The first three books were fantastic. Book four was "walk, hunt, eat, sex, sleep, repeat" but the meetings with interesting groups along the journey made up for the dull parts. Book five's 600+ pages could have been consisted of only one sentence "Ayla and Jondalar arrive at his family's cave and Ayla has a baby" and you wouldn't have missed a thing. I eagerly hoped that this series which I had been following for over 20 years would redeem itself with book six. 
 Never has there been a more crushing literary disappointment. I skipped entire pages. This was, without a doubt, the most boring piece of fiction I have ever read. My graduate school textbooks were more interesting. And don't even get me started on the anachronisms: people living 25,000 years ago would NOT have known what a "mile" is.