The Corridor of Storms by William Sarabande

Corridor of Storms is the 2nd book in the First Americans series.  If you haven't read the first book, I highly suggest you go start there, otherwise you'll be a bit lost in this book.

Torka and his band (3 women, a boy, and some children) have been living in a sheltered valley for about three years.  However, when one of the women is having a troubled pregnancy, he knows they must leave their valley and search out the gathering of other tribes.  The boy, Karana, is not at all happy about this excursion. He remembers the violence of other people and when they reach the gathering, there are some there who like Torka and some that would do anything to see him dead.

Torka, for all that he is brave and bold, does not have a lick of good sense.  Constantly he is warned not to do something, only to do it anyway thinking it is in his women's best interest.  And since Lonit is normally such a strong character, it is surprising to see her so wimpy and simpering in this book.  Karana is about the only one with sense, and even he is a little too brash at times.  Then there's the bad guys, especially Navahk.  He is pure evil.  There really is no redeeming goodness in him.  Which kind of makes it too easy to dislike him and wish the worst on him.  The best bad guys have an ounce of humanity that can confuse the reader's feelings.

And then there's the fact that this plot is almost identical to that of the first book.  Torka living peacefully and happily in the small band but then wanting to find other people.  Torka finding other people and life goes all wrong before he finally strikes out on his own again.  You'd think he'd have learned after several repeated mistakes.  This book, like the first, is very violent too.  And there is a lot of sexual violence in this one.  So much that it even disturbed me a bit and I'm normally pretty unflappable when it comes to reading stuff like that.  The amount of hate and anger and description can be hard to take at times.  Consider yourself warned even if you do normally have a strong constitution for stuff like that.  Aside from the violence, Sarabande is a descriptive writer for everything else.  That is the redeeming quality of this book.  He's able to bring the prehistoric world to life.

Not as good as the first book but I'll still continue reading the series.  My hope is that it will bounce back and redeem the characters.  Two and a half stars for this one though.

Corridor of Storms
Copyright 1988
420 pages