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THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY
by Thomas Greanias
Pocket Star, May 2008
384 pages
$7.99
ISBN: 0743491920


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The fact that there's a YouTube trailer for this book shows how much THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY is pitched as a made-to-measure summer blockbuster movie plot. Unfortunately if it's ever adapted for the screen, people will just check it off as a National Treasure/Da Vinci Code knockoff.

THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY is a sequel to RAISING ATLANTIS; so many references are made to the previous book that a new reader is made to feel lost even though Greanias tries to cover the main plot points. There are so many, and the relationships are so complex, that exposition simply can't cover them all. The general gist is that the hero has been disgraced, his father is dead, and the Government is unhappy with them both.

The main action starts when Conrad goes to his father's funeral, although he's certain that it's not really his father in the casket; the whole ceremony is an elaborate way for his watchers to gauge his reaction to the clue-ridden tombstone. This strikes me as being an awfully elaborate and public way of trapping him. Being unable to suspend my disbelief so early made it all the harder when our hero notices for the first time that a book that he's owned from the age of 10 has a letter hidden in the binding. My twitching, strangling disbelief hit full flood when we discover that when Conrad used the book to decipher the first part of the code, he circles the key words on the pages and leaves the book behind.

That people promptly start trying to kill him is hardly a surprise if he's going to practically engrave invitations for his enemies like that. If I'm going to be able to buy into a grand centuries-old conspiracy and cheer for the lone upstanding hero, it would help a great deal if said hero knew more about operations security than a five-year-old with a Captain Midnight cereal decoder ring.

A good thing his ally is a nun who not only has her head screwed on a little more tightly but also has access to Vatican secrets. And one such secret is the last confession of Pierre L'Enfant, who claims that he was instructed to design Washington DC so that its streets and monuments align with the stars on July 4, 2008. On that date, an ancient society will try once more to wipe out the Republic, having failed to do so on their last opportunity at the death of George Washington. The only way to stop them is to follow the Freemason map to the location of Washington's globe, which traces back to the Temple of Solomon and is conveniently stuffed with pre-Biblical knowledge. Except that Conrad's ally may want the globe for her own purposes rather than his…

I'm sure that plenty of people will read this book and consider it a thrill ride, but in order to enjoy it, you have to check your brain at the door. Actually, considering some of the revelations later in the book, you'll have to check it further away than that.

Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, June 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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