Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country

Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country by Allan Richard Shickman

The prehistoric saga continues in Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country, the sequel to the award winning Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure. In this story, Zan's troubled twin brother, Dael, having suffered greatly during his earlier captivity, receives a ruinous new shock when his wife suddenly dies. Disturbed and traumatized, all of his manic energies explode into acts of hostility and bloodshed. His obsession is the destruction of the wasp men, his first captors, who dwell in the Beautiful Country. When he, Zan-Gah, and a band of adventurers trek to their bountiful home, they find that all of the wasp people have died in war or of disease. The Beautiful Country is empty for the taking, and Zan's people, the Ba-Coro, decide to migrate and resettle there. But the Noi, Dael's cruelest enemies and former tormentors, make the same migration from their desert home, and the possibility develops of contention and war over this rich and lovely new land.

My Review:

After everything that poor Zan-Gah has been through, he still can't seem to catch a break. Poor Dael is causing way too much trouble and old foes are popping up left and right.

The book starts out with an introduction to a character that I absolutely LOVED! Her name is Pax. She's smart, witty, and she can totally show up the boys with all of their macho-ness. I thought that having her introduced in this book will definitely appeal to the girls out there who are wanting to read or are reading this book.

Dael who is in the forefront of this story is crazy with grief. I feel bad for him, but at the same time I want to scream at him. (Does that make sense?) And Zan-Gah, who has already done so much for Dael, now has to deal with all of Dael's moodswings.

The plot of this book wasn't as straight-laced as the first Zan-Gah book mainly because there is no main journey like when Zan-Gah wanted to find Dael in Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure. In this book there are a couple adventures that all come together to form this epic journey.

This book, in my opinion, added to the audience of the first book by throwing in Pax and getting into some female empowerment.

4/5 stars

* I recieved this book to review via Earthshaker Books. This in no way altered my opinion/review.