Will Ayla’s Adventure Ever Conclude?

I’ve been a long-time fan of Jean M. Auel’s Earth Children series of books: The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980); The Valley of Horses (1982); The Mammoth Hunters (1985); The Plains of Passages (1990); and The Shelters of Stone (2002). As this was supposed to be a hexalogy, and we currently only have five published titles, the question many fans have been asking is: “When will the 6th book be coming out?”

I wish I had an answer. With the books having increasingly long gaps between them (from 2yrs to 3yrs to 5yrs to 12yrs), and with Ms Auel’s age of 73 (in 2009), there is growing concern that the sixth book might never appear.

The speculated reasons why are numerous if not what you’d expect. These rumors were flying around toward the end of the lengthy wait for the 5th book in the series. Many of them are concerns about Ms Auel’s health. Is she actually still capable of penning novels of this scope? Another popular one is that perhaps she’s just lost interest. After that initial, passionate flurry of writing the first 3 books, both the frequency and (arguably) the quality of the books went down even as the page counts increased. Some even wonder if she even knows how to end the series, but from an undated interview taken years prior to the publication of the 5th book, Ms Auel said:

The first draft of the entire six book series was written at one time, in one single burst of creative energy, over a four month period of 12 to 16 hour days of sustained writing, during which I did almost nothing else except additional research. I thought at the time that it would be one novel, Earth’s Children, but it fell into six parts. It was only on rewriting that I realized that I had instead written an in-depth outline for a six book series.

So, we can take from that that the gist of the final novel has already been worked out long ago.

Unlike during the gap preceding the 5th book, Auel’s son, Kendall, has been rather quiet about the progress of the much-anticipated final installment, which isn’t helping the rumor mill at all. Also not helping was a comment Auel made to USA Today when the 5th book was published: “I’m still planning to write six books,” but now she admits, “I am not 100% sure I can get it all in one more book.”

This comment has elicited even more concern from fans given the long gaps between books. The thought is that even if Auel does manage to push out the sixth book, then the odds of the septuagenarian penning a seventh are remote. It’s basically thought that it’s going to be just #6 or nothing.

But as I said, there has been scant information as to the status of the sixth book which is causing a number of fans to give up the wait. That understandable. Auel implied that after that long 12-year gap, the next book would be released in a more timely manner…that much of it had already been worked on. It’s now seven years on, and there’s been no word about…well, pretty much anything. Needless to say, some fans are feeling abandoned and a little betrayed by the author.

For me, I’m still hopeful that the 6th book will emerge. If Auel needs a ghost writer, I’ll be happen to jump in—just be warned that in such a case there will be fewer gratuitous sex scenes and tedious introductions & recaps, and the story-telling will be somewhat tighter than recently.

As to why the sixth book isn’t out…again, I have no idea. I suspect its a combination of a lot of reasons: not wanting to end the saga, some burn-out from the pressure, maybe some illness (of the author or her family), and some niggling story problem that is just not wanting to be solved (it happens). I don’t think the story finished with The Shelters of Stone, but if it does…well, at least Ms Auel has always been kind enough to leave us with open-ended conclusions that feel like a story has been told, and that there is yet more to tell. The last book has to feel like it’s the end of Ayla’s story (not necessarily the end of Ayla, but of her part in the grander story).

Unfortunately, there is little the fans can do. Authors either write and finish what they write, or they don’t. As readers, we’ve gotten a bit spoiled by the determined nature of J.K. Rowling in pushing out the seven volumes of the Harry Potter series. Even she started slowing down toward the end. It’s not an easy slog getting through an epic tale, so perhaps Jean Auel should be given some slack.

At this point, I’d just be happy for some news. Any definitive news at all—even if it was that the fans would have to be satisfied with the five books that have been written—would at least end the baseless speculations. Of course, if the series does stop at five, I’d love to find out (in broad strokes) how it was supposed to end from that original burst of creativity almost thirty years ago.

If you’d like to check out the series (or you need to replace your worn-out copies), follow the links below to satisfy your literary craving (these are for paperbacks, there are hardback links in the product description):