Ron Fritsch

Promised Valley War Ron Fritsch

In Promised Valley War, the individuals among two prehistoric peoples most curious about their ?eternal? enemies, and most willing to treat them as their equals, nevertheless set the stage for what they?ve feared more than anything else: another horrifying war. Promised Valley War is the second in Ron Fritsch?s Promised Valley four-novel series, in which prehistoric farmers inhabit a fertile river valley they believe their gods promised them in return for their good behavior and obedience. Their enemies, hunters roaming the mostly barren hills beyond the mountains enclosing the valley, believe their gods gave it to them. In the first book in the series, Promised Valley Rebellion, the farmers? king refused to allow the marriage of the coming-of-age prince to the daughter of the farmer who?d saved the king?s life in the last war with the hunters. The daughter?s outspoken brother decided he had to help his sister and the prince, his boyhood friend, correct the flagrant injustice. That decision led them and their youthful allies into a rebellion against the king and his officials who ruled the kingdom from their bluff-top town. The far more numerous farmers in the villages below, who despised the highest officials but not the king, and who admired the prince, were in a position to determine whether the rebels would succeed or face execution for treason. Kirkus said this about Promised Valley Rebellion: "Fritsch's debut novel . . . encourages the reader to ponder the universal elements of the tale. . . . Fritsch . . . grant[s] his characters an easy, unforced humanity that is instantly inviting. His people . . . sound like individuals, and . . . make the story memorable. A strange, primitive world that feels winningly real." Kirkus said this about Promised Valley War: "War erupts in a peaceful prehistoric valley. Tensions were already brewing in Fritsch's Promised Valley Rebellion (2010), in which a group of young people living in the relatively benign and loosely organized prehistoric community of Promised Valley rebelled against their king and his council in reaction to a seemingly arbitrary, tyrannical ruling the king had made. That rebellion revolved around the hidden past of Rose Leaf, the beautiful young daughter of war-hero farmer Green Field, and it led to war with the hill people whose marauding ways are a constant threat to the inhabitants of Promised Valley. In Fritsch's latest novel (which is given depth by a reading of the first book but can be enjoyed as a stand-alone book), despite the best efforts of that same group of young people, war between the valley people and the hill people has erupted again. The author?s well-rendered descriptions of the creeping onslaught of war and winter give the reader a visceral feel for the endangered paradise that can occur despite the best intentions of the best people, and readers will be surprised by the twists he gives his tale. Alongside the careful plotting and natural-sounding dialogue, there's a refreshing amount of deeper resonances in the Promised Valley series, a steady undercurrent of commentary of the present day. The treatment of the young hero Blue Sky's attraction to other men, for instance, is straightforward but nonconfrontational, and characters at several points grapple with their society's primitive theology. ?Could gods who were good-hearted ? allow humans to go to war with one another?? the narrative at one point asks. '[I]f they, like humans, had no choice in the matter, why did humans call them gods?' The novel will leave readers eager to find out what happens next in Promised Valley. Luckily, Fritsch has plans to add two more volumes to the series. A captivating novel that will transport readers back to prehistory times?while reminding them of their own."