Download And Enjoy People Of The Fire (North Americas Forgotten Past, #2) Formulated By W. Michael Gear File Format Document

in the “North Americas Forgotten Past” series, this book was rich with historical details and interesting people, I enjoyed how the spiritual aspect became a character unto itself, I am a huge fan of the books by W, Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear,

Their stories will pull you in and the incredible amount of research the authors have done lend credibility to their work.


That research, combined with an immense talent for description that allows readers to feel fully immersed in the time period, will ensure that readers will keep coming back to these authors again and again.


I rate this book asout ofStars, Years ago I acquired the first two books in this series, thinking they might be as wonderful as Jean Auels sitelinkThe Clan of the Cave Bear series.
Thats setting a tough bar, I read the first one, sitelinkPeople of the Wolf and enjoyed it well enough, though nowhere near as much as Ms Auels books.
People of the Fire has been waiting many years to be read, mostly because of the length, but also because its the sort of book I might once have read on a beach holiday, but now our children out older, we spend little time sitting around reading.


This is an oldfashioned sort of book, like one of James Micheners epics, covering generations, with a large cast of characters.
The main ones are listed in the front of this edition, though I didnt consult the list because most of the time I could remember who was who.
It was confusing at times, however, because the action kept changing from one clan to another, Whats more, some information about who was related to whom was deliberately obscured because the characters didnt know the family relationships and this was an integral part of the storyline.
There were also a few interesting twists such as the cultural misunderstandings between the tribes, the mountaindwelling Red Hand huntergatherers and the plainsdwelling Short Buffalo people.
All are faced by long term drying of the climate pushing the buffalo off the plains, There are men misusing power, using mental manipulation to appear to have spiritual Power that grants them authority, One leader uses trickery and an ability to manipulate his followers to convince them that women have polluted their tribe, causing all their problems.
This allows a switch from a society where women are allowed equality in decision making and influence to one where they must become submissive.
Another interesting aspect is how someone who was born as a man but is attracted to men and dresses as a woman is given an honorary position as a berdache in one tribe but is ridiculed and verbally and physically abused in the other.
And all holds are barred in raids, so expect rape, murder and pillage,

If you like this sort of thing, it could score higher, but my rating is probably a little low because I found it overlong.
I was also not drawn in by the pseudo spiritual Wolf Spirit and Wolf Bundle conversations, And the least said about the picture on the front cover, the better! Not a terrible book, but definitely not a great one either.
How they could write and sell two dozen of these shelfguzzlers I do not know! Where's the fire

Seriously, where is the fire

Oh wait, there it is.
pages from the end.

The firstpages of this book do nothing, It's only in the lastpages that the story gets remotely interesting and begins to come together, Once I figured out where the writers were going, I enjoyed it, but were I not such a stickler for finishing books I would have abandoned it long ago.


It starts off as a ripoff of the first book in the series a boy with a special destiny and a complicated parentage Little Dancer/Wolf Dreamer, a wise woman White Calf/Broken Branch, and some antagonists intent on destroying him Blood Bear/Heavy Beaver/whoever the other twin was in the first book.
However, there is no clear female protagonist like Dancing Fox,

Anyway, it's been thousands of years since Wolf Dreamer led the People through the ice tunnel, The People have hunted most of the wildlife to extinction and are getting hungry, and hungry people get cranky and raid each other's camps.
Climate change isn't helping either as droughts set in, All that's left of Wolf Dreamer is a sort of magic purse called Wolf Bundle,

No really, I'm serious,

The book has some bloody stupid passages where the magic purse appears to be talking to Wolf Dreamer, who still seems to watch over his people and argue with the magic purse about the best way to lead the People to a more fertile land.
And they hope the People will be better stewards of wildlife,

Given that the writers are archaeologists, I expected this series to have more information about how these mesmerizing ancient peoples lived.
Instead, we get a bunch of speculative garbage and mumbojumbo that makes these books more paranormal than historical, If there were less magic purse and more character development, we'd have a pretty good book,

In fairness to the characters, they were at least a little more carefully constructed than in the previous book, It was easier to tell them apart and figure out who was who, The book does a decent job of showing Little Dancer's struggle to accept his role as Dreamer against his desire to stay with his family, something that "People of the Wolf" did not do very well.


Speaking of characters, Two Smokes was awesome, My favorite moment in the book is when he figures out what to do with the tasty grass samples he carries around, and we see how Little Dancer will help lead the People in a more sustainable lifestyle.


Mark Boyett's voice is great, His soothing tones, as he describes the elements of the world within the People of the fire, His variation of character voice shows the images of the story making the characters come alive, Little Dancer is innocent, Heavy Beaver, is angry and regretful.
Blood bear, evil and twisted with desire, The voice of Two smokes is lonely and despoiled, allowing the the longing of the characters in his voice you are able to see the problems of the world at the end of the archaic winters.


People of the Fire North America's Forgotten Past,

Gear, W, Michael

Gear, Kathleen O'neal

The world is dying, In drought and over hunting the animals are disappearing, The people are starving. The wolf bundle the legacy of first Man has weakened, all it power and prestige has been drawn out, In a gamble First Man and the wolf bundle being a quest to renew the wolf bundle and find a path to save the world.
Clear water is a dreamer, who is given a vision she does not like, But she follows the path that power asked her, Unfortunately life was not easy for her, She left her people only to die tragically leaving her young infant son, and her old friend, The Berdache, Two Smokes finds a place with the Short Buffalo People, He lives through torture and pain, as they do not revere his place of power, Hungry Beaver is rising in power with his imagined dream, and his corrupted vision of the people, Blood bear, husband of Clear Water and father of her child, has promised power to get the Wolf Bundle back, but he does not believe in power.
And he continues his miss use of power, and continues to weaken the Wolf Bundle, The drought continues and war is on the land, Will the gamble of power work out, Will a new Dreamer emerge in this land of fire, and dance a new way to the spiral of the world, It is a time of fire, A small band of pioneers struggle valiantly to keep their ancestors' dreams alive in an unforgiving, droughtstricken land, Driven by the promise of an awesome vision, a heroic young dreamer and a fearless woman warrior unite to lead their people to a magnificent destiny.


A towering epic filled with tragedy and triumph, courage and conflict, People of the Fire is the second compelling novel in a majestic saga of America's first peoples.

An epic tale. Can lose oneself in these As usual with books I didn't finish, this isn't a review, merely an explanation of why I didn't finish and in this case, didn't get very far in.
Here, it was really just a case of reader misunderstanding in selecting the book, Barb and I had enjoyed reading the first book in the Gear's series, sitelinkPeople of the Wolf together, back in the earlys.
That book which I'd gotten as a birthday gift from my oldest daughter imaginatively recreates the arrival, in what is today Alaska, of the first American Indians to cross the land bridge that then spanned the Bering Strait.
Having liked and been invested in the characters, when we discovered that the novel was a series opener, we started the next one to continue their adventures.


However, we quickly discovered that this is a "series" only in the sense that all the books are set in North America before the advent of the Europeans.
This second book does not follow the characters from the first one, and is in fact set centuries, or millennia, later, If we'd come to it with different expectations, we might have persevered but as it was, we weren't interested in continuing, A respectful presentation of Native American Beliefs wrapped in an exciting tale!
When I read bookof this series, PEOPLE OF THE WOLF, I was hooked.
Picking up PEOPLE OF THE FIRE just ensnared me more! I have never read a book series so deep and compelling so rich and complete.

I am a huge fan of historical fiction and loving archaeology, I was initially drawn to this tale, The Native American culture, which is so respectfully presented in this book and the entire series, fascinated me, I am amazed by the detail of the story and how beautifully it is linked to verifiable facts from history, I love how the Native American beliefs and lore are expanded in this book, building on bookthough each book can stand lone and can be read out of order.
I was happier to have a better understand of The One and the Spiral, I found this story very educational in relationship to Spirit Bundles and it helped give me the foundation of the cultural believes of many Native American tribes.

This story is smart and the characters are complex and endearing, You cant help but feel their struggles and achievements along with them, The writing is vibrant and masterful, touching your very soul while making you think deeper about everything you thought you knew! This is the second of a seemingly endless series.
I enjoyed,was less appealing, by the time I finished the third, I felt I'd readandall over again, very repetitive recycling of the same basic story.
Didn't finish the series, which is very rare for me, Interesting followup to People Of the Wolf

I read this right off the heels of People Of the Wolf and for the most part I enjoyed it.
My favorite part is how two of the characters from Wolf had become "deified" in a sense, Wolf Dreamer was obvious, now also referred to as First Man, but I'm pretty sure his brother became the voice of the Wolf Bundle.
Nice bit of world building there,

Overall, the plot is quite similar to Wolf, but I did find interesting in the middle a bit, Many of my complaints with Wolf are still here, but the authors did improve on their action scenes, While not the best descriptions of battle I've ever read, they are serviceable and dramatic,

The characters themselves all for archetypes that will be familiar from thest book, with minor twists on their formula.
Sure me of the violence perpetrated against children and women is tough to read, I don't particularly like sexual assault as a plot point in

a lot of books or movies, but here it didn't seem to be used just for shock value.
It should be noted that all of the characters are new, this taking place,or so years after the first book, It seems the majority of these books can be read standalone, and I appreciate that, .