Customer Reviews

Daughter of Kura: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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.

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.

In prehistory, everything in this matriarchal hunter-gatherer society was fine -- they didn't even have a concept as to what war is -- until a guy shows up spewing crazy-talk about some kind of invisible being which controls everything and welcomes you after you die. This book conjectures an answer to the question of where religion beganl; why did people begin to believe in unseen and unknowable forces? When?

The answer posited is that a man looking for power (and the end of matriarchy) had a knack for storytelling and interpreted chance events to be the will of The Great One. It is left unclear whether or not he truly believes, but he certainly convinces others with great success. About half-way through my read, I became concerned; it was fairly clear to me that the protagonist was either going to have to kill the religion-bringer or find and accept faith, and my desire to find out which kept me turning pages.

The society of Kura and its neighbors is very well-developed and true to its own laws, and makes the book a success. It is difficult to believe that violence was completely unknown to these people, though, and that they had absolutely no spiritual beliefs of their own prior to the events of the book. But if those are the only eyebrows raised in a story in which the strictures of an imagined society plays such an important role, then the author should be proud of her accomplishment.

This is a very interesting look at what life might have been like for our distant ancestors. Of course we have no way of knowing for sure what society was like for man's distant ancestors, but this book provides a very believeable possible scenario for the society of Homo erectus. The main character is believable and I found myself interested in what would happen next to Snap as she lives in the ancient world of Africa of 100,000 years ago. Great book. Very entertaining.

I've just read and enjoyed 'Daughter of Kura'. The author took on a difficult task, that of bringing a modern reader together with a culture so recognisably near-human but so startlingly alien at the same time, and achieved it well. Sometimes the dialogue seemed a bit sophisticated for a language portrayed as involving a lot of gesture and hooting, but who knows? The more we learn about early humans and relatives like homo erectus the more advanced they appear to have been. The story was strong and the research clearly a labour of love. Snap herself, the main character, was fully rounded and believable, as were her mate Ash and the villain Bapoto. Altogether well worth reading.

More than half a million years ago on the plains of Africa a young woman named Snap lived with her family, the Kura, her mother, grandmother, siblings, aunts and cousins. It was nearly time for the men to return and for the women to select mates for the following year. This year Snap would select a mate herself for the first time. Little did she know that this bonding would be memorable for much more than that. The man that her mother had chosen for many years did not return, he had been killed during a hunt. The man that her mother chose instead was a stranger, one with many disturbing ideas, ideas that threatened the very fabric of Snap's society. The stranger, Bapoto believed that there was a Great One who watched over everyone and everything, a being who required special rituals to be performed and who spoke directly to Bapoto. Bapoto also believed that since the Great One had so honored him that he should make decisions for the Kura , not the Mother of the family had always been done. When Bapoto forced his (or the Great One's) decisions on Snap she made the dangerous decision to leave her home and live on her own. Bapoto's new ideas had far reaching implications that still impacted on her life and the lives of the Kura and their neighbors. As the story reaches it's exciting conclusion the implications of Bapoto's beliefs are resounding. Was Bapoto delusional or inspired by God?

The author, Debra Austin, has done a great deal of research into this subject, which is both a strength and a weakness to this novel. It is quite interesting to see how this long gone society functioned but Austin has confined herself to what could actually be confirmed by current research so as a result many details are lacking. There are few descriptions of appearances or attire for example. Still Austin has done a marvelous job of illustrating how harsh conditions were, how difficult day to day survival was.

Many have compared this to Jean Auel's works. Austin does not go into the amount of descriptive detail as Auel - whether that is a good or bad thing is a matter of personal choice - but in her own way she draws the reader into her story and life in the beginning.

While a little slow to get started, once I familiarized myself with this first-time author's writing style, I quickly became hooked on the story. "Snap," a young woman in the prehistory era, is very likable and easy to identify with. The little anthropological tidbits about the society and biology of these people are intriguing, but not overbearing. This is definitely a book for people interested in pre-history, anthropology, or human kind's evolution, but it's also a story about a woman finding her way in the world. Some of the details might be a little off-putting to someone who might not know what they're getting in to (like when Snap happily snatches up a grub to eat, or chews the fleas of a friend she's grooming), reminding you suddenly that these truly are a different people. Overall a good story. I hope to one day see a sequel!

Snap is a homo erectus, a human ancestor of modern homo sapiens. She is the daughter of the village head woman, and is on the brink of her first bonding, when the arrival of an outsider male with strange religious views threaten their village, Snap must decide whether she believes in this new Goddess and whether the outsider's views are fact or fiction. Paired with a trader named Ash, she finds herself slowly becoming an outsider in her own home. Will she be able to fit in, or will the villager's strange new shaman force her to leave?

I really liked this story. Especially the first ¾'s. Snap is a great and practical heroine, and I liked her mom Whistle. I enjoyed the way the matriarchal culture was divided with annual migrations for the men. I even sort of understood where the bad guy was coming from. I felt at times the females were somewhat dismissive of the men. The culture reminded me somewhat of the way Hyenas behave. Who could blame males for wanting a bit more power and control than what they have? If the women and men reversed roles, the women would be hurting.

This was an interesting book, and one I'm sure will delight those who like prehistoric fiction.

I really enjoyed most of this book. I loved the characters. I am always a big fan of fully developed characters, where you feel like you could understand why they do or did what they did and also described well enough that you have clear picture in your head of what they look like. There were definately some edge of the seat moments and some that make you want to cry. I,however, did not like the idea that the men were pretty much used. I guess I am partial to the idea that life (mostly) seems to be easier when you work as a team. They did work as a team but it was the group of women alone for most of the year. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, but my own ethical opinion. The book was over to fast. It does remind me of Clan of the Cave Bear. It would be nice if Ms. Austin would write a few more novels to follow this one up. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.