The Year the Horses Came

by Mary Mackey

Book Overview

With great range and dazzling detail, bestselling novelist Mackey delivers a beautifully written, soundly researched, and dynamically paced prehistoric romance with the popular appeal of Clan of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451182987
• ISBN13: 9780451182982
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Onyx Books
• Length: 397 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Living in Partnership is Part of Human History

These novels are an excellent way to show a partnership oriented way of life as part of human history. For those who find historical accounts to cumbersome to read, Mackey provides a superb narrative and vision of a world more peaceful than ours. This is not a mere fantasy, but a reality for much of human history. In an entertaining way Mackey shows how life among the Mother people was peaceful and harmonious and how domination got started and took over the world. As a philosophy professor I freely use her work to bring this precious time of human developement closer to my students. For those who deny that these times actually existed I recommend reading the works of Riane Eisler and Marija Gimbutas.... I enjoyed Mackey's books and can hardly wait to see Marah and Stavan as heroes on the silver screen.

Incredibly beautiful and enchanting book

This was an amazing read. I was hooked from the first few pages and I remained hooked the entire novel. Reading about the peaceful, egalitarian ways of the Goddess-worshiping people made me wish that the culture we lived in today was still like that. I would read the book every night before going to bed, and I slept well with the beautiful images of these gentle people in my mind every night. I felt inspired knowing it was possible for humans to actually exist this way.The book had another thing which I found very striking. Later on in the book when we see how life is like among the nomads (I'm not going into any more detail than this because I don't want to give away any spoilers!) it was really shocking. The violent, anti-woman society was wrenching and painful to read about. I think that in today's culture, we are so de-sensitized to violence and oppression that it doesn't elicit the horror that it should. But after reading the first part of the book and being immersed in the ways of the Goddess-loving people, the violence of the nomads was even more horrific. This novel seems to be inspired by Rianne Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, which was another amazing, world-view chaging book. Historical evidence is there to indicate that the change in humanity's course that we see in this book actually did happen, and I lament for the ways and culture that was (mostly) lost.This was an evocative, exciting book that I recommend to anyone.

exciting, romantic and beautifully written

I fell in love with the characters. Her description of the places and events was such, that I could see the places. The story was so romantic and touching. I cried and cheered. Thank you, Mary.. there was one problem with the book.. it had to end. I could have continued reading it on and on.

Brings the Chalice and the Blade to life

This book along with "Horses at the Gate" brings the prehistory of Europe alive. I have read "When God was a Woman" and "The Chalice and the Blade", both MUST reads, and this series is the perfect complement to them. Please read my review of "When God Was a Woman". May the Goddess be rethroned in our lifetime! I'm a guy saying this too!

Vivid recreation of the Civilization of the Goddess

Mary Mackey's Earthsong Trilogy (The Year the Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring) is a dynamic and thoroughly engaging series of novels based upon the scholarship of archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas. The Neolithic cultures of Old Europe, from Brittany to Bulgaria, are brought to life though Mackey's consummate skills as a storyteller. The series pivots around the most dramatic transition in European prehistory: the appearance of nomadic people into Europe at the end of the 5th millennium B.C. that resulted, according to Marija Gimbutas, in a collision of peaceful and warlike cultures. This "collision" profoundly influenced all subsequent European development. People of European origin have inherited influences from both cultural levels. In the Earthsong Trilogy, Mary Mackey explores the human dimension of this transition by putting flesh on the bones as only a novelist can. Her series offers a lively retelling of European cultural origins that inspires a new consideration of European prehistory. Mackey's writing is immensely enjoyable and highly recommended!