The new Firebird cover for Clan Ground (art by Christian Alzmann, 2007)

Here's what reviewers said about Clan Ground when the book first appeared.

London Times Educational Supplement  14.11.86

Clan Ground.  By Clare Bell

Gollancz  7.95 (BP) 575 03888 8

First, a welcome for Clare Bell’s re-newed inventiveness in Clan Ground, the sequel to Ratha’s Creature (reviewed in TES 6.6.86.).  On another planet/alternative world, millions of years in the past, intelligent cats (instead of primates) have developed language and a rudimentary society.  They realize that they have become different from those cats they call the Un-Named, who have remained animals.  In the first instalment of the saga, the feline heroine Ratha discovered how to tame fire, and became leader of the Clan.  In the sequel, the author continues to provoke her readers with situations which could have had parallels in mankind’s evolution.

     A strange cat comes from outside the Clan, and claims membership because he can speak.  He does not, however, directly challenge Ratha’s authority with his superior fighting skills.  Instead he takes some fire from the Clan’s communal supplies into a cave, pretending to store it in case of storms.  Gradually this fire grows bigger, and becomes the focus of a primitive religion.  Cats sneak away from the main camp-fires to dance around and worship the fire in the cave. Ratha, once more driven out from the Clan, must devise a scheme to destroy the fire and her rival.

    My speculation that the cats would be limited in their move towards civilization without manipulative skills, has be answered by the introduction of new characters – friendly monkeys who can be trained to help the cats carry fire and perform other tasks.  This allegorical fantasy series has much to offer thoughtful teenagers.

Book Synopsis

(Caution, spoilers ahead!)

Clan Ground - 1984, re-issued July 2007 

As leader of the Named, Ratha is bothered by the changes that “her creature” has caused in her people, especially the Firekeeper leader Fessran. It is not easy to deal with the Red Tongue with only clumsy paws and teeth. To do so requires not only manipulative skill, but strength and courage. In selecting cubs to train as Firekeepers, Fessran emphasizes fierceness and strength, believing that the Red Tongue demands those qualities.  

This need makes Ratha accept a stranger, Orange-Eyes, into the clan. Though half-dead from starvation, he braves the savagery of the “fire-dance”, a re-enactment of the clan’s victory over their enemies. Not realizing how politically astute the newcomer is, Ratha re-names him Shongshar and gives him to Fessran to be a Firekeeper. 

For Ratha, the Red Tongue is a domesticated though still powerful “creature” that can warm and protect the clan. Shongshar, however, sees how fire terrifies intimidates others. To many in the clan, the Red-Tongue is like a primitive god, to be feared and worshiped. Shongshar knows he who rules fire rules the Named. Content with his present life in the clan, he doesn’t challenge Ratha. 

Ratha has decreed that Shongshar can mate within the clan if he promises to let her inspect his progeny to ensure they have “the light in the eyes” (self-aware sapient intelligence). If they don’t, she will take the cubs and abandon them. Thinking that he won’t really care that much about cubs, Shongshar agrees. 

However, when he and Bira, his mate, have the cubs, Shongshar finds that he does love them. The feared tragedy happens. Bira, knowing that the cubs are non-sentient animals, abandons the litter. Ratha, finding no “Named light” in the cubs, must exile and abandon them. With Thakur’s help, she does, although she leaves the cubs in a place where they might survive. She does not tell Shongshar for fear he will rescue them. 

This sours Shongshar toward Ratha. He uses his insight about fire to gain power in the Firekeepers, seducing Fessran into his vision.  

During the clan’s mating season, Thakur, the herding teacher, voluntarily exiles himself. He is half UnNamed and fears he might sire non-sentient cubs on a clan female. While Thakur is away from the clan, he tames a lemur-like female creature. This “treeling” he names “Aree” and the two become inseparable. Aree is not just a pet. The treeling’s dexterous hands can easily perform tasks that are nearly impossible for clan-cat paws and teeth. 

Realizing this, Thakur shows Aree to Ratha upon his return. With her support, he trains Aree how to help a Firekeeper set up and light a fire. He works with the young Firekeeper Bira. Ratha encourages him because his approach offers a more sane, effective and gentle way to deal with the Red Tongue.  

Fessran and Shongshar hate the idea. Shongshar, especially, since he knows it challenges his power. Defying Ratha, the pair set up a fire-temple in a huge cave. 

 They build a huge bonfire, stockpile wood and hold savage worship dances around the flames. They turn the Firekeepers into a tyrannical theocracy, with Shongshar as “high priest”  Fessran becomes a paralyzed figurehead, ensnared by Shongshar’s powerful will. 

Ratha realizes too late that she can’t eradicate the growing fire-religion. It appeals to a need in her people. When she  outlaws the fire-temple worship dances, the herders attend in secret, even giving pieces of meat for the privilege. 

Ratha turns to Thakur and Aree, demonstrating their skill to the Firekeepers. Aree is pregnant, so that more young treelings can partner with individual Firekeepers. 

Their hopes are dashed when Shongshar’s minions secretly chase the treeling away. Thakur falls into an angry funk while Shongshar‘s power grows. 

Ratha recovers Aree and restores her to an overjoyed Thakur. Marshalling the herders to attack the fire-temple, she intends to destroy it. The attempt fails when some herders, awed by the fire-temple and its guardians, desert to the enemy. 

Shongshar attacks Ratha, intent on killing her. Shocked into reality, Fessran intervenes, taking Shongshar’s killing strike. This gives Ratha a chance to escape, taking Thakur and Bira with her. They build an encampment by a mountain stream, just over the borders of clan ground. Ratha teaches Bira to hunt and Thakur catches fish. Ratha thinks that Fessran is dead. 

Shongshar extends and intensifies his power, becoming a bloated, oppressive tyrant, growing fat on meat from the clan herds. Ratha can only watch and seethe.  

Ratha, Bira and Thakur find a very sick and wounded Fessran, who has been dragged out and left to die. They take her to their refuge, heal her and forgive her. She regrets her blind foolishness and joins them.

While Shongshar and the Firekeepers tighten their control over the clan, the outcasts plot against him. They secretly dig a diversion channel to redirect the stream flow into a crack in the roof of Shongshar’s fire-temple cave. When they dig through the final barrier, the rain-swollen torrent pours through the crack and floods the cave, destroying the fire, drowning some Firekeepers and washing others out, leaving them drenched and gasping. 

Ratha and her allies find Shongshar, nearly drowned. Despite being nearly dead, he attacks Ratha, forcing her to kill him. 

Regaining her leadership, Ratha re-unites the divided clan. She once again entrusts the guidance of the Firekeepers to Fessran, knowing that her friend is now wiser. Thakur gives young treelings out to Ratha, Bira and others, so that the Firekeepers can learn a gentler and easier way to manage the Red Tongue. Fessran says she will take one later, but not just yet. 

Ratha calls her treeling “Ratha’s Aree”, but the name soon gets shortened to Ratharee. Bira’s companion becomes “Biaree” and this becomes the pattern for treeling names. 

Acknowledging her people’s need to worship, Ratha adopts less harmful pieces of the fire-cult. She creates a joyful open-air ring dance around a bonfire and involving treelings, who leap in a counter-circle atop the feline dancers. 

Though traumatized by the entire episode, Ratha realizes that she has learned and grown as a leader.