From Publishers Weekly
The Gears 12th entry (after 2003s People of the Owl) in their richly imagined series of novels about the peoples who populated North America in the distant past follows a familiar pattern. Using their archeological backgrounds and talent for research, they have incorporated recent evidence that "there were Caucasoidstraditionally described as light-skinned peoplein North America between 9,000 and 11,000 years ago" into this tale of rival cultures in the Pacific Northwest at a time of momentous change. The dominant North Wind People and the various villages of the Raven People are increasingly intermixed, but also increasingly at odds. The leaderswarriors, matrons, healers, holy men and eldersof both groups face tremendous pressures and decisions as dwindling resources and increased competition drive them toward war. Theres nothing primitive about the powerful mix of intrigue and ambition, statesmanship and strategizing, betrayal and self-sacrifice that the principals demonstrate. One can quibble with the Gears tendency to use capitalization in odd ways and to describe two major female characters in physical terms geared to modern tastes. Overall, however, they succeed in blending a great deal of information about how these hunter-gatherers lived (food, lodging, weapons, etc.) together with the universal search for love, power and wisdom. Its a combination that will surely satisfy readers addicted to the series.
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Product Description
Award-winning archaeologists Michael and Kathleen Gear spin a vivid and captivating tale around one of the most controversial archaeological discoveries in the world, the Kennewick Man---a Caucasoid male mummy dating back more than 9,000 years---found in the Pacific Northwest on the banks of the Columbia River! A white man in North America more than 9,000 years ago? What was he doing there? With the terrifying grandeur of melting glaciers as a backdrop, People of the Raven shows animals and humans struggling for survival amidst massive environmental change. Mammoths, mastodons, and giant lions have become extinct, and Rain Bear, the chief of Sandy Point Village, knows his struggling Raven People may be next. One day a strange and beautiful red-haired woman, Evening Star, stumbles into his council lodge and begs him for sanctuary. Rain Bear soon learns that she is an escaped slave from the North Wind People, the Raven People's mortal enemies. If he offers to protect her, the North Wind People will attack, but if he sends her back, Rain Bear knows Evening Star will be tortured and perhaps killed. But when Evening Star warns Rain Bear that the North Wind warriors are already on their way to Sandy Point Village, Rain Bear must decide at once if he should take his people and run or gather them into a battle that could result in the Raven People's complete demise.
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