Atlan


Atlan (also known as The Atlan Saga) is a series of British fantasy novels written by Jane Gaskell and originally published in the 1960s. The books take place in a prehistoric civilization--"before the continents had changed," state some of the back cover descriptions. Gaskell's intent seems to have been to combine every prehistoric myth into one lengthy narrative.

Princess Cija, the heroine, begins the series as a naive seventeen-year-old kept sheltered in her royal tower. Her mother, known only as the Dictatress, has forced her to remain ignorant of the outside world, to the point that she thinks that men have gone extinct. She's certainly unaware of the war between the Northern and Southern armies going on around her. When the half-man, half-reptile General Zerd arrives to invade Cija's home country, the Dictatress offers him her daughter in marriage after instructing her to kill him. Zerd takes Cija prisoner, and there begin some intercontinental adventures that change the princess irrevocably....

Though obscure today and not without flaws, Atlan is notable for being one of the earliest post-Tolkien fantasy series not to resemble The Lord of the Rings. It's also probably the only series that can be accurately described as a Gothic Jungle Opera, being influenced by Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, the works of Rider Haggard, the Tarzan series, old Gothic novels, and obsolete anthropological studies. If nothing else, this series is unique; nothing quite like it has been seen before or since.

In order, the books are:

  • The Serpent
  • The Dragon
  • Atlan
  • The City
  • Some Summer Lands
Tropes used in Atlan include:
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