Product Description

Archaeologist Jack Howard is a brave but cautious man. When he embarked on a new search for buried treasure in the Mediterranean, he knew it was a long shot.

When he uncovered a golden disc that spoke of a lost civilization more advanced than any in the ancient world, he started to get excited.

But when Jack Howard and his intrepid crew finally got close to uncovering the secrets the sea had held for thousands of years, nothing could have prepared them for what they would find ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16892 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-18
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Synopsis
Archaeologist Jack Howard is a brave but cautious man. When he embarked on a new search for buried treasure in the Mediterranean, he knew it was a long shot. When he uncovered a golden disc that spoke of a lost civilization more advanced than any in the ancient world, he started to get excited. But when Jack Howard and his intrepid crew finally got close to uncovering the secrets the sea had held for thousands of years, nothing could have prepared them for what they would find...

About the Author
David Gibbins has worked in underwater archaeology all his professional life. After taking a PhD from Cambridge University he taught archaeology in Britain and abroad, and is a world authority on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities. He has led numerous expeditions to investigate underwater sites in the Mediterranean and around the world. He currently divides his time between fieldwork, England and Canada. This is his first novel.

Customer Reviews

So boring it made me angry
I had read some of the negative reviews about this book, but it sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a chance anyway. I made it about halfway through before I gave up, angry for having wasted time and money on it. And I almost never give up on novels.

The premise is interesting, but instead of telling the story, Gibbins wastes too much time on irrelevant technical details. Gibbins clearly knows what he's writing about and has some good ideas, but he doesn't know how to tell a story. This is the most boring novel I can remember. It kept my interest for about 100 pages. After another 80 pages or so I was hoping the pace would pick up and halfway through I gave up. In fact, because I sometimes suffer from insomnia, I tried to use it instead of sleeping pills, but it only made me angry by how boring it was.

My recommendation is: Trust the bad reviews on this one and don't waste your time and money.

Hampered by own expertise?
Jack Howard is a marine archaeologist and along with a number of his friends and colleagues is lucky enough to discover the key to the location of what most people would consider a myth. Unfortunately they're not the only ones. So the adventure begins with a race to the prize before piracy, terrorism and even nuclear warfare rob the world of a wonderful discovery.

Unfortunately the book was very hit and miss for me. For example excitement would build, the team diving in unfamiliar waters, not knowing what they were going to find and then suddenly the author would give long descriptions consisting of an awful lot of technical jargon and diving know-how, and to a non-diver like myself the whole thing became a little tedious and annoying. I just wanted to know what happened next.

Also a lot of the story line was based on happenstance, the right people being in the right place at the right time with access to the right equipment. The dénouement was predictable too, based again on a twist of fate, so was pretty much of an anti-climax.

As the author is himself a marine archaeologist of some note it seems likely that he may have been hampered by his own expertise. In my opinion an average book, the material was there but unfortunately it wasn't used to the best advantage.

Clever choice for a title, hence the star!
If you are at all interested in ATLANTIS, this is NOT the book for you! This book is about AK47's, hyperbaric bombs and a main character that is always only inches or seconds away from instant death. Having read this book I am no better informed of the Atlantis myth than I was before reading it.
If you happen to like books involving AK47's etc., then this is still not the book for you.AVOID!