Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (3 Jun 2010)
ISBN-10: 0575089199
ISBN-13: 978-0575089198
Copy: Bought online
Reviewer: Cara
From the back cover:
Ana is fourteen. Her father is missing, her mother dead. Ana herself has perhaps another twenty years of life left to her. But in that time she is destined to change the shape of our world.
Ana lives on the North coast of Doggerland, a vast and fertile plain that 10,000 years ago linked the British Isles to mainland Europe. Life is short for Ana's people but they live in an Eden-like world teeming with wildlife, a world yet to feel the impact of man. But their world is changing. The ice has melted, the seas are rising and one fateful year a Tsunami sweeps inland and scatters Ana's people. But if the people of distant Jericho could build a wall to keep the world out, surely Ana's people could build a wall to keep the sea out?
Stephen Baxter's new imaginative epic is the story of life in the Mesolithic, a rich world of alien cultures, a world where death comes swiflty, a world about to be sewpt away. A world that will become our world.
Unless one girl can change it forever.
I have long been a fan of Stephen Baxter’s writing, so when I heard about the release of Stone Spring I immediately pre-ordered the large paperback version. The promise of a trilogy that begins in the prehistoric Stone Age and carries through to around 1500AD (in our calendar), revealing a world where the Roman Empire, Christianity and Islam never happened, was too much for me to resist. A review on www.sfx.co.uk described the trilogy as
a series that’s close to being a prehistoric companion piece to Flood, his ecological disaster novel of 2008.
The first book in the trilogy, Stone Spring tells the story of Ana, a 14 year old girl living in Northland, an area now covered by the North Sea and referred to as Doggerland in our world. She is a strong character, worthy of the lead role as she carries the book well, being determined and innovative as well as having the respect of her people. These traits serve her well throughout the events of the book. While Ana is the focal point, other points of view appear along the way, most significantly that of Novu, a young man sold to a trader by his father in Jericho, whose expertise lies in brick-making. We are introduced to each of the principle players and follow them as their circumstances lead them to Northland and to Ana.
Anyone familiar with Baxter’s work will recognise his style. There is a lot of well-researched detail about life and culture in the Mesolithic; religious beliefs and ceremonies, hunting, tool use, the exchange of ideas with other peoples etc. are all beautifully described without being overly factual. This is one area where Stephen Baxter is particularly strong, as anyone who has read his other novels, such as Evolution or the Time’s Tapestry trilogy will testify. Stone Spring sets the scene for the rest of the books in the series, being wholly concerned with saving Northland/Doggerland from drowning under the rising seas.
It seems such a simple idea, that of building walls or dykes to keep out the encroaching sea, but one that is so powerful that is has the ability to change the progress of European human history. Ana’s strength lies in her open-minded attitude and willingness to adapt ideas from other parts of the known world, brought to her by travellers from outside Northland. She is the catalyst that drives the wall-building to save her homeland after a Tsunami-type event causes death and destruction. This is a time when the ice age is ending rapidly, changing the traditional lives of the Stone Age people and hastening the demise of the creatures they depend upon e.g. aurochs, mammoths. Stone Spring gives us insight into how our ancient ancestors lived and died and shows how the interchange of ideas between different cultures can enhance the survival chances of a tribe of people threatened by changes in the natural world. There are parallels here with our own world where climate change has the potential to destroy civilisation as we know it.
Being the first book in a trilogy, Stone Spring sets the scene for a new European history and promises an intriguing alternate history where the main elements that form the basis of our own society – the influence of the Roman Empire, Christianity and Islam – do not arise. While this is not dealt with here; this is Ana’s story set in her world, one which is slowly being revealed as the North Sea throws up artifacts in the nets of trawlers (see the Afterword); the reader is left wondering how the saving of Northland will impact on human history as we know it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Stone Spring and eagerly await the next book in the trilogy where the consequences of Ana’s actions change the path of history. Will this have a positive effect on human development? I am looking forward to finding out!
Plot: 8
Characters: 8
Style: 8
Overall rating 8/10
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