As always I was not dissapontd.They write about people who are real.I have read the series once a year (icluding the Anazi mysties). I enjoy the deepth of story and charcters.I eagerly await the next one. Thank you for giving me a place to go when the world is crazy.

Your Most Devoted Fan

This is one of the best of the Gear books. It opened up a whole new culture of North America for me that I wasn't aware existed. This book is about a culture that may be to North America what Mesopotamia was to the Middle East. I highly recommend this book if you have any interest in North American cultures.

This story continues the people of north america series
and it does what all the Gear's books do :
provides a great story with insight that you can trust
to be based on hard research.
yet they are truly readable.
I have been captivated by the characters
and these writers

Gripping suspense, fierce rivalries, plots & twists that will keep you guessing. If you read the first two in the series, this is the finale that you were hoping for. I borrowed the first book from a friend, red about 100 pages, put it down & didn't pick it up until a year later. I had to give it another chance. I'm glad I did. This book makes the series a must read for Sci-Fi fans. You won't be disappointed.

Michael Gear's *Forbidden Borders* trilogy concludes with this magnificent book. The trilogy is fast paced; short chapters with no 'filler'. Each section has realistic, necessary action, dialogue, description, or other useful development. A saga spanning worlds, plunging the reader deep into interplanetary culture, the human condition, oh, and realistic SF! Believable faster-than-light travel, weapons, warfare, and technology. A really first class SF work, essiential on any serious SCI-FI fan's bookshelf.

This book's first edition was in November 1988. I have read this same novel at least four times. Once you start reading, you can't put it down. If you love westerns, you must read this one.

Gear has a talent.The way he uses vernacular is astounding.The characters are portayed as they would o' been back then.

What a great story. It is a pitty there was not a satifactory conclusion to it. If there are other books in this spider series please inform me. If I am to receive a response to this review via email please make your self known to me by using the term "Spider review".

Thank You.

People of the Wolf is such a good book. It has everything, love, adventure, hate, passion. It is mind blowing....cant wait to read People of the Lightning. I would recommend this book to everyone. The authors should take a bow...

The first book I bought from this series was People of the Mist.I really enjoyed it so I bought People of the Wolf.After reading the second book I realized the story followes through from one book to the next.I went out and got the entire series.I am now on my third time reading these books.I never get tired of them.There is history,romance,action,adventure and mystery all wrapped up in every book.Well worth the investment.Not for young readers,adult content.

I agree that this is an amazing book. It is the best of the series, I think. I've read them all except the last two, so we'll see what those are like. Anyway, it's a lot like the other first people books - competition for power and competition to maintain survival of a certain kind of people and their way of life. But this is more poignant because we know that this Pueblo civilization vanished with hardly a trace. They were a great and sophisticated nation but that didn't slow down their extinction. The book is a page-turner and I highly recommend it.

This book looks intimidating, with it's seven hundred something pages, but once you start reading, you can't stop! I've never gone through a book so quickly before, staying up often all night because I wanted to know what happened next! The humor in the story has you laughing out loud, and the traumas have you crying along with the characters. The adventure is so wonderful that you can't wait to read it again, and you'll remember it forever, and reccommend it to your friends. A phenomenal achievement

Although this was a scary book to pick up and dive into, due to the length, it is a very easy read. I have laughed so hard at the antics of Green Spider and the group of mismatched men traveling the river. As usual there are a number of powerful women and men in battles of strength, wit, and stamina as well as physical power. This is one of the best I've read so far, being only the 5th in the series. I intend to finish off the series. These are all fantastic books. The wonderful story is woven through threads that tie clans and families together and cords of power that tie them all. The story is built on a strong foundation of historical knowledge and the details abound thoughout this novel of prehistoric North American life. Descriptive and captivating, you'll enjoy every minute of it.

I've read all of the Gear's books in "The First North Americans" series, and this is my favorite! I can't remember the last time I was so engrossed in a book. Not only was the story dramatic and intriguing, it actually had me laughing out loud in some places. This is a "must" for Gear fans and anyone interested in native American culture.

This book epitomizes others by the Gears. Like them, it is an intriguing way to learn more about our Native American forebears. There is plot, action, history and a wealth of knowledge about a very important part of our American history. It made me want to visit this part of the country and see where these people lived. I have a warning, though: read one of the Gear's fine books about the aboriginal ancestors of this country and you may get hooked on them as I did. This is the fourth one I have read, and I am now on the fifth!

The third novel in their series, the Gears introduce us to a different set of people who live in lodges dug into the Earth. Two groups of very different people must learn to work together to fight against a common threat. What's worse, someone is killing their Dreamers -- the people who walk between worlds and can see into the future. An unlikely couple must Dream the new way and lead their peoples into the next age. Once touched by the Power of a Dreamer they will never be the same and neither will you. Once again archaeology and imagination make for a fabulous pre-historic adventure.

This was another masterful book by the Gears. It had some long, unnecissary bits to it but on the whole it was very good. Again, it does a wonderful job of turning an ordinary person into a powerful and influential figure. We should all take this to heart and do our best in everything we do.

Firstly a bit of history behind the story.....This narrative told of an ancient civilisation of Cahokia and the surrounding villages. Simply, they belonged to what was known as the "Mound Builder" settlements, so called because the people in the settlements built burial mounds to honour their dead. The Mound Builder culture, of which Cahokia was a part, had its beginnings 3,000 years ago, when groups of early Americans settled along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. These people were known as the Adena people. Cahokia was believed to be the capital city of that culture having up to 20 000 inhabitants in that area. It was also believed that Cahokia was led by a religious chieftainship, called the "Great Sun." He was thought to be the brother of the sun and his commands were unquestionably followed. His family and close relatives formed an elite ruling class. Warriors were present to guard the food crops (corn) and the villages. They had permanent positions as were depicted in the story.

For those who have read the story and who know some American history, one can see the attention to detail the authors have put into this. We have the mad omnipotent Sun Chief, Theron, and the Warrior leader Badgertail, who obeys his commands even though he disagrees with them. The descriptions of the land make the book a good read. The many different threads that make up the story; disgruntled villages rebelling against the Sun Chief over tributes that need to be paid (main plot), the love between Badgertail and Locust, the dilemma of Badgertail with obeying Theron and doing what he believes is right, the relationship between Lichen and Wanderer, the growth of Lichen spiritually to become a powerful dreamer (subplots) and the way each are connected to one another makes the book interesting.

However, it is disappointing in the lack of character detail. (The landscape detail is excellent and so are the plot and subplots). Of all the characters in the book, only Badgertail is described somewhat fully. The reader cannot predict how a character will behave because not enough character traits are given. Because of this lack of detail, the reader cannot fully engage in the story. Some examples of fantasy novels that will pull the reader into the story are Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series and Stephen Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant". True all these novels are much longer than "People of the River", but nevertherless are much better reads because of the added detail. An example of a great short novel is the war story " All Quiet on the Western Front" written by Erich Maria Remarque which is much shorter than this novel but is more descriptive of its characters. A similar kind of story (historical fiction) to "People of the River" is written by Jean Auel in the "Earth's Children" series but with the character analysis far surpassing this.

Nevertheless, if all you are after is a book to fill up time, this book is not a bad one to pick. However if you want a great book, go for one of the ones I have listed. They are much more enthralling novels.

This is one of the best books I've ever read (along with all the other books of the people series). It was a tale of love, and dispute, and surprising turns. What can I say... it can capture any reader with it's plot. Everything in this book ties into the end. I would DEFINATELY recommend this book.

The long review referring to the Mask of Many Colored Crow is not actually about People of the River. It's about People of the Lakes, my favorite book. However, People of the River is extremely excellent as well. This story especially touched me, a young reader, because of its heroine Lichen, who is only ten. I was twelve when I first read this book. It DOES contain mature subject matter probably unsuitable for kids, but if you appreciate excellent writing, you have to read this

I have read all of the First North Americans series by the Gears and loved them all...except this one. "People of the Mist" seemed more superficial than their previous works with less historical information than I had become used to hearing from these authors. I felt the 'investigation' dragged on much too long. I wish the focus of this work had been on Panther without the extraneous murder mystery. His life appeared to be more interesting and meaningful than any of the other somewhat shallow characters. I found I did not 'care' what happened to the people in this story...something highly unusual for me when reading one the O'Neal/Gear books. If this is your first introduction to their writing and you enjoyed it, you are in for an exceptional reading experience with their other works.

I think this is the first prehistoric mystery I've ever read. I usually don't read mysteries, but I've read all the books in this series, and I enjoyed this one as much or more than its predecessors. It's nice to see something different from past storylines. The only thing that bothered me was that the characters sometimes explained their customs to each other in a somewhat clumsy effort by the authors to teach the readers something about the culture. For example, they talked about matrilineal systems more than once, emphasizing how the mother's brother, not the father, is responsible for the children's upbringing. Once might have been all right, but more than that seemed a little too much. Other than that, I thought the book was great. And, as a resident of the Susquehanna Valley, I was pleased to see the Susquehannocks mentioned somewhere besides a history textbook.

I have read almost all of the Prehistoric "People of the..." novels by the Gears (I am currently reading the People of the Masks). People of the Mists is FANTASTIC! What a great murder mystery! I could not guess the killer til the end...and even then...wow! The characters are well drawn and the hints and clues and potential killers with their wide array of motives are very skillfully inserted in the story. I like all of the books of the series. People of the Lakes is the best, with Mists ranking second on my list. Highly recommended!

Having been raised in central Montana, I was waiting for historical or geographical innaccuracies. I found none. The writing was excellent and did an excellent job of portraying the relationships between the traders and the Native Americans. I felt it handled the issues of race and racism tactfully while at the same time hitting them head on. Highly reccommended.

I don't know when a book has enthralled me more. I came away challenged to understand my surroundings and those folks around us. Historically Coyote Summer is with out peers. Please Micheal continue this story.

I bought this for my father for Christmas and he absolutely loved the book. He has read the Jean Auel series several times over and loves it. He has read all of the "People of..." series by Michael and Kathleen and absolutely liked those.

Hands down he said this was perhaps the best book he has ever read in his 73 years. For as many times as he has read and loved the Jean Auel series that is saying a lot.