jame5c
Ms Jean M. Auel's best-selling book "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and "Earth's Children" book series is a beautiful depiction of our planet 35,000 years ago. Her six books brought me many hours of enthralled reading, at different times in my life.
My first Earth's Children fan-fiction piece, "The Clan in the Valley", imagined Durc's life after Ayla was forced to leave Broud's clan. My second fan-fiction work, "The Man of the Others", pictured a young Mamut, who met the same clan years before Ayla did. My third fan-fiction work "My Friend Ayla" presented the perspectives of those closest to her, her animal companions.
For her own reasons, Ms Auel did not expand much more on The Clan after "The Clan of the Cave Bear", save for the episode of Yorga and Guban in "The Plains of Passage" - which a quick survey of fan forums suggested had brought joy to many readers.
I wanted to use this story to imagine their clan beyond the couple's meeting with Ayla and Jondalar. To that end, I am once again grateful to Mr Don Hitchcock for his excellent cartographical treasure of a website https://donsmaps.com - which helped me to picture a sense of geography as I wrote my stories.
I hope I have done Ms Auel's epic some justice, and possibly spark a little more imagination and conversation in readers.
This is a fan-fiction work - some characters are Ms Auel's creation and copyright, some are mine. Passages from various "Earth's Children" books are extracted as vignettes to preface my chapters.
Thank you, Ms Jean M. Auel, for bringing us Ayla, and reminding us that bigotry and prejudice have no place in our world, 35,000 years ago and today.
[1] This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.