The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children) (Paperback)

Jean Auel's The Plains of Passage, the fourth volume in the Earth's Children sequence, is one of the most massive yet (running to nearly 1,000 pages) and has all the sweep and vigour of the earlier books in the series. There are few writers who demonstrate the sheer range and ambition of Auel in the fantasy field. The Clan of the Cave Bear was a truly ground-breaking work, with its sweeping historical saga crammed with the kind of detail that had never been seen before in the genre. The Valley of Horses and The Mammoth Hunters continued to enthral readers with their breathtaking panoplies of an ancient world.

The Plains of Passage continues the epic description of our civilisation as it was 25,000 years ago. Auel's protagonists Ayla the orphan and Jondalar the traveller decide to forsake the comfort and safety of life with the mammoth hunters by the Black Sea, and set out on a daunting odyssey. Their plan is to traverse a continent, heading for the Cro-Magnon settlement which Jondalar called home as a young man. Their journey across unimaginable distances is fraught with spectacular dangers, and their only companions are the half-tame Wolf, the magnificent stallion Racer and the mare Whinney.

As so often in Auel's work, it's the brilliantly evocative scene-setting that makes her narratives of high adventure so impressive. Characterisation is, as always, functional rather than inspired, but it's perfectly suited to the Technicolor landscapes the reader is confronted with. And the descriptive passages are as evocative as ever:

The rising sun peaked over the eastern edge with a blinding burst of light that illuminated an incredible scene. To the west, a flat, utterly featureless dazzling white plain stretched out before them. Above it the sky was a shade of blue she had never seen in her life. It had somehow absorbed the reflection of the red dawn, and the blue-green undertone of glacial ice...

--Barry Forshaw

Auel calls this 'the travel book' - and so it is. To reach Jondalar's home base he and Ayla must travel right across Europe, following the Great Mother River (the Danube) from north of its delta, which empties into the Black Sea, to its source in the mountains, then on - almost to the Atlantic in what is now south-western France. They have to cross the river's many tributaries, and the hazardous, roiling Sister River, either swimming, on horseback or in a flimsy home-made coracle. They are exhausted by humid heat, pestered by mosquitoes, half-frozen on the long, perilous trek across a glacial plateau ruptured by crevasses, and they must lug with them enough food not only for themselves but for their animals: Whinney, Racer and Wolf. Along the way, they meet small groups of people, mostly friendly, who invite Ayla and Jondalar to join them for periods of rest. But there is one unhappy tribe of women, dominated by a sadistic virago who is bent on first torturing then destroying men. Ayla and Jondalar escape from her clutches by the slenderest of luck and determination. Throughout their journey Ayla is dogged by doubts - of her acceptance by Jondalar's tribe and her ability to interconnect with them happily. She has, after all, had problems in the past in forming enduring relationships. Will they accept her 'Clan' background, her unusual talents and erudition? She has repetitive nightmares, difficult to interpret... and it is not until she stands with Jondalar on the threshold of his home-base that she 'recognizes' it. Plucked from somewhere deep in her memory and psyche is the knowledge that her epic wanderings are over. (Kirkus UK)

By this time, followers of the adventures of Ayla - Annie Oakley-cum-Edison-cum-Joyce Brothers of the Ice Age - have presumably overcome amusement at the nutty anachronisms of the dialogue and Cro-Magnon pop-psych ("You have a right to be angry. You have a right to cry") and sink happily into the solid action dramas - all given spine by Auel's meticulous library reportage on the Age's creatures, climes, terrains, and what is generally known or posited about our ancestors who loped through northern Europe. In this latest tale - the fourth in the Earth's Children series - Ayla and her blond man Jondalar, of the clan Zelandonii, head out on a tremendous trek back to his people, taking with them two Ayla-trained horses and an Ayla-reared wolf. In all kinds of danger and weather, they'll travel through plains, steppes, river crossings, mountains, and glittering glaciers. Meanwhile. the Friendlies met by the pair and their tame animals (which cause a sensation everywhere) implore them to stay after Ayla shows off her healing skills and helpful companionship; but the travelers move on - through lowland plains, through treacherous highlands of caves and sinkholes, by a valley where they just miss a flood (thanks to one of Ayla's prophetic dreams), over a river in a near-fatal crossing Later, however, Jondalar is captured by a clan of fierce women, who cripple and enslave men, and the ruler is gleefully observing Jondalar naked and strung up on a pole, when. . .zingo! (another thrilling rescue!). Jondalar and Ayla straighten out the strange society, and Ayla does a psycho work-up of the leader whose husband didn't "make her feel wanted." Then on to crowning danger and delight - the glacier, "the monstrous bastion of ice." Throughout the journey, man and woman exchange histories, expertise, thoughts, and make love with (carefully detailed) gusto. Bound for best-seller glory. (Kirkus Reviews)