The Horsemasters - Softcover

Wolf, Joan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451405056 ISBN 13: 9780451405050

Publisher: Onyx, 1994

Synopsis

Ronan, the exiled son of priestess Arika, and his beloved Nel, a young woman possessing an extraordinary power over animals, join a group of renegades to stop a powerful and fierce band of invaders out to conquer and enslave the Kindred. Reprint.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

It's a couple of generations after the end of Daughter of the Red Deer (1991), Wolf's first sally into prehistory, when this sequel gets into gear; but we're still talking plenty long ago, 13,000 years or so, during the time of Cro-Magnon man--he of the cave paintings in the south of France. And, as before, we're back in the matrilineal Tribe of the Red Deer, where the Mistress's disfavored son, Ronan, champs at the bit for power and responsibility, only to be set up as a rapist by his lustful sister, Morna. Mistress Arika, who sees Ronan's charisma as a threat to her tribe's female hegemony, sides with Morna and drives him out. So he strikes off into the Pyrenees, where he forms a new tribe composed of other outcasts like himself, and with the help of his new wife, Nel, tames wild horses. And it's a good thing, since all of the Kindred tribes of the region are about to be harried by invaders who come from the northern tundras and are known as the Horsemasters. While Ronan organizes the Kindred into a fighting force, Wolf introduces us to more prehistoric types--the cave painter, Thorn; Siguna, captured daughter of the Horsemaster chief; and Culen, the squalling babe Nel and Ronan take in when Morna dies in childbirth. Wolf gives the tale a happy conclusion, even though, as everyone knows, the thundering hordes from the north eventually did murder, plunder, and pillage the gentler folk from the south. Accomplished, credible, but not quite as thematically clever as the series' first book. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

Despite its ambitious and imaginative subject, Wolf's second novel set in a prehistoric era is disappointing. Beginning 50 years after Daughter of the Red Deer , it investigates the Magdelenian culture of Paleolithic Southern Europe through the story of Ronan and his bittersweet struggle for survival. His mother Arika, Mistress of the Tribe of the Red Deer, spurns Ronan at birth, foreseeing and fearing the authority he could grow up to wield over her people. Cast from his community, Ronan begins a fight for the preservation of his life and that of his Kindred, a quest that will carry him through treacherous mountain passes, across snow-laden valleys and along a River of Gold to a final encounter with the deadly Horsemasters. Unfortunately, the novel is pedestrian both in its uninspiring themes and in its repetitious, cliche-laden prose, which features stilted dialogue that tends to blur the characters, since they all sound the same. Numerous (if sometimes predictable) plot developments and a touching relationship between Ronan and his wife Nel provide some motivation to finish the book, but overall this is an uncompelling read.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Onyx
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451405056
• ISBN 13: 9780451405050
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 448