12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent pre-historical fiction, March 6, 1999
Robert Steele Gray's "Survivor" was a fascinating and unusual read. Those seeking an intricately woven adventure novel--Clancy in prehistoric setting--will either set the book down halfway through or find themselves as transformed as the protagonist, having fallen in love with the pursuit of history that clearly motivates the author.
The fantastic premise, a lightening-induced return of a modern man to prehistoric times, is a rather bitter pill Gray must have us swallow in order to frame his modern perspective on pre-history. He does so quickly and painlessly at the beginning of the novel, thus betraying his true passion for the history which he endows with his real energy and skill.
A series of somewhat choppy bouts with disaster leave Mark, the time traveler, in a relationship with Um-See, his number two character. Here Gray skillfully begins to give his readers taste after taste of real prehistoric life. The caves of what would later be Arkansas provide an excellent (and of course, historically accurate!) setting both for details of Indian life and for interpersonal relationships.
It is in the relationship between Um-See and Mark that Gray most surprises us and most stretches his own writing skills. With a number of English words you can count on one hand, Um-See nonetheless becomes a warm and full character. Of course Gray uses the relationship to speculate on how communal life amidst the harsh environment of pre-history might have operated, but his efforts to do so are hardly stilted or forced. Mark's relationships with women--his first and second wife--are not so compelling, but luckily, these are neither central to the main story nor essential for the historical education the reader is receiving.
Technophiles like myself will enjoy speculating with Gray about the introduction of warfighting technology and tactics. The bow and arrow production and training are thoroughly enjoyable to read, and yet quite informative. The real depth is in the details. Gray answers the reader's every question from Mark's perspective. He paints in our mind a color photograph of subsistence, war, economy, politics, and perhaps appropriately to a lesser extent, love, in the lives of these prehistoric Indians.
Gray should be pictured as a historian who has turned to fiction to reach an impatient American public with the same material briefly covered in the first chapter of history books they didn't read in high school. His ruse worked. I'll forever see much more in the hills of Arkansas than dubious politicians; and I shall never again pass so quickly by the stale, ill-clad mannequins huddled around the painted campfire in the first room of the natural history museums. These people now have life, breath, and emotion; Gray has put it there.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts fast, gets slow, then picks up the pace.., January 23, 2001
This review is from: Survivor (Mass Market Paperback)
Starting fast, at the very beginning of the book, Mark is taken by lightening back to prehistoric times. He begins to wander, looking for civilization, and the pace stays pretty brisk and he encounters one trouble after another. I thought the pace of the book slowed though, as his endless trek dragged on and on with pretty much the same fears and thoughts being repeated. Then Mark meets up with Um-See, and the book takes off again. I think Mr. Gray did a decent job at portraying the thoughts and actions of this tribe of people. The "communication with the present" part of the ending should have been left out. It contributed nothing and somehow made what Mark accomplished with Um-See's tribe seem less important. All in all, still not a bad read.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable, but uneven, tale of survival, February 7, 1999
By A Customer
Gray's story about a 20th century man inexplicably thrust into Stone Age America is enjoyable but uneven. The early chapters of the protagonist's struggle to live and transformation from soft suburbanite into stubborn survivor are very good. Gray gets the details right: e.g thirst and hunger, the need to overcome one's modern squeamishness, the feeling of being filthy, the difficulty of building fire by friction. Gray also begins to develop the interesting theme of a man finding his true strength and drive through unexpected adversity. But the later chapters, when the hero, Mark, becomes part of an ancient Indian community, read like excerpts from Bugs Bunny's Book of Anthropology. The idea that Mark must write in order to learn the native language is unnecessary, for example. And the primitive warfare seems unrealistic, especially in comparison to the accurate survival lore of the earlier chapters. In sum, though, most people with a taste for survival stories will find the book a good read.
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