W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear, People of the Nightland

People of the Nightland

W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Forge, Mar 2007, $27.95

ISBN 0765314401

The ice age ended when the glaciers began receding 20,000 years ago. All was normal for the next seven millennia, as the earth warmed and a Great Lake formed from the receding ice near where Wolf Dreamer brought his people to live.

A thousand years have passed since Wolf Dreamer led his followers to the Promised Land, but his clan has split into different sects. The People of the Nightland live on the edge of the ebbing glacier, worshipping the god Raven Hunter; the Sunpath People live in pelt lodging to the south while worshiping Wolf Dreamer as their God. With the great animals dying out and the waters threatening to flood both people, hostilities break out between the clans. Raven Hunter dispatches a leader to take his followers through a hole in the ice; Wolf Dreamer transmits dream messages to a child, the orphan Silvertip, to take his People east, away from the flooding and encroaching Ice Giants, while the Nightland fighters want to complete their ethic cleansing before entering their new paradise.

The latest First North American "People" saga is a superb Paleolithic America thriller that provides the audience with a glimpse of two competing lifestyles during the Younger Dryas Interval. Using archeological facts and theories, the authors are in first gear throughout this exhilarating prehistoric saga with seemingly paranormal elements that some might deduce as beliefs driving the two rival clans. Educational yet excitingly entertaining, PEOPLE OF THE NORTHLAND, like its Ice Age predecessor (see PEOPLE OF THE WOLF), is a superior chronicle.

Harriet Klausner