The Plains of Passage
Jean M. Auel, 1990
★ 3.87 from 63.6k ratings on Goodreads
Ayla and Jondalar travel across Ice Age Europe with two horses and a wolf, meeting peoples who see their animal companions as spirits or prey. The mood is expansive and patient, with a steady travel pace, close attention to landscape and animals, and a plain, sometimes tender voice.
Feels like wonder, tenderness and unease. About memory, time and nature.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy long Ice Age journeys, cultural encounters, and animal companions treated with careful attention. Be warned that many readers find the middle stretches bloated and repetitive, with heavy landscape detail and frequent sex scenes.
Why read it
It offers a slow, detailed look at Ice Age travel and survival, plus the comfort of returning to Ayla and Jondalar’s long story.
A page from the book
The way a single room can hold a whole childhood.
A gusty, fitful wind, holding the fine loess soil in suspension, swirled around them, obscuring their view of the spear holders. Ayla lifted her leg over and slid down from the horse’s back. She knelt beside the wolf, put one arm over his back and the other across his chest, to calm him and hold him back if necessary. She could feel the snarl rumbling in his throat and the eager tautness of muscles ready to spring. She looked up at Jondalar. A light film of powdery dirt coated the shoulders and long flaxen hair of the tall man and turned the coat of his dark brown mount to the more common dun color of the sturdy breed. She and Whinney looked the same. What readers say
Many readers found the journey bloated and repetitive, with excessive landscape detail and sex scenes, and some tired of Ayla’s flawless competence. Others enjoyed the cultural encounters, vivid glacier scenes, and comforting series familiarity.
Jean M. Auel.Auel did years of research on Ice Age plants, animals and survival skills before publishing; she was in her forties when she began the series.
Books that feel like this
More by Jean M. Auel
The Shelters of Stone
Jean M. Auel, 2002
A woman raised by Neanderthals arrives at her lover’s Ice Age people with two tame horses and a wolf, and must be accepted on sight.
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Jean M. Auel, 1980
An earthquake orphans a five-year-old girl, and a band of Neanderthals takes her in — a story of survival, difference and belonging.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Plains of Passage for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy long Ice Age journeys, cultural encounters, and animal companions treated with careful attention. Be warned that many readers find the middle stretches bloated and repetitive, with heavy landscape detail and frequent sex scenes.
- What is The Plains of Passage like?
- The mood is expansive and patient, with a steady travel pace, close attention to landscape and animals, and a plain, sometimes tender voice. Feels like wonder, tenderness and unease. About memory, time and nature.
- What should I read after The Plains of Passage?
- If you liked The Plains of Passage, try The Martian (Andy Weir), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) and Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne).
A taste of the feed
The moment a suit breach becomes a race against your own escaping air.
Our main communications dish, which relayed signals from the Hab to Hermes, acted like a parachute, getting torn from its foundation and carried with the torrent. Along the way, it crashed through the reception antenna array. Then one of those long thin antennae slammed into me end-first. It tore through my suit like a bullet through butter, and I felt the worst pain of my life as it ripped open my side. I vaguely remember having the wind knocked out of me (pulled out of me, really) and my ears popping painfully as the pressure of my suit escaped.
The Martian · Andy Weir
What a storm looks like to the one person aboard not frightened of it.
Phileas Fogg, with body erect and legs wide apart, standing like a sailor, gazed without staggering at the swelling waters. The young woman, who was seated aft, was profoundly affected as she looked out upon the ocean, darkening now with the twilight, on which she had ventured in so frail a vessel. Above her head rustled the white sails, which seemed like great white wings. The boat, carried forward by the wind, seemed to be flying in the air.
Around the World in Eighty Days · Jules Verne
A game of pretend that has outlived the age that invented it.
Stanley and his parents had tried to pretend that he was just going away to camp for a while, just like rich kids do. When Stanley was younger he used to play with stuffed animals, and pretend the animals were at camp. Camp Fun and Games he called it. Sometimes he’d have them play soccer with a marble. Other times they’d run an obstacle course, or go bungee jumping off a table, tied to broken rubber bands. Now Stanley tried to pretend he was going to Camp Fun and Games. Maybe he’ d make some friends, he thought. At least he’d get to swim in the lake.
Holes · Louis Sachar
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