Atlantis

Pastwatch #0.5

by Orson Scott Card, L. Corbetta (Translator)

Kemal è cresciuto a poche miglia dalle rovine di Troia. Ciò che esercitava su di lui un fascino straordinario era la storia del grande esploratore tedesco Heinrich Schliemann che in un'epoca in cui Troia era considerata pura leggenda, non solo aveva raggiunto la certezza della sua esistenza, ma l'aveva portata alla luce. Crescendo si era reso conto che il "Pastwatch" ormai ricorreva alla tecnologia per indagare attraverso i millenni della storia dell'umanità. Non ci sarebbe stato più nessun Schliemann a cercare, formulare ipotesi, a scoprire manufatti o rovine di una città perduta. Così decise di fare il meteorologo. Eppure la sua mente era affollata di luoghi leggendari. Fino a che non pensò ad Atlantide.

Genres: Science Fiction

124 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 1992

About the author

Orson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is (as of 2023) the only person to have won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003).
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short story Atlantis is a prequel to the book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, which I own and have read but only really remember in broad strokes. It's in my "READ EVERYTHING ORSON SCOTT CARD EVER WROTE" queue. I'm not reading them in any particular order, other than, well, reading all of the Ender related books first (I missed a couple of short stories, but I'll go back and scoop them up in time).

The reason this short story gets more than just my standard star rating and date finished is because I very much enjoyed the tale. It IS short, and going into too much detail would rather spoil the thing, but I will say at lesat this much: Orson Scott Card tells a tale that presents the world-wide flood that is a part of so many cultures mythologies in quite a different way. His style, as always (for me), is compelling in its simplicity and similarity to folk lore. He weaves together the flood, social theories about the rise of civilization as it relates to city-building, and the characters of Gilgamesh and Noah in a beautifully written package.

You can read Atlantis on Orson Scott Card's official website http://www.hatrack.com/osc/stories/at... if you don't want to go digging up which anthology it was published in and purchase it, although I HAVE purchased an entire anthology for one short story before, it's not necessary in this case. The Hatrack website is part of the Orson Scott Card network, and officially sanctioned. Atlantis is one of five short stories made available on the site. So if you haven't read Atlantis yet, now you have no reason not to. Go read it, it's clever and satisfying.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this one after the Pastwatch: Redemption of Chris Columbo. Which probably messed the story up for me a little bit. In Pastwatch many aspects of the Atlantis story were already told. At least all the narrative parts where Kemal was discovering where and when Atlantis was. The new parts were all about the life that was the main character, Naog. I especially liked how the author tied this character into the origin of the Noah myths and other flood myths. The specific story, though, lacked any real intensity. It was interesting, but failed to fascinate.

[Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scoprendo Terre

Interessante, godibile, ma nulla più.

[Daniel Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was pretty good. It's short and it's fun.