The Children of First Man

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Read
Review: Amazingly, I felt transferred into this wild wilderness, battling all of the various elements of danger contained within the world of the ragged travellers. This is the story of a Welsh prince of antiquity that leaves his embattled homeland to hopefully build another kingdom in paradise. The scenes on the ocean voyage are particularly exciting, as are the various encounters with the native peoples he and his fellow journeyers encounter. I found the novel entirely engrossing.Before devouring this book, I had never read any of Thom's other novels. I went on to read most of his other works in rapid succession. He brings the history of native America into sharper focus.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting concept...
Review: I have never heard of the Madoc legend before reading this book and now am eager to find out more about the legend. (I read this book because I enjoyed Follow the River so much.)
The three star rating is because of the large shifts in time between chapters which makes it difficult to follow the ancestral lineage of some of the characters. I wish more had been told of Man On a Horse and his bride Snow Hair. How is chief Four Bears related to them? ect....
I think a series of books may have done the story more justice.
The begining and the end are incredible. Don't be discouraged half way through the book. Stay with it until the end. You will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting concept...
Review: I have never heard of the Madoc legend before reading this book and now am eager to find out more about the legend. (I read this book because I enjoyed Follow the River so much.)
The three star rating is because of the large shifts in time between chapters which makes it difficult to follow the ancestral lineage of some of the characters. I wish more had been told of Man On a Horse and his bride Snow Hair. How is chief Four Bears related to them? ect....
I think a series of books may have done the story more justice.
The begining and the end are incredible. Don't be discouraged half way through the book. Stay with it until the end. You will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful research and writing
Review: I've always thought if the first chapter of a book didn't grab my attention, then it wasn't worth my time. This book was assigned for reading by the moderator of my library book review group. At first I was really disappointed because the last book had been a real bummer. I read the first chapter and thought I had another bummer. But I was determined to finish the whole book come [any obstacle]. So I made myself start reading again. Well, was I ever in for a surprise.
The Prologue begins in 1838 with George Catlin, the artist, who had been allowed to paint the People of the Mandan tribe, to include the greatest Indian Chief of all, Four Bears. Then Chapter One begins in the summer of 1169, when a Welsh yellow-haired prince named Madoc, and his brother, have sailed toward the new land. From this point on until the end of Chapter Eight, the author writes about Madoc's trials and tribulations with the natives after arriving in this new land.
Chapters Nine through Seventeen pretty much tells how the "marked drawings" of Madoc, later desribed as the "Magic Bundle" are handed down through the generations for safe-keeping.
From Chapter Eighteen on, this author had my complete attention. I could NOT put the book down because my ancestors are Cherokee.
Although there were times I felt the author was drawing the book out over too long of a time frame, it wasn't until I finished reading the book that I realized how well written and researched this book had been.
The last few chapters had me in tears. Although written as a work of fiction, in my heart I could very well imagine this story to be as true as any nonfiction book I've ever read.
I have nothing but the highest respect and admiration for this author, James Alexander Thom. May the Great Spirit be with him, guiding his thoughts and his hand as he embarks on his next novel. I'll be waiting to read it.
My opinion of this book? It's one of the best written books I've had the pleasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: Provocative, but sometimes overly disturbing
Review: This is a very intriguing treatment of a story that most Americans no longer remember. The tale of Prince Madoc, who supposedly came over to Alabama from Wales in the same year as the events described in T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral", (1170 A.D.), has had its zealous believers, as well as its detractors, since the days of Elizabeth I. In this book, Thom asks the science-fictional question of "what if" a.) this legend were in fact true, and b.) how did the descendants of Madocs colonists fare? It is always thought-provoking, always interesting. There is one very disturbing scene, which essentially details a rape. I would advise women and younger readers, and sensitive people in general, to try to be prepared for this, and perhaps to gloss over it altogether. It does serve to illustrate the brutality of life in certain societies, but was a bit excessive for me. The author obviously felt it was necessary, but I am not sure I totally agree.

Apart from that, there is a lot to be said for this book. The whole idea is, for some people, inherently fascinating. This novel covers a span of many centuries, in a way that works well for me. You see the medieval Welsh people at one point, then a chapter or two later you see them as increasingly illiterate people with fewer and fewer remnants of their religion, language, memories of Europe, etc. It is heart-breaking, but at the same time you do feel for the descendants of the original colonists, who must survive in a harsh world, and who have little time for remembering amenities. The battle scenes with the Cherokee, Sioux, etc. are exciting, I should say, but this is not a book about war as such. It is a very thoughtful overview of an intriguing idea, and I must say that there is a LOT of attention paid to the ways of real native americans. Rituals, customs, crafts, etc. are all gone into with the eye of an anthropologist. I read somewhere that Thom is related, by blood or marriage, I don't remember, to at least one native american tribe, and the sympathy engendered by this tie, tempered by a realism which many writers on these peoples do not display, shines through on every page.

Some other books I recommend on related topics include "Hidden Cities" by Roger Kennedy; the children's book "A Swiftly Tilting Planet", by Madeleine L'Engle; "Sacajawea" by Anna Lee Waldo; or especially "Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians : Written During Eight Years' Travel Among Them, 1832-1839" by George Catlin. Or, if you go to yahoo.com, google.com, hotbot.com, or whatever search engine you prefer, try searching for "madoc and mandan", using Boolean operators, and you should find a few dozen websites dealing with this fascinating legend.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This is the BEST book I have ever read.
I read it when it first came out and again recently.
Outstanding, Mr. Thom draws you into the era.
A great story told by a great story teller.
I read a lot of historical fiction and this was by far the greatest!
Children of First Man and Runestone by Don Coldsmith are the two best books on the subject of early white man in North America.
Mr. Thoms latest book Sign-Talker is also a must read.