In the late 1970s, Ms. magazine published a glowing review of the unknown English writer Jane Gaskell’s five-book fantasy series, The Atlan Saga (first published in the U.S. in 1977). The reviewer claimed that the series was notable:  first, because Gaskell was one of the few women who had broken into SF/fantasy, and second, because she turned the fairy-tale princess stereotype into a believable, independent woman character.  The latter is true to an extent, but Cija is no superwoman: she needs all the friends she can get, whether they be good or evil, as she confronts monsters, escapes from a closely-guarded brothel, or manages to survive the plots of a sinister High Priest.

The Atlan books have their roots in pulp fiction, though they are what I call chic pulp. The dialogue is very smart and funny, and the action scenes leave you breathless, as the heroine jumps from danger to danger, sometimes escaping, sometimes saved by others. Cija is often depressed, with good reason. She fights monsters, loses friends, and is betrayed. But Gaskell’s style is charming and often lyrical, and though it can turn purple in a second – and then she’s poetic again! – it is great fun to read. These are comfort books.

Today I’m writing about the first two books, The Serpent and The Dragon. The other three are Atlan, The City, and Some Summer Lands.

In The Serpent, the first book in the series, set in ancient South America, we learn about Cija’s education. Raised in a tower, Princess Cija (pronounced Key-a), has been instructed by her mother the Dictatress that men are extinct. (The Dictatress and Cija are goddesses as well as royalty.)  Bored in the tower, she secretly writes a diary:  she stole an account book from her nurse. One day she is sitting on a ledge when she has an inkling that her mother might have lied about men.

 Imagine Cija’s surprise when Zerd, the general of an invading army, scales the tower and has a chat with her.  She thinks he is an exceptionally ugly, big woman, with blue skin and scales.  From the beginning, he finds her funny.  And soon she discovers he is one of the most powerful men in the world, and that she is about to be taken hostage by him, so the army in her mother’s conquered country doesn’t retaliate.  Cija is furious. How can she, a goddess, be a hostage?

Here is Cija’s diary summing-up of her conversation with her mother.

“But men are extinct!  Do you mean that there is one alive–a real man–an atavistic throwback or something?”  Was wildly, wildly excited.  Have also always wanted to see a brontosaurus, which Snedde told me are nearly as extinct as men.

“Darling,” said the Dictatress gravely, “for reasons of our own your nurses and I, purely in your own interests of course, have misled you as to the facts in the world outside your tower….  As many men exist as women.”

From the tower to the military camp, grumpy Cija submits to being a hostage, and travels with her nurse, Ooldra, who informs Cija that her mission is to seduce and kill Zerd.  Of course Cija is not athletic or flirtatious, and her background has not prepared her for either task. She spends a lot of time disguised as a boy, waiting for a chance.  Zerd knows exactly who she is. Meanwhile. a blond hostage named Smahil is attracted to Cija and looks after her.  

In the second book, The Dragon, Cija has matured:  her travels on the road, and unwanted sex with the ambitious Smahil, whose advances she tried to resist, have made her more sophisticated and warier of men. But this is also the book where Zerd woos her and (kind of) wins her. It is a case of the god-like general paying attention to a mousy young woman.

Zerd and Cija are traveling together to the capital, and stop to spend the night “where the forests are thicker and more like jungle, with fantastic undergrowth, difficult, ridged ground and conical boulders difficult to find a way between.” Cija wakes up in pain and cannot move her leg. She screams at Zerd to help her, and they see a gigantic snake intently swallowing her leg. It also has thousands of little teeth so he can’t rip the snake off her leg without tearing her leg off. He kills the snake with an axe, hitting it two inches below her foot, and then he continues to hack up the snake during its death agonies. Cija screams with pain, but Zerd saves her life.

“Oh thank you, thank you. No one has ever been so wonderful to me. You have saved my life so many times…”

So you can see, she’s in a bind about Zerd. He is the enemy of her people. He can be romantic, but she doesn’t actually want sex with anyone. And she has discovered that Smahil is her half-brother – the son of her father and Olldra the nurse – so she has an excuse to avoid him. Smahil continues to be keen: neither man cares what she is keen on.

I do empathize with Cija. In the course of the saga, much happens to humble her. She survives her flight from vigilante priests, saved from them by the High Priest at court, riots, has slipped a knife to a criminal so he can free an Atlan priest from jail, and fought on the side of bandits.

So does Cija have PTSD? Yes, that’s what we would say now. And she endures more and more as the book goes on.

I love these books, and will try to write something about the last three soon.

These are fabulous reads. I highly recommend them.