Shaman

Kim Stanley Robinson, the New York Times bestselling author of science fiction masterworks such as the Mars trilogy and 2312, has, on many occasions, imagined our future. Now, in Shaman, he brings our past to life as never before.

There is Thorn, a shaman himself. He lives to pass down his wisdom and his stories — to teach those who would follow in his footsteps.

There is Heather, the healer who, in many ways, holds the clan together.

There is Elga, an outsider and the bringer of change.

And then there is Loon, the next shaman, who is determined to find his own path. But in a world so treacherous, that journey is never simple — and where it may lead is never certain. Shaman is a powerful, thrilling and heart-breaking story of one young man's journey into adulthood — and an awe-inspiring vision of how we lived thirty thousand years ago.

"Robinson (2312) makes a shift from near-future SF to prehistorical fiction with this entertaining but slight ice-age bildungsroman. Loon, a young man on the verge of adulthood, marks his birthday by surviving alone in the wild for two weeks. Returning to his 'pack,' he learns various practical and artistic skills. He's often as rebellious as he is studious, and as driven by teen hormones as any contemporary teen hero (using prehistoric safe-sex methods to avoid sowing his wild oats), but he matures when he falls in love with Elga, a girl from another pack. After their love leads to her pregnancy, they encounter complications that could drive them from Loon's pack and his friends. Robinson creates a rich world, but there's not much new (or much at all, really) in the underlying story, which is predictable right down to the final line. Fans of the author's smooth prose and intense research will find enough of both, but the book is far outclassed by both Robinson's earlier works and other prehistory novels. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

"Robinson's expert world building and lyrical prose offer Jack London-esque pleasures as they depict the stark beauties of the icy landscape — it's desolation, dangers and the desperate choices it forces people to make when pushed to the edge of existence. Richly detailed." Kirkus

Kim Stanley Robinson is a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, Sixty Days and Counting, The Years of Rice and Salt, Antarctica, Galileo, and 2312. In 2008, he was named a "Hero of the Environment" by Time magazine, and he recently joined in the Sequoia Parks Foundation's Artists in the Back Country program. He lives in Davis, California.