What do you think?
Rate this book
Atlan #4
Some Summer Lands
Pocket Books, 1979. Mass market paperback, 1st printing. Book 5 in the 5-book "Atlan / Cija" cycle. Set in prehistoric South America and in the mythical world of Atlantis. The books in the series "The Serpent (1963); "The Dragon" (1963); "Atlan" (1965); "The City" (1966); and "Some Summer Lands" (1977).
360 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
146 people want to read
About the author
Jane Gaskell
26 books56 followersGaskell was born Jane Gaskell Denvil on 7 July 1941, in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, England (previously in the county of Lancashire). She is the great grandniece of the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Her first novel, Strange Evil, was written when she was 14-years-old (published two years later, in 1957). In 1963 Gaskell married truck driver Gerald Lynch; and in 1965 their daughter, Lucy Emma, was born. (Their marriage ended in divorce in 1968.)
In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet, Sweet Summer.
China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction.
Wikipedia®
In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet, Sweet Summer.
China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction.
Wikipedia®
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 29, 2021
The final volume, but really more of a coda to the story that wrapped up in The City -- it didn't come out until a good ten years after the previous volume, and this time the narrator is Seka, Cija's young daughter who spends most of the book unable to speak (due to events in the preceding volume), but that in no way means she doesn't have thoughts about all manner of topics, not least being a rather jaundiced opinion of her mother. (And fair warning -- there's also more discussion of various types of ... adult encounters than I was altogether comfortable with, especially considering Seka's age at the time of the events in question.)
April 4, 2011
Somehow I missed this series in my misspent youth. I don't know why I never picked them up: I remember seeing them, and they had the lush barbaric distorted romantic grotesque covers that made them look exactly like Tanith Lee. Much truer advertising than the respectable black-clad hardcover of the edition I just read. Like The Birthgrave, this is a fantastical female picaresque whose heroine is stubbornly passive and relentlessly desirable -- adventure, like sex, happens to her despite herself, which may be the most enjoyable perversion the book offers.
This book is narrated not by the heroine, but by her daughter, Seka, at a remove from adulthood; Seka is about five or six at the time of the events she relates, and seems a lot more self-possessed and alert than her hapless mother, who is often in the throes of passion, her own or someone else's. Seka doesn't mind when the passion is sex, but it's bad for both of them when it's martyrdom. She is very protective of her mother, who clearly cares deeply for her children, but can't take care of herself.
The book is extremely and oddly sexually explicit -- child Seka masturbates, is perhaps too observant and understanding of her mother's desires (although I am fond of the point where she observes her parents in coitus and details her father's nonhuman prick), is molested by a trusted adult and seems to take nothing but pleasure in it (that I am not fond of at all). There's also off-screen bestiality or xeno -- Cija's last pre-book liason was with a great ape, by whom she's pregnant; plenty of sexual violence, including medical, also consensual sibling incest.
I guess this is supposed to take place in the fantastical prehistoric past, but it has so little relationship to actual history it might as well be postapocalyptic.
The bizarre spiritualist ending makes no literary sense at all. It reads like Gaskell got that old-time Swedenbourgian religion and had to preach the word.
Bechdelpass because Cija and her mother are sometimes alone together (though surprisingly few times, really), but it still feels off since the entire book is about Cija's sexual relationships with men. Very heterosexual book, and a particular view of heterosexuality too.
This book is narrated not by the heroine, but by her daughter, Seka, at a remove from adulthood; Seka is about five or six at the time of the events she relates, and seems a lot more self-possessed and alert than her hapless mother, who is often in the throes of passion, her own or someone else's. Seka doesn't mind when the passion is sex, but it's bad for both of them when it's martyrdom. She is very protective of her mother, who clearly cares deeply for her children, but can't take care of herself.
The book is extremely and oddly sexually explicit -- child Seka masturbates, is perhaps too observant and understanding of her mother's desires (although I am fond of the point where she observes her parents in coitus and details her father's nonhuman prick), is molested by a trusted adult and seems to take nothing but pleasure in it (that I am not fond of at all). There's also off-screen bestiality or xeno -- Cija's last pre-book liason was with a great ape, by whom she's pregnant; plenty of sexual violence, including medical, also consensual sibling incest.
I guess this is supposed to take place in the fantastical prehistoric past, but it has so little relationship to actual history it might as well be postapocalyptic.
The bizarre spiritualist ending makes no literary sense at all. It reads like Gaskell got that old-time Swedenbourgian religion and had to preach the word.
Bechdelpass because Cija and her mother are sometimes alone together (though surprisingly few times, really), but it still feels off since the entire book is about Cija's sexual relationships with men. Very heterosexual book, and a particular view of heterosexuality too.
April 21, 2010
Some Summer Lands is my favorite work in the Atlan Saga. Take Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan, H. Rider Haggard's Lost Civilizations and John Norman's Gor in a land "before the continents were formed" and dinosaurs and human coexist and you have Atlan. The heroine of the first three books (or four, since sometimes The Serpent is split into two) is Cija. Raised as a princess in a tower to believe she's a goddess and males are extinct, through the books she has more perils than Pauline, going from Empress to brothel slave. Cija does grow on you, important that the first books up to now purported to be her diaries so you were getting everything from her perspective. Some Summer Lands is told by Seka, her daughter by the snake-man general Zerd--and far smarter and snarkier than her mother even at her tender age. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to admit I've read these, let alone these are favorites that have been on my bookshelves since my teens, but there you are. Addictive like crack. Or just crack pot. This end to the sage makes me feel less embarrassed ;-)
July 11, 2022
Told through the eyes of Cija's daughter Seka, merciless observer of her mother's adventures. The horrible interlude at Soursere is pure Cold Comfort Farm.
May 10, 2014
Damn, damn, damn.
I really wanted to be able to come back and say "This series is a vastly underrated masterpiece, all ye nonbelievers, read it now." But the ending was a non-ending. This entire book, in fact, was kind of a non-book. Stuff happened but it never felt like it was happening.
This book is told from the point of view of Cija's daughter, Seka, who is mute. I thought that an interesting choice, and it actually went over quite well. Seka is constantly saying how her mother just lets things happen to her without taking an active role in her own destiny - and then here is Seka, who can't even speak out against someone and mostly just goes along with her mom. Her being mute did not detract from her ability to communicate, really.
Disappointed that it didn't do more. I was left wondering for much of it, "Where was the editor?"
I really wanted to be able to come back and say "This series is a vastly underrated masterpiece, all ye nonbelievers, read it now." But the ending was a non-ending. This entire book, in fact, was kind of a non-book. Stuff happened but it never felt like it was happening.
This book is told from the point of view of Cija's daughter, Seka, who is mute. I thought that an interesting choice, and it actually went over quite well. Seka is constantly saying how her mother just lets things happen to her without taking an active role in her own destiny - and then here is Seka, who can't even speak out against someone and mostly just goes along with her mom. Her being mute did not detract from her ability to communicate, really.
Disappointed that it didn't do more. I was left wondering for much of it, "Where was the editor?"
Read
July 29, 2010Some Summer Lands by Jane Gaskell (1977)
July 14, 2015
*Tina Belcher groaning noise*
it was my favorite of the Atlan series... and then Part Three happened. probably the most '70s fantasy i've ever read.
it was my favorite of the Atlan series... and then Part Three happened. probably the most '70s fantasy i've ever read.
August 17, 2014
Even more odd than the rest of the series, but some good writing as well.
Read
April 9, 2018DNFed about 40 pages in. Just didn't grab me
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews