other men.) After about 100+ pages of hemming and hawing, he pretty much takes over the village by proclaiming that a god exists (the Kurans have been atheists up to this point) and that this god sends orders directly to him and him alone. Also, people who stand in his way to power have a tendency to fall off of cliffs while hunting alone with him. I can't tell if the fact that no one finds this suspicious except the main character is because Austin is making the old mistake that "everyone must be dumb in order to facilitate the plot" or a new mistake along the lines of "everyone must be dumb because this is a pre-historical society".
The "religion and men are bad, atheism and women are good" mentality drives most of the plot, and I would have liked it if Austin had maybe taken a moment to point out that the underlying issue isn't necessarily religion, per se, but rather an egotistical, power-tripping murderer who is using religion as a club to consolidate power, but that distinction is never made. I find it strange and odd that a society that is surprisingly rigid and structured under the circumstances (for example, Whistle's mother is absolutely furious when Whistle breaks the rules and doesn't pick a mate at the yearly Bonding ceremony because her usual mate is a few days late to return in a world without clocks or GPS devices) would suddenly turn a complete about-face and change every one of their customs and practices on the say so of a complete stranger. I find it irksome that no one notices that people have a tendency to accidentally die when they are alone with the villain, as if they are all such innocent children of nature that the concept of murder is completely foreign to them. For that matter, it seems particularly odd that none of them have ever heard of religion or gods until the stranger shows up (where are the rudimentary thunder-gods and volcano-gods?) and it is doubly odd that the first god they come up with feels suspiciously close to a personal Christian god, given that they are always asking for close personal favors from this 'Great One'. I'm not an avid paleontological enthusiast, but I'm pretty sure that religion generally doesn't usually evolve from "atheism" to "loving spirit who loves you" in one generational leap.
If you're an avid reader of pre-history fiction, this book will probably grab your attention. I'm certainly willing to believe that it's one of the better ones in a niche market like this - the book has been carefully written and edited, and the plot and characters are passable if not stellar. Though I felt the plot was very predictable and the characters frustratingly dense, I didn't hate reading the book, but I probably won't read it again either. Check it out at a library first, would be my recommendation.
NOTE: This review is based on a free Advance Review Copy of this book provided through Amazon Vine.
~ Ana Mardoll
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I couldn't put it down., October 30, 2009
This review is from: Daughter of Kura: A Novel (Hardcover)
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First, I'll say that I loved the _Clan of the Cave Bear_ series. Austin's novel starts out with the characters signing to each other, and I thought "Oh, no. It's just going to be a copy-cat." Boy, was I wrong! Comparing _Clan of the Cave Bear_ to _Daughter of Kura_ is like comparing Alaska to Hawaii. They both have stunning vistas, in completely different ways.
This book is set much earlier than the Clan books, going back to the days of homo erectus. Yes, it's a female protagonist who is banished from her clan, just like the C of CB books, but the circumstances and then experiences after are absolutely, completely different. I lost a fair amount of sleep because I just could not put the book down. These characters became so real to me, and the landscape so vivid in my mind.
I loved how Austin explored the idea of ancient religions, and how they may have come about. The issues that arise are relevant, even informative, to today's society. Austin's writing is direct, immediate, and crystal clear. This book is a fascinating journey into one author's speculation, based on facts, about those who lived so long ago. A joy to read. I highly recommend it.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A well-written story in an early human setting, August 29, 2009
This review is from: Daughter of Kura: A Novel (Hardcover)
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I very much enjoyed this book. I had wondered what a story about Homo erectus might be like, and I think Debra Austin has done a creditable job of recreating an environment and a society that are at least plausible. We can never know all the details of how our Homo erectus ancestors lived. We do, though, know something of their technology and we can make reasonable deductions about how their societies could have been organized based on modern observations of pre-technological societies and other sources.
The story begins with a sketch of the ordinary life of a H. erectus village as seen through the eyes of Snap, a girl who has just become a woman. The story begins just before the annual autumn bonding ritual, in which females select the males who will be their winter mates. The society is matriarchal. The women remain together throughout the year, while men head off in the spring to hunt and trade. The men go individually or in small groups. Women migrate within a small area around their home village, but in a group, as they seek fruits and vegetables both for immediate consumption and to store for the winter. Mating is village-exogamous, that is, men may not mate with women of the village in which they were born. They may return to the same village year after year to find a mate, or they may go to a different village each year. The author portrays a strong tendency for men to return to the same village in order to be chosen by a woman they have been fond of in previous years.
Everything is proceeding normally until a new man, Bapoto, appears in Kura, Snap's home village. He winds up being selected by Snap's mother, Whistle, the second-highest ranking woman after Chirp, her mother, who is the Mother of the village. Bapoto acquires the high social status of his mate and proceeds to become very bossy and to introduce the concept of a Great Spirit who somehow oversees human affairs. This concept is quite new to everyone in Kura and only a few people accept it at first. Chirp, the Mother, firmly rejects it, as does her granddaughter Snap. Bapoto not only wants to introduce religion, but also a partially patriarchal social structure. This is met with deep suspicion by almost everyone. The old ways have served people well since time immemorial, and changing them is only likely to cause trouble.
Another new man also shows up in Kura. He is Ash, a young man who, like Snap, is participating in the bonding ritual for the first time. Ash and Snap hit it off well and Snap chooses him as her mate for the winter.
It turns out that Bapoto's attempted innovations do cause a lot of trouble. Snap is forced to flee from Kura after Bapoto attempts to force an unwanted permanent mate on her. Snap winds up founding a new village called Asili. Various adventures and misadventures ensue. Among other things, we learn that Kura is not the first village in which Bapoto has wrought havoc with his attempted social reforms. We learn that it is not even clear whether he believes in the Great Spirit. Mostly he uses her as a tool to manipulate those whom he convinces to believe her.
Many little details of the lives of Homo erectus ring true. My own experience living among rural Mayan peasants in Guatemala has allowed me to see how deeply conservative people in a pre-technological society are. This aspect of H. erectus society is thoroughly believable. Also, Debra Austin relates sudden, unexpected death from a variety of causes, including lions hunting, scorpions stinging, and internal injuries. Modern industrialized people are so accustomed to the many defenses we have built up against the natural world that it is easy for us to forget that most people throughout history have not enjoyed such benefits. Another feature Austin introduces is the idea that for H. erectus, eating raw meat was still quite feasible, although cooking is preferred. H. erectus was the first hominid species to learn to use fire, and before they learned to do this, any meat they ate would of course have been raw. Thus, the idea that this practice persisted, particularly for men out on hunting and trading trips in the summer, is quite reasonable.
All in all, Debra Austin has written an interesting story in a framework that is at least partially supported by archeological evidence and which includes social elements that, for the most part, seem not unreasonable. If you are interested in the way our more remote ancestors may have lived, by all means give this book a read. I hope this does not turn out to be the last book Debra Austin writes with this setting.
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