Customer Reviews

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES: A Novel

5 star:		(112)
4 star:		(71)
3 star:		(117)
2 star:		(232)
1 star:		(620)

 

 

I am almost 50 years old, and I was in high school when the first Earth's Children book (Clan of the Cave Bear) came out. I LOVED it. I was so excited for the second book (Valley of the Horses)which came out while I was in college... and it was even better. One of my favorite books ever. The third book (Mammoth Hunters) came out a few years later and I did love it... though I thought the whole love triangle was really contrived. 5 long years went by til we got the 4th installment (Plains of Passage), I was going nuts waiting for it... and I was disappointed. It was very, very repetitive, and over-long, and detailed to the point of tedium. But there was still a plot, and some conflict inherent in a long journey, and some exciting moments. I didn't hate it. TWELVE years went by til book 5 (Shelters of Stone), and it was so boring that I never re-read it (I have re-read the first 3 probably a dozen times in the past 30 years)and honestly I barely remember what happened. So I was thrilled to see this 6th and final book, but I was also worried.

Sadly, I was right to be worried. This is so disappointing. I barely care about Ayla or Jondalar anymore. I feel like Jean Auel painted herself into a corner by making both of them so perfect and so good at everything and so in love.... there's no conflict unless it's forced and contrived. 'Cave Bear' had all the conflict of the Cro-Magnon girl living with the Neanderthal clan... very organic conflict. 'Horses' had the fabulous juxtaposition of the two difficult scary journeys and then Ayla and Jondalar meeting and discovering each other. Again, very organic. 'Mammoth' had some natural conflict - Ayla meeting her first group of people and admitting her background, but some forced conflict (love triangle) thrown in. It wasn't quite as good of a book. 'Passages' was the same way... there was some natural conflict (the tribe of women, meeting the flatheads, the glacier), but not really enough... so too much time was devoted to boring details ad repetitive pleasures. As the protagonists' lives become more perfect, the books become more boring. And 'Painted Caves' is boring. It took me weeks to get through it (I remember reading 'Horses' in 2 days!). Argh... this series has just been so drawn out....there's no story any more. Nothing to care about. No-one to fear for or root for. It's plotless and character-less and just empty and dry. It makes me sad.

It seems like Jean Auel has no idea about 'what happens next' or how to keep the story urgent, or exciting, or even just interesting. (Why she takes 8000 pages to NOT tell any sort of a story is beyond me.) It's all blahblah Ayla is foreign and blahblah Ayla is exotic and blahblah she invented everything and tames animals and heals all and her daughter is perfect too and Jondalar who? And then it's all blahblah cave paintings and blahblah more cave paintings and blahblah description exposition blah. Then there's another piece of utterly contrived marital blahblah we don't communicate conflict. Culminating in blahblah Ayla has a Revelation and Teaches Her Wisdom To All.

Also? Her daughter's stupid combo-name gives me nauseating flashbacks to Renesmee (if you don't know who I'm talking about, count yourself lucky) which makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

BOTTOM LINE: Tedious, over-written, repetitive, and forced. A massive disappointment... but you may want to plow through it if you read the first 5 books and want closure.

Oh Creb, Iza, Durc, Brun, Baby... I miss you guys!

I am a huge fan of the series. I Own the other five books in hardcover. However, this book is just terrible.
There are about 400 pages of retelling what happened in the other five books, go ahead and insult my intelligence and assume I've forgotten what happened in all five of your books, like if I had, I would have bought the sixth book?
300 pages of oooh a cave, look a picture of a bear, lion, horse, bison, mammoth.
50 pages of Travel, travel, travel oh look a woman with horses and a wolf, travel travel travel, oh look a woman with horses and a wolf.
10 pages of my name is, my affiliation is, I'm married to, good to know you. Every time you meet someone, ad nauseam.
And finally about 20 pages of real plot. You could have told the entire book in 100 pages, almost zero plot and most of that boring and tired. Someone jealous of Ayla tries to get even for her being better than them and they get their comeuppance. Oh dear Jondalar is with another woman he must not love me anymore, blah blah blah! Sound familiar?
And Cattails!!!! There must be eight places in the book where she details all the parts of the cattail you can use. Ok, tell me once, I got it especially since you've told me at least once in every other book you wrote.
Now if she had wanted to write a travel guide of all the ancient caves with picture in Europe, she should have done that instead of bore the crap out of her readers with it. And I paid $12.99 for this, on Kindle? Not even a tree version? I need my head examined.
DISAPPOINTED!!!!!!!!

Ms Auel,

I get it. You didn't really want to write about Ayla and Jondalar anymore. 31 years is a long time, and all you
really wanted to do was enjoy your golden years, touring Europe and looking at ancient caves. That's fair. But I've got to ask. If you wanted to write about old painted caves, why not just write a book about them? Your book can have a cover with a picture of a cave painting and a tagline "by the author of Clan of the Cave Bear"; I've a feeling that would help it sell. But don't take the material for that book, insert some occasional dialogue, and call it the finale to your celebrated Earth's Children series.

My expectations of The Land of Painted Caves were not especially high, thanks to the sharp downturn in the quality of the series after The Mammoth Hunters, yet somehow it still managed to disappoint me. Should you decide to call Painted Caves a frame job and write a new final book, here's my advice:

- Your book is some 700 pages long. I mean, OK, it makes it easier to fantasise about using it to bludgeon the characters to death for criminal idiocy once we reach Part 3, but your book only has maybe 100 pages worth of actual plot, so I'm kind of left wondering if you actually had an editor for this thing, and if so, whether they're now spending their unemployment check on hard liquor to help drown the shame.

- I imagine there are very few people reading this who haven't read your earlier books. You really, really don't need to recap EVERYTHING that happened in them. Did the notes you had out to remind yourself of stuff somehow get mixed into the manuscript? Even more disturbing, I recognised passages that appear to have been copied verbatim from previous novels, and even some that repeated the exact same information as passages EARLIER IN THE NOVEL ITSELF. Copypasta and novels are not a good combination, mmmk?

- Too many caves, too many greetings, WAY too many renditions of the Mother's Song. No, seriously. Cut them, and you'll singlehandedly save a forest. Wouldn't Ayla be proud?

- Part 3. O lawd. This was where you actually started to offer us a reasonable amount of plot. It's a shame it's also where the book stopped being simply boring and repetitive and started being irredeemably hateful. It's like you suddenly realised that you needed some conflict, and that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make Ayla and Jondalar win at everything ever. So you manufactured some absolutely awful drama that made me want to vomit, then resolved it with some Sleeping Beauty dreck that only served to highlight the misogynistic overtones that had already threaded their way through this book. Women who pursue careers always neglect their families and pay the price, y'all. Even if a family is all they've ever wanted.

I want my money back.

The Land of the Painted Caves is the eagerly awaited sixth and final book in the Earth's Children series. While its possible this book could be read as a stand alone, I wouldn't advise it and instead suggest that a reader start at the first book, The Clan of the Cave Bear. For those who aren't familiar with the Earth's Children's series (and this could be a spoiler) Ayla was a little girl who was adopted by a clan of Neanderthals and raised in their ways. When later she has to leave them and her son behind, she finds a valley where she lives alone for awhile and makes unlikely friends with a horse and lion. She is lonely though and happy when a man named Jondalar comes to her valley and they fall in love. They stay with a tribe of people called the Mamutoi for awhile but Jondalar yearns to go to his home far to the West and they make a dangerous journey back there. Once there, Ayla is quickly accepted into the Zelandonii but they want more of her. As the fifth book ends she decides to become an acolyte of the Zelandoni (spiritual leaders and healers).

This book starts a little later and is separated into three parts. The first two are mainly about her taking a small journey to visit different caves of the Zelandonii and learn their special purposes. It also shows a little of the time spent with Jondalar and her daughter Jonayla and a series of years pass during this time. The third part of the novel takes place while she is finishing her training as an acolyte and deals with her discoveries while doing so. Since this is a highly anticipated book, I hesitate to describe the plot further and ruin it for anyone.

The characters in this book are rather weak. Jondalar turns out to be a complete jerk and I really can't fathom why Auel wrote him the way she did in this book. I was vastly disappointed. Ayla, while finally showing some flaws loses some of her likability in this book and I had a hard time connecting to her like I could in previous books. Poor Jonayla, while she probably should have been an important character, was left largely undescribed and even when there are scenes with her, they don't use her to her full potential. The rest of the characters are just so-so to me.

This book had the feel of Shelters of Stone which was also a book I didn't care too much for in the series. It had the same ever present Mother Poem repeated over and over just like the previous book and also the endless renditions of titles. The description that was so wonderful in the early books just made this one drag on and on as they explored the many caves of the first two parts and after awhile I felt myself trying to skim the book as I just didn't care about another cave painting followed by the Mother poem. That being said, I actually did enjoy the third part of this novel and that was what saved it from having an even lower star rating from me It at least was exciting and had some plot to it. As an aside, there are graphic sex scenes in this novel and some readers may want to exercise caution because of it.

To wait this long for the finale of a series (it took over 30 years for all the books to come out) and then have the quality be like this was disappointing. While I appreciate knowing the ending of Jondalar and Ayla's tale, I was left with quite a bit of dissatisfaction and almost wish the series would have ended with the third or fourth book. Those who are die hard fans of the series but didn't like the fifth book will probably share my feelings about this novel and should be warned.

Book 1: The Clan of the Cave Bear
Book 2: The Valley of Horses
Book 3: The Mammoth Hunters
Book 4: The Plains of Passage
Book 5: The Shelters of Stone

The Land of Painted Caves
Copyright 2011
757 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2011

Hoo boy.

To be honest, I didn't expect a next book in this series. I had thought that Jean Auel "walked the next world." But no, she's alive and kicking and has recently expelled the latest, and purportedly last, book in her Earth's Children series, The Land of Painted Caves.

As many have said before me, this book is almost mystifyingly bad. It is as if Jean Auel had deliberately set out to dismiss every plot point of potential interest. Characterization, if I may use the term here, is slim to none. Worse, she seems to introduce potential sources of tension or plot interest only to resolve them in the least interesting manner possible. Then, when she does opt to introduce plot points, they are poorly thought out, often unresolved and largely out of character. Finally, she fails to bring any resolution to most of the burning questions present throughout the series.

From here on, I will discuss the plot of the book, though as others have pointed out, the word "spoiler" seems silly in this context.

First third: Ayla trains as a Zelandoni and nurses her daughter, Jonayla. A lot. Special treat: Wolf takes a dump in the cave.

Second third: Ayla tours all the painted caves. Weirdly, the origins of the paintings are still left vague. I think it would have been funnier if someone had been like, "Oh yeah, those aurochs were painted by my hearthmate Ladida. Pretty good, right?" Jonayla starts speaking and riding horses. Of course, she's the cutest little girl ever!

Third third: Plot! We find out that Jondalar has been boning mean girl Marona (I keep wanting to write Marthona, but that's his mom, gross) because his "needs are too strong" and he got lonely while Ayla was touring all those caves. Some Mammoth Hunter characters show up and we find out that Ranec is now mated even though naturally Ayla is his ONE TWOO LOVE. Ayla tells everyone that "essence" isn't just for show, it's how men and women make babies together. She does this through adding yet another verse to the Mother Song. Lucky Zelandonii! Everyone of course immediately accepts this radical revelation as completely true and abandons their old beliefs, which is normally what happens in human society. Ayla then gets drunk and has public sex with the shiftless Laramar while barma-goggling. Jondalar thereupon beats the crap out of Laramar. Some other characters show up, vaguely threaten Ayla and then literally run away. Ayla ODs on Clan drugs, but (wait for it) the love of Jondalar brings her back and they are in TWOO LOVE again! At the end, Jondalar agrees to take care of Laramar's children and ex(?)mate. Sitcom fodder! Everything is awesome, except that Ayla has introduced oppressive patriarchy to the world.

THE END

OK, so here are some plot point that were either dropped or not touched.

Hearth matriarch Marthona isn't feeling that well. Does anything happen to Marthona? Nope! Ayla is super at healing her and she's totally fine.

The book actually starts with an ominous omen - a big pack of cave lions is hanging around Ninth Cave HQ. A metaphor? Nope! Ayla hunts them totally successfully, no major or even minor characters are harmed, and all is well.

Oh noes! Someone tries to hunt Whinney and Racer because 99 percent of humanity still considers horses to be food animals. Is one hair on our equine pals' hides scratched? Nope! Whew, that was totally close, except not.

There is an earthquake! Wow, that is especially bad for people who live in and decorate caves. Do any main characters die? Do people think maybe Earth Mother is mad because they are sucking up to flathead-lovin' Ayla? Nope! One kid dies and everyone goes on with their lives.

Speaking of flatheads, do we see or hear from the Clan at all or get any news whatsoever of Durc or Broud or any other non-Cro Magnon? Nope! Sorry if you'd been hoping for resolution to that plotline since the first book and was only reading on to get some kind of closure!

Does any character who is otherwise sympathetic dislike or mistrust Ayla or Jondalar for any reason whatsoever? You're joking, right?

I'm going to conclude this review just like Jean Auel did in Land of Painted Caves. Not at all.

First of all, I have never written a review before. Just felt so strongly about this book I HAD to write this, if only to clear my mind and move on.

I don't really need to go over the flaws - everyone else has done that perfectly. What I want to say is how utterly bewildered I am at the complete lack of plot, the freakishly one-dimentional characters, the abrupt time changes and the story arcs that simply evaporated. Why was this book even written?

I actually hated Ayla, Jondalar, The One Who Serves The Mother, Marthona, all the Zelandonii, Jonayla, Wolf, Whinney, mammoths, caves, hunting, herb lore, chanting, furs, Mother Festivals and even barma when I "finished" this book. I write "finished" because, after eagerly reading the first chapter (pre-ordered this book - I was greatly looking forward to it) and skimming the second chapter I found myself listlessly thumbing through the rest of the book in disbelief. When I reached the part about Jondalar and Marona, it was the last straw. This ridiculous and nonsensical development literally made me sick to my stomach, and I stopped reading.

As I read through the previous reviews I noticed others, like myself, that believed there would be much more of the Clan in this book, so let us be thankful that at least they were left out of this fiasco.

After "reading" this book I feel as if I've lost a good friend - or as if a good friend had moved in with her drug dealer fiance, become addicted to crack, and announced she was now a vampire - shocked, bewildered, and very disappointed

**PLOT SPOILER** (Actually, there is no plot to spoil!)

This is one of my all time favorite series and this "ending" is a major disappointment. I'm actually angry. I want to erase it from my mind and create my own ending because this was just plain wrong. There are many major problems to the book: discriptions of paintings ad nauseum; overlong introductions; rehashing every detail from earlier stories over and over; The Mother Story 50,000 times; no real plot; the contrived plot devices and most disappointing of all the destruction of beloved characters to create conflict. On top of that, there was no conclusion to the story.

The Shelters of Stone actually had more of an ending to the series than this story. It could easily have ended with Jonayla's birth.

Many other reviewers commented on the major problems but what I would like to comment on more and see feedback upon is what this book could have and should have been. The First Amongst those that Serve the Mother comments that Ayla will be the next First. I would have liked to see that come to fruition and thought we would. Jonayla could have grown into the next generation Zelandoni. Others could have emulated Ayla and domesticated animals. I would like to have seen Ayla develop and mature as a Zelandoni and how she would handle problems from a position of power. I would like to have seen Ayla do something amazing to save people like she usually does. Maybe Ayla and Jondalar could have taken a trip back east to spread the word of her revelation to those she knew. (NOTE: We don't need a description of every rock along the way.) Maybe we could have seen how the clan is doing and start trading as was eluded to in the Shelters of Stone.

I would have liked to have seen Ayla and Jondalar get older and how they would handle the death of Marthona and Zelandoni. I would have liked to have seen Jondalar develop into a leader and not a violent psychopath. He had his moment in youth that always was a problem in the story to me but he supposedly had matured. He just isn't good enough for Ayla. And Ayla sleeping with Laramar? Why didn't she just make Ayla the first hooker. My god women, we loved Ayla and to have her debase herself like that was just plain uncalled for, out of character, upsetting and disgusting. Do you have no respect for the character you created? This is a story we have been involved with and loved for thirty years and to have it end on such a low, disgusting note is like putting liverwurst on mango. It's like cinnamon olive crunch breakfast cereal. It's far worse than this, it is just so upsetting. I feel like I lost a great love. It diminshes the entire series. I know I sound angry and that's because I am. Now let me tell you how I really feel.

This review is based upon an advance copy. There is always the hope that an editor will be allowed free rein and the final edition may vary from the copy I read, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen.

The first part of this book picks up the story of Ayla and Jondalar left off in the last book, The Shelters of Stone. Still living with Jondalar's family, Ayla is training as an acolyte to the First Among Those Who Serve and hopes to receive a calling to become a Zelandoni (a wise woman/healer of sorts). Ayla and Jondalar join the rest of the members of the Ninth Cave for the Summer Meeting, and spend lots and lots of time visiting with new and old friends. Each time Ayla is introduced to someone new we get to hear the looooooooooooong list of her proper titles all over again. We also get plenty of back history on returning characters, both major and minor ones, as well as lengthy refreshers on Ayla and Jondalar's adventures from the previous five books. The Summer Meeting ends and the members of the Ninth Cave return home.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Part II begins several years later as Ayla, Jondalar and The One Who Serves First (the leader of the Zelandoni and Ayla's mentor) prepare for a long journey so that Ayla can see the painted caves. Many many pages are spent telling the reader about the minute details of preparing for a journey. The reader is also treated to a prehistoric version of Map Questing the proposed trail - over hill and dale, north along this river, cross here and south along the other one. The great journey begins and our merry band travels from one cave to the next, with lots of introductions and more rounds of hearing every one's proper titles. Our band must also stop to hunt between cave visits, so we get to hear about how to hunt, throw spears, nap flint and other cool stuff. They make visits to the various painted caves and the reader gets very thorough descriptions of said caves. Just in case you missed it the first time, Ayla makes a second trip to one of the caves so you can hear about it all over again. You will be glad to know that Wolf relieved himself of solid waste in one of the painted caves. Why we needed to know that I'm not sure, but rest assured he did :)

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Nodding off yet? I sure was...

***Begin Spoilers***

Part III takes place in the next year as Ayla is finishing up her training as an acolyte and hopes to receive her calling to be a Zelandoni. Her training is very time-consuming, leading to some *marital* tensions and a Big Misunderstanding (you can figure out where this goes lickety split). Ayla drinks some special tea, has some big LSD kind of trip that ends with a huge revelation from The Earth Mother about The Gift of the Knowledge of Life. Ayla then joins the rest of her family for another Summer Meeting, culminating in a festival to honor the Earth Mother wherein Ayla's big gift is shared with the rest of the people, leading to big long discussions about the implications of said discovery. Pages and pages of looooong discussions. There are also a couple of baddies who conspire here and there to keep our lovers apart.

*End Spoilers*

Sooooo, just what can you expect to find in this book? Let me detail it for you in case you are still interested,

*Lots of back-history and exposition so don't bother rereading the first five books, it's all taken care of for you in this one. Over and over and over again.

*The descriptions of the day-to-day details are very long-winded and repeated often. I really didn't need to learn about what went into Ayla's latest batch of tea on every other page.

*You will learn about the paintings in the caves, although to be honest I found reading from Wik and the official sites much more interesting.

*A&J are as perfect as perfect can be, as is their daughter. Even as an infant she was smart enough to hold her water until she was out of her carrying blanket. You will be informed of this at least three times in Part I, just to make sure you don't forget it.

All kidding aside, this is not a terrible novel, it is merely suffering from the lack of an editor with a big red pencil. The repetition is so over done to the point I felt I was being clubbed over the head - I am smart enough to figure it out the first time. On top of that, Auel slipped in too many *modern* words that really pulled me out of the story. Now I know it isn't possible to recreate an ancient language that would be readable to us mere mortals, but at the same time I didn't need Ayla using words like earthquake, soporific and epicanthic fold either. Wait, this is an advance copy so perhaps the red pencil guy will fix these...

Nah. If you enjoyed the slow pace of Shelters of Stone and want an entire rehash of that all over again, I guess you'll love this, but if you're looking for something with a bit more action you will not find it here. Will you find the resolution to A&J's story that you were hoping for? You know I can't tell you that, but I for one was sorely disappointed. Library only, then buy it if you love it.

A friend of my mom's loaned her a copy of Clan of the Cave Bear, I was twelve years old and if my mother had read the book first (she's a slow reader) she would have hidden the lengthy tome away before I got a hold of it. I devoured the book and the two follow up novels, Valley of the Horses and The Mammoth Hunters. No, not just because of the sex scenes (wowza, I had a lot of smug grins when I heard the boys at school whispering about the Penthouse forums, Penthouse seemed tame by comparison to my jaded preteen self). I must have read the first three books a dozen times each. I cried with Ayla as she struggled to fit into the Clan, to learn their rigid social system and ultimately *spoiler alert* was cast out.

Having read the books so many times, I've noticed there's a certain theme to the first three books.

The first book, Clan of the Cave Bear is a classic coming of age tale. Ayla, who is very different than her adopted family, struggles and ultimately overcomes those who would hold her back. In the end she loses everything and everyone she loves, but for a strong woman like Ayla, the reader knows there isn't much that could break her.

Book two, Valley of the Horses is a tale of survival. Cast out of the clan to live alone, Ayla makes her way across a hostile continent and finds shelter and a home in a secluded valley. Towards the end of the book, she meets the very first 'Other.' Along the way she tames several wild animals, further hones her hunting skills, discovers flint and carves out a comfortable home with her animal companions.

Book three, The Mammoth Hunters, introduces Ayla to a group of hunters and the larger world of people who look like her. She finds friends, love and acceptance and her relationship with Jondalar is further explored as she contemplates what she wants out of life and who she wants to be with.

Sadly, I have to say that past book three the story wanders. Plains of Passage was dull and bordered on ridiculous as Jondalar and Ayla run into some pretty strange characters on their trip back to the Zelandoni.

Book five, Shelters of Stone was pretty bland, I have a hard time remembering any real conflicts or even the names of the side characters.

But of all the books, Land of Painted Caves is, in my opinion, the very worst of the series. Something that has always impressed me about Jean M. Auel's writing is the realism and the feeling of 'now.' The characters eat, sleep, wash clothing, tend to the sick, stoke the firepits and have discussions about everything. Some of the descriptions of ordinary tasks, for example,like preparing a ptarmigan for eating or the taste of morning tea are so vivid and realistic, I could almost believe that I've eaten an egg stuffed ptarmigan.

There is no shortage of description in The Land of Painted Caves, but I guess the problem is what is being described. Without the framework of a plot, it all seems so dull and meaningless. For most of the book Ayla just seems to hang out, she throws spears, rides and does some first aid stuff. I couldn't really get a feel for a problem, something that Ayla, Jondalar and anyone else could work on and certainly nothing so important that we needed to ruminate on it for over 700 pages.

On the plus side, it was nice to see Ayla settle into a place. Also, her job, working with the First, kinda like a traveling priest/social worker/therapist was nice, but at times, well, I hate to say it, it got kinda boring.

Oh well, I guess I'll go back and reread the first three. Which brings me to the thought that the real problem is that the last three should have been combined into one. I really wanted an ending, I ached to know what Jondalar and Ayla would find when they finally got back to Jondalar's people, but these last three books have been like a neverending reality show.
'

Thanks, Jean Auel, thanks a lot. No, really, I love having my loyalty and expectations dumped upon from a great height. I should have known what was coming, given the feeble effort you made in The Shelters of Stone. To quote what I said then,

'This must be the longest I have ever waited for the next book in a series. I bought the first one in 1984 when I left home for university, got absolutely hooked and avidly read them as they appeared, including The Plains of Passage, which was the last one in 1990. If I have to wait another twelve years for the next book in the series, I'll be nearly fifty and will have spent thirty years on this story.
So was it worth it and will I be anticipating the next book as eagerly? I'm not so sure. Oh, I'll read it - I have grown very fond of the heroine, but I found this book somewhat of a letdown. It mostly feels like scene-setting for the next book, and half the content seems to be retelling of the four books before (something that was already starting to irritate in The Plains of Passage, together with the too-dry lectures on flora, fauna and geography). Yes, the new people Ayla lives with need to know about her life, but it could have been done better. Jean Auel should really trust her readers more to know what has already happened - after all, we have had twelve years to read the story again and again. Compared to the scope of the plot in the earlier books, this is a bit feeble.
But I still want to know how it all ends. Meet you all at my fiftieth birthday party.'

Well, I only had to wait nine years and not twelve, but I wish the book had never come. This reads like bad fanfic, without the inadvertently funny bits. Everything I criticized about the last book she did again, only more so. It almost felt like she couldn't remember her own books and had to put in the constant repetition of background facts to remind herself, badly pasting together filing cards from her worldbuilding box. The dialogue is stilted, the people are indistinguishable cardboard cut-outs, and nothing happens. In a bad way.

I mean, I was about two pages in when I first said 'This is terrible'. There is nothing left of the promise of the first four books. Nothing.

I'm off to cry in a corner, and then I'll go pretend I never read the last two.

I want my money back, and the last 21 years.

Edited to add: I put this book on the charity table of my local supermarket, with a home-made warning label saying 'This book sucks - read at own risk'.