Shaman (novel)
2013 novel by Kim Stanley Robinson
Shaman: A Novel of the Ice Age is a 2013 novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. Set during the Ice Age, it tells the story of a trainee shaman, from a tribe of European early modern humans, who must learn the skills needed to survive and to aid his people.
Synopsis
The novel begins with Loon, a boy from a tribe of Ice Age humans who call themselves the Wolf Pack, being stripped naked and sent into a lonely valley where he is expected to try to survive alone for two weeks as a test of manhood. Despite a rainstorm on the first day, Loon succeeds in using the skills he has been taught by Thorn, the Wolf Pack's shaman. He manages to start a fire, kill animals for food, and make himself clothing. During his trial he encounters a group of Neanderthals (a species of human whom his band calls 'the Old Ones') who attack him, and he injures a leg while escaping them, an injury that will trouble him for the rest of his story. Despite many adventures, Loon completes his trial and returns to the Wolf Pack. At this point it is revealed that he is just twelve years old.
The next section of the novel describes Loon's life among the Wolf Pack, a small band of hunter-gatherers who migrate according to the seasons, hunting caribou in the winter, fish and deer in the summer. Loon's parents are both dead, and he is being raised by Thorn to be a shaman, teaching him about the spirit world and the stories of his people in addition to more practical survival skills.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19895754. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shaman (novel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.