Overview
Promised Valley Peace is the fourth and last novel in Ron Fritsch’s Promised Valley series. Blue Sky and Wandering Star and the other conspirators and their allies from the first three novels give up on the gods, whose existence many of them doubt, and discover how to use horses in warfare. They prepare to employ them in a last battle against the die-hards led by the brutal War Cloud. The purpose of the allies is to bring the prehistoric enemy hunters and farmers together as one people in a “new kingdom” and end warfare between them forever.
The US Review of Books: “This story ties up all the loose ends and leaves the reader with closure and satisfaction as they turn the last page, assuring devotees of this tale a pleasing ending. The friendship and affection between these youths is heartwarming, the sweeping action of the battles and combat is breathtaking, and the pacing is rapid-fire and wastes none of the readers’ time. While perhaps being a little graphic for younger readers, teenagers and adults will be swept away by the details that bring this saga to life and to its close.”
Kirkus Indie Reviews: “The novel convincingly depicts a society in which homosexual relationships are conducted openly with no lessening of public esteem, and Fritsch handles the theme with a no-fuss skill reminiscent of Mary Renault’s. Blue Sky, Wandering Star, and their various allies and enemies also contend with the introduction of horses as beasts of war in the valley’s latest conflagration. Fritsch tells a very detailed, very human story. Some of the book’s younger characters admirably seek to forge a real, lasting peace in their lifetimes, and the interminable threat of war allows Fritsch to make the conflict an allegory for every human conflict to come. There’s a sad moment of irony when a character late in the book hopes that their peoples will ‘never go to war again.’ A wise, bittersweet conclusion to a sprawling tale of prehistoric war and peace.”
Reader Views: “While this story is set at the end of prehistoric times, it made me reflect on how we share many of the same issues even today. For the people of this valley, they had horses to go to war, in our modern times we have weapons of mass destruction. Yet we share a common issue of having to deal with people that are greedy and manipulative for their own gain. In the story and in real life, people from different backgrounds will go against each other because of perceived differences, yet at our core we all come from the same origin. I found Ron Fritsch’s Promised Valley Peace very thought-provoking and I enjoyed being able to return to see what was happening in the lives of these people. Even though they were created in the author’s mind, he writes in such a way that the land and the people are very real and the readers who have been following this series will be happy to see how it concludes.”
Feathered Quill Book Reviews: “Upon finishing Promised Valley Peace, my take away from this body of work is a strong sense of having experienced an incredibly interesting epic tale of “what if” had the beginnings of time played out as Mr. Fritsch had so adeptly written across the pages of his series. His signature style of writing several subplots, twists and turns in the early pages delivers an intrinsic feeling of being at the starting line of a champion race that is about to begin. Indeed, Mr. Fritsch has accomplished fantastic closure to his epic series in book four, Promised Valley Peace. Quill says: The answer to the question of peace is delivered and then some in Promised Valley Peace. Book four stays true to the author’s intent in that it is genuinely thought-provoking with an epic ending that complements this intriguing civilization of people.”
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940045424288 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Ron Fritsch |
| Publication date: | 11/07/2013 |
| Series: | Promised Valley , #4 |
| Sold by: | Smashwords |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 380 KB |
About the Author
Ron Fritsch has published a four-book series of Promised Valley novels: Promised Valley Rebellion, Promised Valley War, Promised Valley Conspiracy and Promised Valley Peace. The novels have won a number of awards and highly favorable reviews. The series is complete.
In the epic Promised Valley adventure, 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.
Both sides, though, value individuals who partner with persons of their own gender. Because they have no children to raise, they take leadership positions, especially in times of war.
The four Promised Valley novels ask whether civilization and history, with their countless heaven-sanctioned wars and genocides, could've begun differently.
The individuals who live, struggle, revel, die and survive in the novels confront fundamental questions:
How factual are the stories their ancestors handed down to them?
Despite those stories, are they and their enemies equal human beings who deserve to be treated as such?
Are their gods—who appear to be the same deities for the farmers as well as the hunters, even as they exhort both of their supposedly favored peoples to kill the other—truly benevolent gods?
Or do their gods, outside of those ancestral stories that might not be true, simply not exist?
Fritsch grew up in rural northern Illinois. His father and mother were hard-working tenant farmers who loved to read. So did he and his siblings (one older sister, one older brother, one younger sister).
Fritsch obtained a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Illinois (major: history; minor: English literature) and a law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Fritsch lives in Chicago with his long-term partner, David Darling.
This is an interview Fritsch did with Feathered Quill Book Reviews following its highly favorable review of Promised Valley Peace, the fourth and last novel in his Promised Valley series:
Today we’re talking with Ron Fritsch, author of Promised Valley Peace.
FQ: It is clear to me that you devoted much heart and soul toward character development and depth. How difficult will it be to turn out the light and close the door on Promised Valley and begin a new project?
FRITSCH: Your assumption about devoting “much heart and soul” in writing the four Promised Valley novels is absolutely correct. I published them in successive autumns from 2010 to 2013 (Promised Valley Rebellion in 2010, Promised Valley War in 2011, Promised Valley Conspiracy in 2012, and Promised Valley Peace in 2013). But even before I published Rebellion, I’d spent several years living with my characters night and day. I already miss them greatly. It’s as if a large group of friends—the “bad” guys as well as the “good” ones—suddenly went missing from my life. But it hasn’t been difficult to begin working on a new project. I’m apparently addicted to having characters in my mind and writing their stories. My new “friends” are getting as sassy and bold with me as Blue Sky, Rose Leaf, Wandering Star, and all the others in Promised Valley did.
FQ: In our previous interview of Promised Valley Conspiracy, I asked if you had plans to develop Promised Valley for the ‘big screen’ to which you said you would. How are your plans coming along?
FRITSCH: At the time of our previous interview I thought I might finish the four novels and immediately start writing screenplays for them, one film for each novel. After my partner and I, enticed by the first three seasons of the BBC’s Downton Abbey, viewed the entire Rome series on DVD, we began to wonder if one-season-per-novel television screenplays might better serve the complexity and many characters of the Promised Valley tale. Because we haven’t answered that question yet, I’ve started writing a stand-alone novel (more about that later).
FQ: I cannot help but think you must have experienced many moments throughout writing the series where you dreamed about your characters. Which character resonated most with you in Promised Valley Peace and what actor (or actress) would you envision playing the role (and why)?
FRITSCH: You’re so right again. My Promised Valley characters showed up in my dreams almost every night. And they still do. Every time I view a film or television drama that draws me in, I imagine the actors playing roles in Promised Valley. Wouldn’t she (Reese Witherspoon, say) be wonderful, I ask my partner, as Rose Leaf? My protagonist/main character is clearly Blue Sky, but playing him will be as difficult as acting gets. Severely suffering from what we’d call PTSD, he goes into a strange trance and fights on, killing whoever needs to die next. Can I suggest three related characters and the people who should play them? The Jake Gyllenhaal of Brokeback Mountain as Wandering Star. He shamelessly manipulates Blue Sky and admits he needs him in the same breath. Susan Sarandon as his mother, Dancing Song. Despite having seen it all, she’s still in love with life, letting “joy itself,” as she says when another character suddenly dies, “guide her feet in dance and her voice in song.” Tom Cruise as his father, Lightning Spear. Maimed and vindictive at the pinnacle of his youth, he’s now as cracked as his kingdom.
FQ: Horses play a more prominent and significant role in Promised Valley Peace. Why wait until the final novel to portray this premise?
FRITSCH: I wanted to show how the Promised Valley people gradually learned to use horses. Blue Sky’s grandparents acquired the first of them from the river people, as stronger but more wilful substitutes for oxen. Blue Sky, Rose Leaf, and Morning Sun secretly defy their parents and ride them. When the valley people face extinction, they use them for the heavy hauling they need to defend themselves in their upper valley. After two hill-boy refugees devise a way to ride horses in their hunts, riding them in battle becomes the obvious next step. Horses are to the Promised Valley people what nuclear weapons, guided missiles, and drone aircraft are to us. They’ll win you every battle you fight—but only as long as your enemy doesn’t have them.
FQ: You pose an interesting concept to the reader in your analogies of how the people are guided by the “gods.” What is your philosophy toward the “gods” guiding humans and your take on the notion of: “there are no coincidences in life”?
FRITSCH: In this telling of the Job story, the supernatural deity or deities who supposedly rule the universe lose out to human reason. As Blue Sky insists, his grandparents didn’t exchange most of what little they possessed for a river trader’s unwanted animals, i.e. horses, because some gods in a faraway, unseen heaven had asked them to. They did it because they were the desperate victims of a foolish king.
FQ: There are many complexities to the story as well as an abundance of key characters. How did you keep track of who was doing what during the writing process?
FRITSCH: I lived with these characters and their stories night and day for years. I came to know them—and I continue to know them—as well as any actual humans I’ve ever met. I dutifully maintained lists of characters and scenes throughout the writing of all four novels, but I rarely had to consult them to answer who did or said what at some earlier point in the story. I almost always knew. The lists were useful to assure me I had everything right.
FQ: You’re quite descriptive toward the Promised Valley landscape and the diversities between the hills and valleys. Is there any particular real place you spent time to develop the lay of the land in your fictitious Promised Valley?
FRITSCH: Even as a child, I knew I wanted to write a story about people peacefully occupying an exceptionally fertile river valley surrounded by mountains keeping out their enemies. Whenever I took auto trips with my family and friends through mountains and saw such a valley—always within the United States—I’d think it was the valley in my story. As I describe it in the Promised Valley series, though, it would have to be located in a temperate area in Eurasia or northern Africa.
FQ: I want to thank you for the pleasure of reading Promised Valley Peace. I’m looking forward to your next adventure. Would you care to share what that may be?
FRITSCH: And I thank you for the pleasure of reading your reviews of Promised Valley Conspiracy and Promised Valley Peace. I like to think of the novel I’m presently writing as fitting within a “Midwestern Gothic” genre, if there is such a thing. It’s set in a mostly German-American farming community in northern Illinois in the middle of the Twentieth Century—the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties. After the Second World War a young boy’s mother runs off with the lover she openly consorted with while the boy’s teenage father was fighting and drinking his way across northern Africa and western Europe. The boy’s father kills himself, leaving the boy in the care of his grandfather. The community suspects that man, however, of committing fraud and even murder on his way to ownership of the largest farm in the county. I best not say more!
To learn more about Promised Valley Peace, please read the review at: Feathered Quill Book Reviews.