The Mammoth Hunters [Import] [Hardcover]

Jean M. Auel (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 639 pages
• Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton; 1st UK edition (1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340349344
• ISBN-13: 978-0340349342
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (193 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,064,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jean M. Auel is one of the world's most esteemed and beloved authors. Her extensive factual research has earned her the respect of renowned scientists, archaeologists and anthropologists around the globe.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Bit of the Magic Has Been Lost., May 3, 2004

By 

LostBoy76 (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children, Book Three) (Mass Market Paperback)

I have recently finished the main four books of the "Earth's Children" series, and I have decided to review "The Mammoth Hunters" because I thought that this third book is where the series started to lose some of it's charm. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth reading, though. I just have a few qualifications. "Spoilers"

In the first two books, "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and "The Valley of Horses", the huge amount of detail about the climates, landscapes, and plantlife never really bothered me too much, but in this book (and the last book, "Plains of Passage") I found it dwelt on the most trivial little things for ages! Most of the new characters are fairly likable, though none of them truly stand out, except maybe Rydag. Sometimes the author Ms. Auel seems more interested in Ayla's animal friends than in the people. A very large portion of this book is dedicated to the "love triangle" between Ayla, Jondalar, and Ranec, and this is frustrating for a number of reasons. First, it isn't really a love triangle at all; it is a "misunderstanding" between Ayla and Jondalar which causes Ranec to think that Ayla is available. Second, Ranec is an annoying and slightly creepy character, so I was never really interested in what the heck happened to him. Third, it takes over three hundred pages to resolve this issue!! Literally, three hundred pages of Ayla and Jondalar staring longingly at each other when the other one isn't looking, saying awkward things to each other, getting angry with each other, and so on. That doesn't mean that all three hundred pages are monotonous or boring. There are some very sad and touching scenes that will stay with you: Jondalar crying and clutching the wolf puppy at night while Ayla is sleeping with Ranec; Ayla sobbing to Mamut (the old MogUr-like character), asking him why Jondalar doesn't love her anymore; Jondalar losing control of himself when he's alone with Ayla and taking her by force (though she allows it); Ayla panicking and confessing her feelings when Jondalar leaves without her. These, and a few other scenes, are very endearing, though you may want to scream at Jondalar once in a while for not seeing what's so plainly obvious to everyone else. It never really leaves the reader's mind that all this drama and heartache could have been resolved in about two minutes if the two people just spoke to each other.

On a side note, there seems to be a lot of people taking issue with the sex scenes in this series and I find it very odd. There is also violence, death, and (in the first book) a brutal rape scene, but no-one seems too concerned about these things. I'd call that a serious misplacement of values. Ayla and Jondalar are both adults and in love, so what's the problem? If you're squeamish about the sex scenes, then just skip them! The explicit descriptions are pretty entertaining, if you ask me! Ms. Auel uses hilarious adjectives for the sex scenes (eg. "Jondalar's large throbbing manhood", "Ayla's pink place of pleasure", ect.) that had me laughing out loud at some points!! In the fourth book, Ayla and Jondalar even "invent" the 69 position!

In conclusion, I'll say that this book (and the fourth) is worth reading if you have already read the first two and really enjoyed them. As a stand-alone novel, it doesn't quite work. It's entertaining at times, but nowhere near as brilliant as the first, or as fun as the second.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What's a [cave] girl to do?, March 16, 2005

By 

M. Fluet (Leesburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children) (Hardcover)

Let's start with the positives...the Mammoth Hunters as a tribe were interesting, and the details of how their survival was linked to the many versatile uses of the wolly mammoth were engaging. The Mamutoi social systems, customs, and interpersonal relationships kept me reading to the end.

The real problem with the book concerned the personalities of the central characters, Ayla, Ranec, and Jondalar. Jondalar comes off as incredibly whiny and insecure...nothing he does or says is particularly interesting and he spends most of the book annoying the reader by moping around the camp worrying about his "pleasures" as if he's a bit player on "Sex and the City". He did the same thing throughout the Valley of Horses, too.

Ranec plays the cocky rival for Ayla's affections, but the minute he gets her in the furs he too is reduced to a whimpering mass of desperate neediness, and begins following Ayla around all day nipping at her heels.

The real tragedy here is that these are the first men of her species Ayla encounters, and she feels compelled to entertain their childish behavior and return their affections whenever they manage to get their act together and stop feeling sorry for themselves for 5 minutes (a character flaw developed by years of flathead oppression). By the end, I was rooting for her to let Jondalar split, take the horse and the wolf and go back to the cave in the valley and wait for a REAL caveman to show up.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too tedious for words, October 3, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Mountain View, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children, Book Three) (Mass Market Paperback)

If Ayla was really as smart as she's supposed to be, she wouldn't be appearing in any more sequels.

The love triangle is straight out of daytime TV: "he acts one way, but for some reason I'll just assume he feels completely the opposite". Ayla's accent is continuously described as too small to notice...but everyone does the instant she opens her mouth. Everyone in the book is just great, except for the token one-dimensional bad-guy who turns good in the end.

These savages are so elegant, we expect to see a pre-historic Martha Stewart behind the next mammoth hide. Ayla is already Amelia Earhardt, Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa rolled into one. Read it if it's the only book in the house (this includes the dictionary and the phonebook).