Hunters of the Plains
by Ardath Mayhar
At a time when volcanoes were being born in what is now New Mexico, clans of hunter-gatherers were already living in the Great Plains. Primordial beasts roamed the land: creatures like the giant sloth, the flat-faced bear, the woolly mammoth, and the dire wolf hunted there, often coming into conflict with their two-legged prey. When Do-na-ti reaches adulthood, he slays the badger for his ceremonial cloak. By wedding E-lo-ni, he unites their clans. Together they must face battle with dire wolves, a stampede of mammoths that destroys their lodge, and the birth of a new volcano, fulfilling an old woman's prophecy and Do-na-ti's conviction that his son must become brother to the mountain.
"Mayhar has a way of drawing the reader seamlessly into her historical narratives. You can smell the breath of the dire wolf as it closes in for the kill!" – Robert Reginald
Details updated August 29, 2021
Ardath Mayhar
Ardath Frances Hurst Mayhar (born 1930) began her writing career as a poet when she was nineteen. She began writing science fiction in 1979 after returning with her family to Texas from Oregon. She was nominated for the Mark Twain Award, and won the Balrog Award for a horror narrative poem in Masques I. She has had numerous other nominations for awards in almost every fiction genre and has won many awards for poetry. In 2008 she was chosen by Science Fiction Writers of America as their Author Emeritus.
