Hello everyone!
If you've been paying attention to this blog, you'll know I've definitely included works by this author in th past.
However, I've never ACTUALLY sat down and focused solely on the series he has going with his characters, which by now spans ten full books (and I have yet to read the last one, because for some reason I haven't gotten to it yet).
Anyway, I stumbled on said author rather randomly, I will admit, but since then have become a massive fan and I need to get physical copies of his books eventually.
For the time being, suffice to say that this is going to be a really good starting point for the rest of them, including the two I'd already done in the past.
Because it's all about history - I'm into history these days - and potentially alternative history too.
Brace yourselves, everyone. Atlantis is calling!
Now, to the actual blog!
David Gibbins was not an author I was familiar with until roughly ten years ago when I stumbled over tonight's post topic in a bookstore. I'd seen the book before but didn't think I needed it, though at that point decided, why not, and forked out the money to take it with me.
I have never been happier about a book choice, ever.
So here's the story of Atlantis - and hopefully it inspires you to check this series out!
It begins in the past, in Egypt, where Solon the Lawmaker is visiting with a priest in the Temple of Sais, and where he learns a whole lot more than he bargained for ... especially as he afterwards gets clunked over the head and his last papyrus is scattered, stolen and shredded.
But in present day, marine archeologist Jack Howard makes a fascinating discovery in the Aegean sea of a Minoan shipwreck, something he's been after since his college days, and among the unearthed artifacts, his buddy Costas brings up a large, palm-sized golden disk filled with symbols none of them can decipher.
At the same time, deep in the desert of Egypt, Dr. Maurice Hiebermeyer, another one of Jack's colleagues, is working with a student of his when they find a piece of papyrus, used to wrap a mummy, that contains a word which rocks them all: Atlantis.
The group gets together in Alexandria, joined by expert Katya Svetlanova and Jack's old professor, James Dillen, as they take a look at the papyrus and disc both, explaining that there is also a connection to the Phaistos discs which had been discovered earlier, but which no one can decipher.
Now, however, things might change, because the golden disc seems to be their very own Rosetta stone, and the text on the papyrus suggests that what everyone knows about Atlantis is definitely wrong.
See, currently, as in the book, scholars believe the earliest source for the legend is Plato in two of his books containing dialogues and his philosophy, and at the time it seemed to be pointing to a civilization which existed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in the Atlantic ocean. However, that ocean was actually never named after Atlantis, but the Titan Atlas, and simply became connected to the legend over time.
The group now believes there may be a closer connection, as Maurice's find in Egypt points: what would have been Atlantis for the Egyptians?
Jack theorizes it's Crete, and the explosion of the Thera volcano which might have prompted the Egyptians to write down the legend that was then modified by Plato.
But midway through all of this, Jack is recalled to his ship Seaquest which is excavating the shipwreck, as another ship has sailed in, and is demanding they leave so they cane take the plunder for themselves, selling it on the black market. The Vultura is definitely one that might take them out, but Katya somehow manages to defuse the situation, even as they all leave for the Black Sea where they want to check out a theory of theirs - and team up with another group that is looking at an ancient shoreline.
See, at some point in the past, something called the deluge crisis came to be, during which water level in the Mediterranean dropped so much it dried out, leaving the Black Sea cut off for a long period of time even as water rose again beyond the Strait of Bosporus.
And as every date begins to align - to some 6000 years BC - to narrow things down to their current, Black Sea location, there's also a discovery of a neolithic village underwater which Jack and Costas head on to explore ... during which time they also stumble upon something else.
Something much, much bigger.
They find pyramids, a processional way, and a big ass Sphinx with a bull's head, indicating they may have been right about Jack's hunch over Atlantis. Because what if the Black Sea region, during the crisis when it was a fertile valley located at the foot of a volcano, with rich soil and salt pools left over from the sea, actually became the cradle of the world? The Bosporus looks exactly like the horns of a bull with a saddle between them when dried out (bull being a sacred animal), and might have been an awesome sight once the water started pouring in again to turn it into a cataract.
And they're on a time crunch now - because the Vultura is after them, and there's something else down there.
Something, namely, out of the end of the Cold War, as if the history part wasn't difficult enough.
There has to be a Russian nuclear submarine in there as well.
So as Seaquest fights a final battle with the Vultura, which it loses, Jack, Costas and Katya dive into the Black Sea to find the entrance to what they now guess is the location of Atlantis - a citadel rather than a city itself - and also find the sub while they're at it, right over the entrance to said citadel. They cut their way through (learning that the sub captain was shipping nuclear warheads to someone, that there was a mutiny, and that basically everyone on there is dead because of it) and continue into the side of the dormant volcano where they discover the ancient citadel, alright - but also run into trouble.
See, among the marvels of cave paintings and altars and a processional way leading up along the side of the caldera, they also get headed off by Aslan, who takes them all hostage; turns out, he's a failed rt history professor and Katya's father, so he's going to make sure his daughter is "purified", Costas is killed because he's Greek (though why he didn't want to ransom Costas off with his father being an oil tycoon is anyone's guess), and ransom Jack because he can.
And oh also, he's finally taking that missing sub to his client, thank you very much.
Only, Jack isn't having it.
Escaping from his captors and wreaking havoc through Aslan's home base, he returns to the site of the sinking Seaquest where he enters first a submersible and then a sort of underwater moon suite that helps him navigate out of the treacherous, sulfurous depths and exact vengeance on the Vultura, among other things, because he eventually reaches the caldera again, scaling up from outside, and even though Aslan takes him captive again, he has a plan now.
In the struggle, Vultura has a bit of a boom happen that practically destroys her, and Atlas tumbles into the caldera proper.
Bye bye, gangster.
Once the bad guys are dealt with, and a joint military force comes to raise the Kazbek (the sub) out, the team convenes on the volcano once more, continuing on from the caldera through a passageway that brings them to the holiest of hollies and the room of the scribes where their golden disc probably came from, because there are ten plaques of gold on the wall, as if they hadn't been chasing the legend of Noah and the flood all book, so they now have to add the Ten Commandments to it as well.
They theorize that, once the sea level started rising again and it became clear Atlantis was doomed, the priests ordered a massive exodus, settling first on Crete to try and recreate what they had in their original homeland - until THAT volcano there had a meltdown, too, inspiring the confusion between the legends and the obscuring of the real Atlantis myth.
But the other refugees continued on, armed with mating pairs of animals and their tables with knowledge about farming, and populated most of the ancient world, from Mesopotamia to Egypt to perhaps even America, because sea voyages weren't such a problem in the past as they became afterwards. They didn't try to recreate Atlantis a third time, however, learning that the gods apparently didn't like their attempts, and slowly faded into history, and myth.
And most importantly, some of the refugees mixed up with the Egyptians, becoming priests, and keeping, in an unbroken chain of priest to priest, the knowledge of their history alive in their memory, until Solon was allowed to write it down. After that, the days of priesthood was over, and it seemed the gates to Atlantis were shut.
The group continues higher up to the highest chamber of all, where they find strange, humanoid paintings on the walls that seem to depict either a deity of the Atlanteans or their holiest of hollies ... and it turns out it might be the basis for all the mono religions today, too.
Basically, Atlantis, with its language that spread into Indo-European and then branched further out, might actually have been the cradle and birthplace of the world.
However, all the activity of the previous days pokes the volcano into action and there's an immediate order for evacuation, even as Atlas' lower flies into the ensuing eruption ... and as said eruptions seals off Atlantis and the village they'd initially found, seemingly forever, in rivers of lava.
But Jack knows the discovery is the biggest thing the world has ever seen - and they still have the Minoan shipwreck that's starting to look more and more like it might have also been carrying all the legacy items out of Atlantis as well, the ten plates of gold filled with text, etc., and with the world free of one more warlord it's time to get back to what he does best.
Aka, time to suit up, kit up, and dive down again!
Which is where we leave him at the end of the first book of the series, and MAN if you haven't read it yet, I truly, truly recommend you do.
David Gibbins is an underwater archeologist himself which means he knows what he's talking about and can spin things so they remain believable even though the technology is perhaps not QUITE there yet at the moment. All his books also feature a historic note in the very back where he explains which facts he took from history to twist into his story, and how it MIGHT actually be possible. There have definitely been finds along the Black Sea of an ancient shoreline sunk deeper into the water itself, and there HAS been a discovery of a golden disc as well, though sadly it appears not to be Atlantean by make.
Basically, all the stuff above, from the volcanic explosions to the sea drying out, to ancient shorelines and Neolithic villages ... that's all something you can look up and see for yourself, and see that it's TRUE.
All the author did was combine it together with the most well-known and frustrating mystery the world has ever seen, because we KNOW of Atlantis, but we still don't know where it was or what exactly happened to it in the end, nor what its legacy would be.
He tries to shed some light on the fact - with a little help from his Viking-descended Jack and Greek buddy Costas, along with the fledgling group of his International Maritime University, which will feature prominently and add players along the way as we go further into the books and this rich, history-filled world Gibbins manages to weave into stories so skillfully.
In the end, it feels as if this, his version of Atlantis, could be REAL, and that's about all you could ask from a book.
So give it a go and decide for yourself. I promise you won't be disappointed.
xx
*image not mine
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