Walkers of the Wind by William Sarabande

Yikes, this book was pretty much glorified violence.  But we'll get back to that.  "Walkers of the Wind" is the fourth book in the First Americans saga by William Sarabande.  This is a series meant to be read in order, so you need to go start at "Beyond the Sea of Ice".

Torka and his band have lived in the Eastern lands for awhile, and they have lived well.  With him as headsman, life has settled into a routine and they have been able to watch their children grow.  But that all changes one day when a prairie fire sweeps the land.  Some of his band are injured and they must move, ever onward, and ever eastward.  Things are further complicated when both of his twin sons want the same girl and jealousy rises between them.  And considering the girl has brought nothing but trouble, Torka isn't sure how to handle the rising animosity between the members of his band.

Torka was actually better in this book.  He made firm, level-headed decisions.  Lonit, sadly, was again mostly in the background.  She went from being such a strong character to being only a mother, and while that's an important job, she only gets that role to show off her unique qualities.  She's more than that.  Naya, the troublesome girl who both twins like doesn't have any redeeming qualities.  We're supposed to dislike her for most of the novel, and that is very easy to do.  She's the equivalent of a spoiled brat kid who can never get enough new toys in today's world.  Larani, her playmate, on the other hand is another strong character who faces a lot of hardships and overcomes them.  I could probably detail out the rest of Torka's band for you, but if you read the series, you'll get a chance to know them.

While I was glad to see the continuation of the series and what happened to Torka's band, there was a lot of upheaval in this book.  And it ended in a way I didn't really expect and made me wonder what the next book would cover.  The writing was descriptive, as usual.  But the problem is this time it was too descriptive when it came to the violence and hard things.  Sarabande always has hard topics in this series.  But there was a lot of rape in this one.  Including an overly descriptive rape scene of a child that I had to skim over because it was too hard to read.  And there's not much that is too hard for me to read, so I'm telling you, this was bad.  As said before, it just seemed like glorified violence, like Sarabande was trying very hard just to shock people.  It kind of ruined the book for me.

I'll still continue reading the series, mainly because I have more books sitting on my shelf, but I hope that a few changes are made.  I enjoy reading about the life and journies of the people in this book, but I don't enjoy violence that is meant to shock rather than improve the quality of the book.

Walkers of the Wind
Copyright 1990
420 pages