Atlantis

unusual storyline designed to connect atlantis, the bermuda triangle, aliens, and other sundry world "myths" into a reasonably coherent plot. lots of satisfying red shirts in this one...

One of those plane crash books that are so bad you just keep reading it to find out if it gets any worse. And it does.

The ancient civilisation of Atlantis was destroyed by some mysterious extra-dimensional powers from the Shadow. They fled to another location in cambodia, and were eradicated there. Now the Shadow is rising again from multiple locations around the world, and only a a hero from the US special forces can save the planet. Big business also gets in on the act so a few token women can stand around and look strong without doing anything. this is almost as annoying as just standing around and screaming at the nasty monsters. But that's OK the hero's friends who didn't di after all are time travelled in by the Shadow's enemies show more to save the day.

I mean I was warned, Atlantis is the title, so it was always going ot be pretty silly. But I didn't think it would be this bad. show less

This book has provided a great start for what looks like an interesting series of books. The action is kept moving at a great pace and I am sure there were no slow moments. I'd have appreciate more details on the "The Others" and "The Shadow" but I guess I'll have to read the next book now ;-)

Originally posted at http://www.fuzzysteve.co.uk/2011/06/02/atlantis-series-bob-mayer/

If you go looking for this book, you'll see three author names. Not entirely sure why amazon did this, but the other two are pen names for Bob Mayer. Probably because I think he reissued them under his own name, rather than the original pen name he used.

Anyway, I got the entire series as ebooks, because, mostly, they were cheap, and good enough at the price to be worthwhile. Not sure if I'd have done it if they'd all been paper. I probably wouldn't have even started. But with the first book being 70p, I felt I had little to lose in at least trying them. As it went, I chomped my way through the entire six novels over the course of about 4 days or show more so.

There'll be a few minor spoilers in the next coupld of paragraphs, but nothing major. And yes, I'm grading the series as a whole at the rating above.

First off, there isn't a great deal of character development. You're not going to really know the characters. On the other hand, there are enough that it's not so glaring. People fall into roles that seem suited for them, so it doesn't matter that they're relatively one-dimensional. (Warrior that fights, though he doesn't want to. Spy/mastermind that keeps secrets by habit.) It works well enough that it kept my interest. There's also a degree of 'so what's the next bad thing that'll happen'. I guess that's kind of inevitable when you have a series. Some manage it with a little more finesse however.

As you might expect of a book with this name (and by extension the series), there's a lot of myths built into this. Atlantis. The Bermuda Triangle (and all the other weird triangle places), crystal skulls, time travel (kinda), psychics, inter-dimensional travel and so on. It could have been a horrible mess. It wasn't. It was neatly blended together, with a dash of particle physics and string theory, to give a fairly consistent whole. If you've read many of my reviews, you'll probably have noted that consistency is a big thing for me. I'll forgive a fair amount, if it's at least internally consistent.

Is it a wonder of modern literature? No. Is it worth the time to read? If you read one book a year, no. If you read several a week, yes, I'd say so. Give the first book a chance (as an eBook) and go from there. show less

Actually, "Atlantis" is pretty disappointing for a Bob Mayer (aka G. Donagan/R. Doherty) book. I'd read the entire "Area 51" series and really enjoyed it. As for this series, however, I'll go no further. The action was uneven, the characters underdeveloped, and the plot less than enthralling. It was a struggle to get through and I even found myself skimming just to finish.

I won't spend time rehashing the story line, but let me suffice to say that it involves a mysterious otherworldly force that connects the Bermuda Triangle with the Devil's Sea and a Cambodian jungle. At some point, Atlantis must figure into this triumvirate, but that's not apparent in this, the first book, of the series. It contains plenty of references to the military show more and armaments (as is the custom with most of Mayer's books), so military geeks may find something to like in the series. show less

Very readable - quick moving - interesting enough that I will read the next one

Didn't know this was the first of a series, so I was disappointed when things were left hanging. I don't think I'll get the next one.