Atlantis by David Gibbins

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Atlantis by David Gibbins is a novel that attempts to be a thriller, attempts to be an archaeological treatise, and attempts to be entertaining. It comes up only partially successful on all three accounts. David Gibbins was an archaeologist before turning to writing, so it's only natural that his books are filled with what he knows best. Gibbins however misses the train a bit when it comes to causing the reader to sit up all night, not knowing what is going to happen to the main character. I, being an anthropology student, find this type of book to be highly enjoyable, however I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has not at least taken a few introductory courses in archaeology.

Synopsis

Two startling discoveries are made almost concurrently. The first is another disc, similar to the Phaistos disc, this one seems to be analogous to the Rosetta stone though, translating Linear A into Greek. The second discovery is a village, buried underwater. Mix in some Russians who are after nuclear missiles they lost (but were meaning to sell illegally anyway), a few more professors who know a lot more about fighting than they should, and you've got yourself a novel.

Review

I'm an anthropology student. I'm going to say that right away, because I tend to think I liked this book better than most people will. This book is heavy on the details of doing archaeology and low on the suspense/tension that a good thriller needs to have. That being said, the book was quite enjoyable. I especially liked how Gibbins linked his Atlanteans to all of the extent cultures in the world, and explained many of the myths and other religious traditions as having their origin in Atlantis. That said, I didn't feel a need to finish this book, I didn't particularly care what happened to the main characters. I read this book more to figure out what secrets Atlantis held (perhaps that was the goal of the book). In the end, the characters were uninteresting, and the villains were uninteresting. The bad guys...don't get me started. They had little to no reason to be there, and being there, they were not very good at being bad guys. I give this book a 3/5 for an anthropologist interested in the subject matter more than the story, and 1.5/5 for anyone else who would only be interested in the value of the story (of which there was very little).

Up next? I'm already about halfway through The Sword of the Lady. The nook is incredibly awesome and I love it. It also seems a lot quicker reading books on this device than actually flipping through them. Don't ask me why. I also finished up Dragon Age a second time and got most of the achievements. I need to finish it a third time to get those last pestering little achievements and then I will post a review of that. The next game? Well, I got my wii fixed, so I might finish up super mario galaxy (which has been 9/10 finished for almost a year while I farted around fixing the wii). The next serious game though will be Mass Effect (I'm so itching to play the second game, but i will restrain myself and do this the right way, getting a proper save before I head in).