Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2024 #Potluck -#BookReview by Stuart Aken for Wolf Road, by Alice Roberts

Welcome to the series of Posts from Your Archives and I will be sharing posts from the SECOND six months of 2023 from your archives.

This current series is now closed to submissions but there will be a new series to participate in later in the year.

This is the first post from author Stuart Aken who is also a prolific book reviewer. I have selected two of his reviews to share in this series. The first being Wolf Road by Alice Roberts

This wonderful story was written for children, but I read and enjoyed it as a man of 75 years because it is so well written. An absorbing, intelligent, imaginative adventure informed by the science the author has lived with and her experience of life in appropriate lands.

I’ve followed Alice Roberts’ career with interest ever since I first encountered her work on the TV programme, Time Team, in the early 2000s. She has brought accessible science to a wide world with her sensible and empathetic treatment of historical facts.

The story takes the reader through a journey from a winter camp occupied by a tribe during a time around 30,000 years ago, along a lively river to the camp where many tribes meet for the short summer period. There are encounters with wildlife, some of which is definitely food, with danger, and with a mysterious stranger along the way.

I particularly enjoyed her descriptions of the hunts. Living in a forest where deer and wild boar live, I’ve come to understand how these animals can be observed at close distance by a quiet and cautious walker in the trees. That experience makes it very easy to believe in the accounts of the hunts in the story.

The emotional journey is equally well explored and revealed. And the probable way in which myth and legend led us to religion is cleverly brought to life here. The main protagonist is a girl of twelve years, just at the age where she is no longer treated as a child by her tribe. She exhibits courage, asks questions, explores her surroundings, and wonders about the wider world, as she carries out her tasks throughout the trek to a more comfortable site.

The book is of necessity a work of fiction, since there is no written history of the period in which it is set. But Alice Roberts’ knowledge of that time, her research, her wide understanding of discovered artefacts, archaeological sites, and of human physiology all inform the story to bring it to life in a manner that makes the tale utterly plausible.

Her use of language is apt for the age of potential readers without any sort of condescension, and with enough challenge to help young readers develop a wider vocabulary.

This is a book I’d love to see installed in every school library, and even used alongside textbooks as an aid to understanding that prehistoric period we are slowly beginning to know more fully. In fact, had I been able to read this at the right age, I might well have decided on a career in archaeology instead of the route I took. This is a story many children will love to read for themselves or have read to them by a caring adult.

You can find this book and others by Alice Roberts: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK

©Stuart Aken 2023

My thanks to Stuart for letting me share posts from his archives and I know he would love to hear from you.

A selection of books by Stuart Aken

One of the reviews for A Seared Sky – Joinings book one of three

Linda Acaster 5.0 out of 5 stars Religious Dystopia v Enlightenment  Reviewed in the United Kingdom

Although this novel fits firmly into the Epic Fantasy subgenre, it would be an underestimation to view this first book as a mere quest story to right wrongs. It is an examination of dogma and believers of a religion, the Followers of Ytraa, physically split into three many generations before the opening of the trilogy. In ‘Joinings’ readers experience only two – those of the land of Muhnilahm ruled by a priesthood, and the land of Litkala ruled by a royal house. Yet for all their extolled differences and mutual mistrust they are reflections of the same, societies built on sex – publicly orchestrated and privately profligate – with emotional love, devotion and self-sacrifice funnelled only towards the fuelling of the dogma.

It is the ‘why?’ that I found fascinating. What had occurred in the far past to bring this about? Certainly the approaching Skyfire, with its lore of burning all unbelievers, is at its root. Had a group of survivors of a natural disaster instigated a method of rapid repopulation – at all costs? Certainly there are no old, or sick, or malformed, or merely ‘ugly’. Eugenics? There is mention on Muhnilahm of ‘The Point’, a desolate area where unfortunates are banished, or escape to rather than face a tortured death in the name of the religion. Yet within the society there are hardly any children to be seen or, for all the constant euphemistically-termed ‘frowking’, no pregnant women, and the Virgin Gifts, female despite the vaunted equality of the sexes, are exalted in the creed as an exchange of blood lines.

It is the quest to exchange Virgin Gifts – and to secure the release of one fraudulently chosen – that journeys the main groups of characters through lands of unbelievers and, because of these ongoing experiences, the tenets of their own religious dogma. Hypocrisy is emphasised early on as the fanatic Aglydron attempts to ‘free’ an exploited young woman by replacing her people’s indoctrination with his own without realising what he’s doing.

Into this mix are dripped the personal stories, each with its own layered secrets: Tumalind, chosen falsely as a Virgin Gift who holds a striking likeness to the daughter of the High Priest; the high priest’s son and rebel leader, Aklon, an escapee on pain of death for refusing to embrace and promote the secrets of Ytraa when its history was revealed to him; Feldrark, son of the royal house, who professes undying love to gain the high priest’s daughter, Jodisa, while hiding his true reasons. Some walk with veiled intellect, others with that veil gradually being stripped away by the experiences encountered. As the groups move into Book 2, and the mind-talkers manipulate and are manipulated, this layered tale promises much. Enjoy. 

Read the reviews and buy the books: Amazon UK – And: Amazon US – More Reviews: Goodreads – Website/blog: Stuart Aken – LinkedIn: Stuart Aken – Facebook: Stuart Aken Author – And: Pinterest – Medium – Bluesky – Threads

About Stuart Aken

Stuart Aken was born, against the odds, in a neighbour’s bed and defeated the doom-mongers by coming out alive. Raised by his artist mother, who died in a car crash when he was 16, and a travelling salesman step-father, who taught him about the natural world, he has worked in many different roles, including press photographer, farmhand, shop manager, team leader, legal advisor, and office manager.

He refuses to be stuck in a box, so writes in various genres: “The story chooses the genre.” Occasionally, he enters writing contests and sometimes wins. He runs an active website and blog, which can be easily found by a search under his name on any browser.

Married to his dream woman, with whom he walks almost daily in his new home in the Forest of Dean, he has a grown-up daughter currently living and working in Australia.

So far, he’s published romance, science fiction, short stories, fantasy, horror, erotica, and a personal memoir.  As he would say, “Enjoy the read!”

 

Thanks for dropping in today and I hope you be leaving with some books.