Put Atlantis in a book title and I’m hooked already. After all who doesn’t want to read something about the most fabled lost continent. I guess it’s a guilty pleasure, but I’m hooked on all these mystery type storied ever since Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Ok not the height of literary fiction, as my English teacher would say, but they’re enjoyable romps into fantasy world based on our own. They allow us to think that there is something out there apart from ‘recorded’ history. They expand our minds and give us hope that we weren’t the first educated society in the world.
I came across this one through Twitter, the author had tweeted the new book was out at at on £2.99 for the kindle version I succumbed to the buy now button and there it was straight away on my book reader. I love books but the kindle just makes it so easy to read there and then. The usual sort of cover that you expect with these books but an author who I know nothing about, turns out it’s his first released work.
It starts really well, a flashback to the past you know will have a great relevance to the story. Indeed, the story isn’t long before we’re getting some action. The hero, there’s always a hero, is a Doctor John Hunter, a archaeology professor at Cambridge University. He has a past on being involved in the alternative archeological thought, and the first encounter we have shown the ridicule he endures. A rich German businessman offers him a plum assignment on a dig. He has however to work with his ex-girlfriend. The story develops fast, swinging one way and another.
I really liked the story, read over two sleepless nights last week. It’s an intriguing prospect. Having read a few Atlantis novels, I always try to see where they go, yet this one's one of the most original explanations, and no I’m not going to spoil it for you. The writing is excellent, a style I particularly enjoyed. At times it felt that bits were missing from the novel, as though a paragraph was missing here and there. Maybe it was the way I read it. However, it didn’t spoil the story just made it a bit like a dirt track ride.
All that said I’m looking forward to more adventures for John Hunter. There’s so much more out there for him to discover. A great addition to alternative archaeology novels and a new author to boot.