Letters from Atlantis

by Robert Silverberg

On a mission to observe the fabled city of Atlantis through the mind of its royal heir, Ram, twenty-first-century time traveler Roy Colton soon becomes worried by Ram's dark dreams of the island's future destruction. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Time Travel, Fiction, Audiobook, Young Adult, Novella

136 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1990

About the author

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Robert Silverberg is a highly celebrated American science fiction author and editor known for his prolific output and literary range. Over a career spanning decades, he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2004. Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1999, Silverberg is recognized for both his immense productivity and his contributions to the genre's evolution.
Born in Brooklyn, he began writing in his teens and won his first Hugo Award in 1956 as the best new writer. Throughout the 1950s, he produced vast amounts of fiction, often under pseudonyms, and was known for writing up to a million words a year. When the market declined, he diversified into other genres, including historical nonfiction and erotica.
Silverberg’s return to science fiction in the 1960s marked a shift toward deeper psychological and literary themes, contributing significantly to the New Wave movement. Acclaimed works from this period include Downward to the Earth, Dying Inside, Nightwings, and The World Inside. In the 1980s, he launched the Majipoor series with Lord Valentine’s Castle, creating one of the most imaginative planetary settings in science fiction.
Though he announced his retirement from writing in the mid-1970s, Silverberg returned with renewed vigor and continued to publish acclaimed fiction into the 1990s. He received further recognition with the Nebula-winning Sailing to Byzantium and the Hugo-winning Gilgamesh in the Outback.
Silverberg has also played a significant role as an editor and anthologist, shaping science fiction literature through both his own work and his influence on others. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, author Karen Haber.

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letters from Atlantis by Robert Silverberg is a novella set up as a concise narrative in the form of letters written between two mental time travelers visiting the Atlantean Empire some 18,000 years ago, during the last ice age.

Time researchers are sent back in time as a discorporeal entity and “possess” the mind of a current time person, allowing them to witness and experience the time from the perspective of a local time inhabitant. A brilliant concept and well played by the author.

This premise is then used as a vehicle to not only explore ideas about the mythical civilization but also to examine ideas about human nature and leadership.

Like other Silverberg works, this one involves the theme of shared psychological experiences and mental empathy. Another ubiquitous theme common to Silverberg's work is the accessibility of great expanses of time by the characters. Good book.

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good narration, good text. Perhaps a little too concise, with so many big concepts to unveil in the progress of the story.

Slated for one of the SRC2017WINTER tasks needing author's initials RS... I forget which one without my blueprint.

[Tom LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to audiobook. I didn’t like the narrator’s voice - far too low and deep. It will make the bones of your skull, your teeth and your windows vibrate. The book is great though. Time travel by way of entering an individual’s mind. In this case, the individual is a prince of the lost world of Atlantis.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letters from Atlantis is a short epistolatory YA novel about far-future historians researching the lost civilization of Atlantis by casting their consciousness back in time and inhabiting the bodies of Atlantean citizens. It's very nicely done, and the romantic exchange of missives is handled deftly. The explorations have a decidedly fantastical air, reminiscent of 1001 Nights, and it's a short, fun read. At the end there's a somewhat surprising reveal that's perhaps inserted to turn the book back into straight science fictional lines; it's a little awkward and unnecessary, but up to then I enjoyed it completely. The first hardback edition is very and lavishly nicely illustrated by Robert Gould.

[Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual, Silverberg does a fine job with the style of writing of this novella. Its literary device is a series of letters from Roy to his love Laura. They are both time travelers from our future to the distant past.

Stephen Hawking famously said, "If time travel is possible, where are all the tourists from the future?" In Letters from Atlantis, the time travelers are disembodied entities, living hidden in the minds of people who lived twenty thousand years ago. Roy is embedded in the mind of a prince who senses his presence, and tries to exorcise him as a demon. Roy eventually reveals himself, explains who he is, and they become friends. Roy learns that the people of Atlantis are interstellar refugees from a world whose sun went nova. There really is not a story line per se.

[Jon Huff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nicely produced books with some very nice illustrations but a little short on story. Still, it was a fun read.

[Martha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a creative sci fi view of Atlantis.

Roy and his time travel partner, Lora, have been sent from twenty-first-century to a distant past, They are not sent together but to different parts of the world in the time period. Roy is sent to observe the mysterious island of Atlantis as it existed while Lora is sent to the fringes of barbaric lands. The traveling is not in body but by ‘piggy backing’ into a mind of the time. Roy is pleasantly surprised to find himself where – or rather when -- he is supposed to be, sharing the brain of the Royal Prince of Atlantis. Roy knows that the city is barely a myth in the future, so he is awed to see the sophisticated development and technologies of the city.

Although he is not supposed to share the information of his travels, he writes letters to his love, Lora, to share his excitement and hopefully preserve the astounding wonders that he observes. Meanwhile he struggles to hide his letters and his presence from the very sensitive Prince who begins to think he has a demon in his head.

This is an imaginative story depicting a fantasy world of the mysterious Atlantis. I enjoyed the humor of the character and detail in the world building. The story is not overly exciting although there is conflict between Roy and his “host” and some drama in the visions of the cataclysmic destruction of the island. This is short and reads quickly.

This story may have be written for a younger audience. It is suitable for young teens and adults who find theories of Atlantis interesting.

Audio Notes: Tom Parker’s narration seemed a bit dry at first but once I grew accustomed to the voice, it helped give definition to the characters. I enjoyed the quick entertainment offered by the audiobook.

[Roselyn Blonger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Para empezar, no entiendo por qué a la mayoría le pareció tan denso. En mi experiencia, fue una lectura rápida y atrapante que, con la implicación final, logró hacerme soltar algunas lágrimas. Esa cultura tan apasionante, rodeada de misterios y magia, me recordó mucho a la del Antiguo Egipto y eso sólo sirvió para que me emocionara más.

La historia trata de Roy, un viajero en el tiempo que logró transportar su consciencia a la mente de Ram, el príncipe heredero del imperio de la Atlántida. Allí explorará entre recuerdos y vivencias, desde el origen de aquella civilización hasta su próximo final, incluyendo lo bueno y lo malo. Todo contado a través de cartas que Roy escribe controlando la mente de Ram.

¡Muy recomendado!

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, and for the most part artfully told (a few repetitions at the start more than made up for lovely descriptions in the second half). Would have rated a star higher, though I'm not in the intended age group, if not for the fact that the bar for time travel with Silverberg is so high. And for younger audiences, I liked PROJECT PENDULUM just a bit more.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent conceit, and buoyed by solid if surprisingly generic prose, by Silverberg's standards, but undone by a lack of imagination in the (limited) plot development. In such a short work there's little room to move, of course, but still - there's one major twist element in this story, and it is bone-headed and undercuts the hitherto compelling story (discussed in detail below; no spoilers in this paragraph). It feels like Silverberg tossed this off on autopilot in a couple of sittings, and didn't bother to go back and punch it up. Hell, he probably winged the whole thing. His strengths as a storyteller shine through, but the lack of development in the ideas department lets everything down. 2.5/5.


---------SPOILERS FOLLOW-------------

The story is that a time-travelling historian has wound up hitchhiking in the mind of the Prince of Atlantis 18,000 BP. There's some good tension around whether the Prince will detect the passenger, and/or whether the historian will reveal himself to the Prince. But the central mystery concerns the Atlantans' inexplicably advanced technology, and some ceremonies that imply that each King retains the memories of every previous King. The obvious solution to this is that the Atlantans have the same mind-projection technology as the historian, and possibly even that rogue historians have hijacked the Atlantan empire and are steering it towards their own goals. That scenario provides you with so much scope for conflict - when the historian finds out, does he confront the Prince? Does he fight back against the conspiracy in order to ensure that Atlantis is destroyed, as per history? The story practically writes itself.

Instead, Silverberg just has the Atlantans all be aliens. Literal extra-terrestrials who flew to Earth when their home star went nova, and founded Atlantis. Alien beings from another planet with completely different elements and minerals available, with a completely different common ancestor of all life, almost certainly using different nucleotide base pairs than Terran life, probably lacking mitochondria, evolving under different radiation levels in strange continents and climates, but still literally identically human in every conceivable way, down to the capacity to interbreed with actual humans (implied).

This idea (a) is boring, (b) unnecessarily multiplies the impossible elements of the story, and (c) shows a flagrant disregard for the most basic principles of biology. How does Silverberg think evolution works, I wonder?

Anyway I've tried not to be too harsh on this story because of this, but jeez, what a dunderheaded twist.

[Zach Brumaire]

what did I just read


thought it was going to be a classic they are their own Atlantis prophetic time loop, turned out 80% of the way in, they're aliens (why would they be humanoid aliens? are humans going to head towards that star and start the civilisation?)

I think it was maybe about apocolyptic capitalism and how even the most meritous One King will just refuse to relocate the of island, for they must have signed and need to be harrowed like Ram in the Labyrinth, but not that they would be totally wiped out cause ships will be on hand I guess so that they can be oppressed by the locals who they previously colonized?


Roy on Atlantis as he comes to identify more and more with Ram

1. wow animal sacrifice is gross

2. wow prayers take a long ass time

3. wow looked how handsome and well fabricated prince ram is, he swims so many laps in the pool

4. wow this long line of absolute monarchs is able to govern despite the internal contradictions of the bureaucrats and peasantry and colonized and priests cause... the kings have been particularly good, level headed administrators (reminds me of a glow piece I once read about ' H. W. Bush.)

5. wow he absorbs shock well (hint no he does not)

6. wow they think they are aliens they say it's definitely not a superstitious myth and even though they look exactly like humans look I think they're aliens too

7. wow they already know the island is doomed but their kings are uniformly fatalistic and they would rather just not prepare and allow a few to draw lots at the end.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is based on the idea that in the future people have the tech to mentally jump back in time and share someone’s mind, seeing and hearing what they experience, able to go through their memories, and have the person unaware there is someone lese there. Perfect for researchers to dig into the past without worrying about causing any sort of changes to the timeline.

The historical researchers, going further and further back to explore human history, have found Atlantis is real and have sent one researcher into the mind of a prince of Atlantis to get more information on how the top tier of the government, culture, society, etc. works.

The researcher, even knowing he’s going to Atlantis, is surprised by what he finds…


I loved the story, I loved this version of Atlantis (I love the versions of Atlantis with lots of beautiful tech), but I wasn’t thrilled with the epistolary format. The letters always drained tension from any given scene, and I wasn’t impressed with the sloppiness of the researcher.

Still, amazing setting and a great version of Atlantis, with quite a poignant ending.

[Deepti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me gusta este libro. El escritor ha escrito este libro en una manera muy sencillo pero muy bueno.

If you travel through time into the past, would you try to change it? Could you possibly change it?

I remember this book in my school text book of a group of time tourism travellers landing in the Jurassic era, and a guy accidentally steps out of the line and steps on a butterfly. When they get back, a dictator is at the helm of the country and words are spelt differently. He thinks it was just a butterfly. Then the man in charge of their tour kills him. Atleast this is what I remember!!

In this book - anything I say would be a spoiler, so I desist and leave it at, this book is really something else. Destiny.

I have no idea why it is a 3 star book!

[Roxan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un investigador del tiempo que hace una incursión en la mente de un príncipe de un pasado muy distante, época de la Atlántida. La historia se cuenta en forma de cartas del viajero a su amante, que viaja en la mente de un alto funcionario de la misma época. En realidad, las cartas son escritas por el propio príncipe, bajo hipnosis, y enviadas por correo típico; sin importar lo imprudente que esto puede llegar a ser. En fin, una novela corta y sencilla, escrita más por el placer del autor que por algún mérito literario.

[Felix Flecha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mezcla entre relato corto y ensayo muy curioso. El libro parte de una idea muy original para situarnos en la anhelada Atlántida, los viajes en el tiempo a nivel de conciencia. Y los hechos se describen gracias a la correspondencia de una pareja de viajeros. Lástima que no se desarrolle más la trama y la acción del libro, genera interés por saber más cosas. Aunque también es verdad que la síntesis de los hechos y el enfoque en las ideas básicas hacen que fluya el pensamiento y las preguntas.

[Beelzefuzz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a compelling read and interesting idea, though ultimately a very slight story.
The idea of time traveling anthropologists as only their consciousnesses riding in historical figures was very cool (did Assassin's Creed read this?). The fact that they were writing letters to each other was a bit dull, and some of the implications this could have caused were never meted out.
The fatalistic ending petered the whole thing out enough to lose a star.

[Neal Holtschulte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hilariously bad. The protagonist is an oblivious buffoon. The prose is incredibly redundant. It reads like each chapter was published separately in a magazine and the author had to remind the reader what happened before, which, I assume, is the reason for the redundancy.
But that doesn't excuse the bland and repetitive sentence structure.
Gets into some mild philosophy at the end, but mostly I laughed at, not with, this story.

[Todd Howell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short and enjoyable tale. Much different than I thought it would be but I really liked the creativity.

Too short, perhaps, as I think it could have developed nicely into a fuller length novel. The origin of the Atlanteans itself would make a good secondary story (think Anne McCaffrey and Pern origins).

Overall, was worth the time to read.

[Audiobook Accomplice (Gillian) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uhm, wanted to throttle our hero but then it picks up a bit o’ much-needed speed.
My Full Review →

[Sully Augustine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version during drive times and evening walks over a few days. The time travel plot device was as well done as could be expected and the writing is workmanlike, so it held my interest reasonably well. I'm surprised I missed it back in teenage years.

[Unreliable NarraTBR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, Silverberg...
Every time I read a Silverberg book, I come out of it with a new book on my, "I will be rereading this for the rest of my life" list.
Little bit of Sailing to Byzantium, a little Downward to the Earth.

[Moonshadow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Silverberg is a master of speculative/syfy/fantasy. I have never read a book by him that I did not like and I have read many. This book is just flawlessly entertaining/fascinating and just plain brilliant!!!! I guess I’m a fan!!

[T.S.S. Fulk · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on Atlantis but not very filling.

[Chuck Ledger · Rating 3 out of 5]

First read it back in 1992. With this rereading I find it stands the test of time. Not the best that Silverberg has written, but definitely worth the read.

[Bob · Rating 1 out of 5]

could not finish

[Bill Hohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well above my expectations!

[cypher · Rating 4 out of 5]

a short science fiction, not necessarily about Atlantis, metaphorically speaking. some interesting elements.

[Timothy Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

He almost list me in the middle- a one sided conversation can only hold for so long. But I liked the ending.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Time travellers based in our not-too-distant future are researching the past, and two of them, Roy and Lora, are sent to separate parts of the earth in the year 18,862BC, Lora to what will one day be Siberia to live among the mammoth-hunters and Roy, who is our narrator and central character, to Atlantis -- or Athilanta, which is what its natives call it. (Lora never appears in the novel: she is simply the addressee of the series of letters Roy writes that form the text of the novel.)

I've implied that Roy and Lora are time travellers in the ordinary sense. Not so. It's the premise of the book that physical time travel is impossible; instead, folk are sent back in the form of electrical patterns -- clusters of data, if you like -- that lodge undetected in the brain/mind of an inhabitant of the destination era. It is possible for the visiting entity to control the host human being, but not without alerting the host to the traveller's presence, something that's normally to be avoided; Roy gets round this prohibition in order to write his letters to Lora by waiting until his host is asleep, then keeping him in a trance while he does the writing.

And Roy's host is not just any Atlantean: he is Prince Ram (the "Ram" is the generally used short form of an infernally long full name), heir to the throne and already a powerful ruler in his own right. Through Ram's eyes Roy observes the wonders of Atlantean civilization -- and these genuinely are wonders because, contrary to expectations of finding something along the lines of ancient Egypt, Roy discovers a technology roughly at the same level as that of the Victorian era: steamships, electric lighting, etc. In fact, the text irritatingly doesn't give us too many details of the technology beyond what I've just stated, or even much of a description of Atlantean society at all beyond the fact that it has slaves but that these are well treated, and that it has a strong streak of racism toward the primitives of the mainland(s), who are called "dirt people"; instead, the focus is much more on Ram's beliefs and the rituals he must undergo with his father, the king, as he prepares himself to be the fully readied heir to the throne. One of these rituals concerns a star known to the Atlanteans (in translation) as the Romany Star, which presumably means that the concept of gypsyhood was understand long before the emergence of actual gypsies. Hm. Anyway, Roy soon manages to dig out of Ram's mind that the Atlanteans are not in fact humans: they are descendants of the survivors of a startlingly humanoid species whose star swelled up and the usual, who sent off a pitifully few colonists in quest of a new home amid the myriad stars of the Galaxy, etc., etc. Clearly the Atlanteans have not been able to build up their technology to anything like the levels they once enjoyed, but they've done the best they can with the limited resources available to them here on earth. Their racism is still pretty repulsive, but more understandable (according to the text) once we realize that humans are actually a different and less developed species.

Eventually Ram detects Roy's presence, regarding him as a possessing demon. Even when Roy, recognizing the inevitable, breaks every rule in the chronic argonaut's rulebook and "introduces himself" -- explains he is a historian from the far future and ya-de-yada -- Ram still regards him as some kind of wizard. And here, I think, the machinery of the book creaks down. If the Atlanteans are indeed the relics of hi-tech spacefarers, how come their minds are still polluted with all these stupid superstitions? It's not just the belief in demonic possession and wizards (and, for that matter, in the moral acceptability of slavery): the Atlanteans also worship a whole pantheon of gods who seem to have attributes akin to those of Olympus. Surely we might expect an advanced culture, even if it had perforce regressed technologically, to have grown out of this sort of stuff? I'm not making an anti-religious point here (for once); what I'm saying, rather, is that we're being expected to believe in a culture that's composed of cultural elements that simply don't go together -- that are chalk and cheese.

Letters from Atlantis is nicely enough told, but it's a slight work (I think it was intended as a YA novel, which is no excuse; I've read it as part of Silverberg's three-novel Cronos omnibus, hence the uncertainty) and, as I say, doesn't seem really to hold together.

[Michael P. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every so often I read a sci-fi novel to try to understand why others like them. I always fail. This one seems to draw inspiration from Ursula LeGuin's LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, a novel about the anthropology of a planet. This one is about discovering the anthropology of Atlantis.

The book goes astray is numerous ways. It is a time travel story in that the anthropologist is from the future. His consciousness is somehow shot into the mind of an Atlantian prince. How? Not explained. It seem absurd that one mind can be aimed at a specific target from several millennia away and not miss. The anthropologist's mind will be recalled, at some point. How? Not explained.

The anthropologist (he is not called that) writes long boring letters to his girlfriend, also an anthropologist residing in a different Atlantian mind, at risk of discovery. The obvious happens. Such smart people do something so stupid?

This sets up what ought to be the central conflict in the book, the discovery by the prince that he is sharing his brain with another consciousness and what he does about it. However, after a few pages they get along just fine. Result: a book with no conflict, and, as you know, conflict is the basis of literature. Sigh.

There is also the revelation, very late in this book, and here is a spoiler, that the Altlanians are from another planet with a fatalistic view of life. Their alienness is supposedly responsible for their fatalistic choices because, of course and as you know, there are no fatalistic humans (he wrote sarcastically).

I marvel at the people who wrote nice things about this short novel. I conclude they are short sighted.