Shaman Paperback – June 10, 2014

Kim drops us back in human history 20,000 years. And I was immediately engrossed. This felt so right. Yes, I thought, this is just what people would have been doing and would have been thinking this long ago. No cave men with big clubs! Intelligent, creative, resourceful, learning, feeling people! And a great story with real people I cared about. Oh, I didn't want it to end. As good as the Mars series and many others of his books.

This book is a sort of docudrama of life in the upper Palaeolithic, say about 30,000 years ago. The characters are named after animals, or plants, or, in the case of the old shaman (Thorn) parts of plants. This gave me one disconcerting moment, where we have Cat up a tree watching. Sinister? Well, no. It is actually a cat thinking human thoughts.The story starts with the young Loon going on a wander. This involves leaving the tribe with nothing (including clothes) and having to survive for a fortnight. We follow him making fire, making clothes, hunting, gathering food, etc, and this is basically a microcosm of the rest of the book. There is a bit of an adventure in the second half but even this is mainly an outline of what Robinson thinks life in the upper Palaeolithic was like. I found this to be a bit silly in detail. The heroes have a long journey, and when they get home, they have run out of their food and they are nearly starved. Hold on! They are hunter gatherers. Those chasing them start of with wolves on leashes to track them. Again, hold on! Nobody puts a grey wolf on a leash, and even if they succeeded, the wolf will go after its food.There is a sort of innocence amongst all the characters: a sort of part of the garden of Eden transferred to the freezer. Robinson has done a lot of research, and what he describes seems authentic, however the way people behaved is perforce imaginary. And, of course, there is the curse of new discoveries. Robinson has the cave paintings done by male shamans, but recent evidence has indicated that the bulk of the hands are those of women, so it is most likely that many of the other paintings were also done by women.The story ends with the death of Thorn and Loon becoming the new shaman, and it is Loon that paints four horses. Robinson presumably intends this to be the very famous "four horses" painting, which places the action in Chauvet, in south east France. This makes walking north west to the sea a rather long journey, but apart from such considerations, I found this a genuinely interesting and enjoyable read.

The opening pages of this book are not for everyone, as other reviewers have mentioned - it's a bit jarring to be thrown inside the head of a teenage boy who alternates between trying to survive a "Naked and Afraid" type scenario, and having sexual fantasies about everything from girls to deer to holes in the ground. But somehow, the book gains momentum and totally works. The main character's voice seems really authentic, balancing common themes like teenage rebellion, etc, with examples of how early humans in the ice age may have experienced these things as they came of age. Sure, Loon is an annoying teenager at the start of the book, but yet he has more survival skills than the average outdoorsman. He chafes at the path that adults are trying to rope him into (being a shaman), he looks forward to partying at the yearly festivals, he flirts with girls, etc. And as the book progresses, you can really see how he matures into a young man who is focused on his wife and children, as well as the good of his tribe. The MC can't be much older than 18-20 at the end of the book, since he is clearly pretty young at the start, but I'm impressed with his growth. Overall surprisingly realistic look at a boy coming of age during the Ice Age.

Robinson, popularly considered a science fiction writer, demonstrates himself an effective observer of human nature and a consumer of scientific theory. This adds up to speculative fiction, and, whether the subject matter is humans on the planets and moons of our solar system or humans as the great ice age grinds towards its close, Robinson suggests we haven't changed and won't change all that much.Of course, Loon, a twelve year-old apprentice shaman as the book opens, obsesses on sex and resents the stodginess and bossiness of his elders - twelve year-old boys still do. The difference in Robinson's setting is that Loon marries, fathers a child and carries out a number of adult actions in the few years encompassed in these pages. Young men and women had to grow up more quickly; archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology all confirm this. We see this at the end of the book - one of the elderly main characters explains he's lived "two twenties."Not written for children, SHAMAN does dwell on matters of day to day existence. Robinson's background as a back country hiker and his evident researches into the lifestyles of more modern cultures employing simpler technologies makes this speculation feel authentic. His recognition that humans feel prejudice against different folk has distinct relevance in our world today.While Robinson does demand the reader's patience in the early chapters, he does open with Loon's Wander, his coming of age journey. This acquaints us with Loon's world and culture while the dangers keep us interested. Loon's later adventure, a real Odyssey of sorts, in places is as gripping as any great action-adventure novel.His characters become people the reader knows and comes to respect. Everyone from Loon to Click, from Elgar to Heather, from Thorn to Wren I would welcome on new pages exploring the complications of their changing world and the adventures that fall in a harsh environment.

This book is set around the Chauvet Cave in France, the subject of the film Cave of Forgotten Dreams (and perhaps the author also read The Mind in the Cave by David Lewis-Williams). We get a very vivid and plausible picture of life in an ice age; the pace and excitement build up with dramatic events, followed by a satisfying ending.

Interesting novel about how we interacted with Neanderthals in the emerging world. THe scenes were very real and well thought out. I have recommended this to several friends.

I enjoyed this book - a little more mystical than some of Robinson's other books which I think are often focused on overly simplified technical sollutions or bureaucracy.That said the technical side was good here too - it felt well aligned with the latest knowledge of ancient humans and their environment.In the end I removed a star because I felt a lot of the book was landscape description, which I got a bit impatient with even though, I suppose, that is what life was like back then - lots of time walking.

KSR at his best. Only criticism is his outdated understanding of the level of development of neanderthals makes the book not as quite historically based as it could be.

I started this book expecting it to turn into some familiar kind of sci fi story. In this regard, I was disappointed but, in other respects, Shaman wa an interesting and sometimes exciting read. The sections on cave painting seemed particularly insightful. Unfortunately, like all of KSR's books, this one is too long. KSR needs a tough editor but I dont know how he could find one that was tough enough