Lords of Atlantis

by Wallace West

In the dim past, men had fled to Mars for refuge, but now the red planet was a dying world, and the Martians returned to colonize earth and rule over the Titans-descendants of those who had stayed behind at the time of the now-legendary catastrophe.
But the rulers of the Titans, retained by the conquerors on their ancestral thrones, grew restless under the benevolent progress of the Lords of Atlantis, looked back to a so-called "golden age" and plotted rebellion.
Here is a thrilling novel of what might have been the basis of the Great Legends that have come down to of the "gods," of Atlantis, of Zeus, Hermes, Hephaestus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Jason, Medea- and of a mighty empire which was weighed in the balance and found wanting!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

Reviews

[Terence · Rating 2 out of 5]

I downloaded a sample to my Kindle a couple of days ago to see if there was anything to recommend this book to me after all this time, and there wasn't.

I can see how it may have interested my 14-year-old self, as it explores the Atlantis myth and the "real story" behind it but the writing is subpar and the characters are simply 20th century actors transposed to a poorly realized alternate past.

This was part of a triptych of books I acquired that were part of my "reading stable" for several years but I cannot remember what the titles of the other two were. One was - I think - written my Murray Leinster but I've not been able to find it in his bibliography. The plot revolves around a comet whose radiation turns a group of humans into metal (killing most everyone else), and recounts their struggle to survive and figure out what's happened to them. I was never able to finish it despite several attempts.

The second book was about a future where an alien race (the Szasz? I can't remember :-( ) have conquered Earth and have systematically stolen all of our water so that the planet resembles nothing so much as Dune. Our hero begins the story as a member of the alien's human enforcers who eventually joins a rebellion against the conquerors.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise is solid, and by this I mean the idea of an extremely advanced central nation-state surrounded by jealous, greedy savages who want its technology, wealth, and the liberty to attack and plunder each other once again.

Unfortunately West drapes this core with trappings that are not successfully realized: the Atlantean civilization is a Martian colony, where the Martians themselves are Lemurians who left Earth during an ice age; these Atlanteans have names and exploits familiar to us because our Classical mythology is a distorted retelling; Atlantis itself is a civilization centered in the Mediterranean basin before the Atlantic Ocean flooded in. None of these are particularly bad ideas (and most of them are based on previous writings, from Ignatius Donnelly or W. Scott-Elliot or even H. G. Wells), but I found their execution either lacking or unnecessary. The Atlantis-as-Martian-colony angle is explained, but the relationship of the Atlanteans to the Martians is not, nor is Martians-as-Lemurian-refugees, which could have been jettisoned from the story without consequence. Likewise casting the Atlanteans as the basis of Greek gods was a forced fit, especially where the author was using the names without change. I was particularly annoyed by portraying Hermes as a newspaper man, with all the 1960's stereotypes of the profession. Nothing sucks the exoticism of a advanced past/future society quite like a press conference.

And then there are the riding pterodactyls, which were a completely random inclusion but very welcome. Every book would be improved by this feature. I could name examples: All Quiet on the Western Front? Awesome, and probably less depressing.

I can understand the Atlantis-related quotations heading the chapters and even the tangential Biblical references, but West occasionally invokes truly odd ones: Uncle Remus and The Cask of Amontillado.

[C Groce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lords of Atlantis is a very interesting book. It gives a whole new light to the mythological gods of ancient Greece. The main character Teraf if forced into going into an adventure to stop the rebellion. This book has fights and undergrounds groups and many other interesting things. I think this book deserves a four star rating and I recommend that anyone who liked historical fantasies reads this book.

[Kelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t finish