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A review by jlynnelseauthor
The Atlantis Legacy by Thomas Greanias
3.0
The stories skirt around the origin of man and finding Atlantis. In the first book, the story was intriguing and well put together. By the second book, it felt like the author was trying to wrap every Atlantis myth plus American mystery together in one storyline. It felt very cable TV dramatic. And the two stories really do not seem to fit together at all. One feels like “Stargate” on ice while the other feels like “National Treasure” on a murderous rampage.
Book two seemed very haphazardly put together. I thought it started well (I thought the story of the slave and his coat was a plot thread in itself that was intriguing enough to be followed), but then near the end of the book, Greanias tosses in a chapter taking place with George Washington. I don’t mind this, but he only did it twice, at the beginning and then randomly in the second half. It made no sense to include at that spot (or any spot the way the book was written) even though it was significant to the overall plot. The book lacked a smooth flow with the story lines as well as character momentum. Sometimes I felt like a character was one spot and then jumped 50 feet in another direction without a clear narration about how the character got from point A to point B.
Greanias tries to allude to a backstory in book one between Conrad and Serena, but I never felt any meaningful connection between them. There’s friction, but there’s no chemistry. It’s just mean! In fact, all the relationships in both books were actually very dysfunctional. I got very annoyed with book one’s characterizations. The characters felt better fleshed out in book two, but that could have been because I had just finished the previous book.
I liked the story in book one a lot more than book two. Book two felt a bit too much “been there, done that.” Plus the characters are put through some extreme physical beatings that feel simply impossible for someone to overcome so quickly. For example: You’ve been shot in the shoulder but are going to climb a ladder up the Washington monument? This happens in different fashions multiple times. Now I get that there is a hint that the main character, Conrad, has some supernatural DNA, but he seems to ache and bleed like everyone else in the book. There needed to be more of the DNA plotline. I didn’t even give the thread weight to the story as a whole as its mention is so sparse. He spirals to the left, and you drop it? Is he Superman? What????
The characters also make some extremely poor decisions. After uncovering the item you’ve been searching for throughout book 2, Conrad gets all dramatic and refuses to unbury the thing until he gets some answers about what Serena knows about his history. So you have someone out to murder you, the weight of America and China hangs in the balance (I mean, civilization is about to be destroyed as we know it), and you’re going to sit and pout on the greatest find of the century because your would-be girlfriend is holding out on something? Really? You’re not going to unbury, go to a safe house, and then bring this up? “Who cares about American lives, what do you know about my backstory????”
One thing Greanias did very well was Serena’s religious grounding to the story. There are a lot of alien origin theories floating around the stories, and I sincerely appreciated that Greanias was not afraid to have a character take a strong religious stance and be able to argue convincingly against the alien theories/anti-religious views. Well-plotted Biblical history. And thank you for having a religious figure be a positive influence instead of a close-minded prick.
I think Greanias is good with plotlines and unraveling a mystery. His character personalities need work. I want a few more answers to Conrad’s origins, so I will probably read book three though not extremely enthusiastically.
Book two seemed very haphazardly put together. I thought it started well (I thought the story of the slave and his coat was a plot thread in itself that was intriguing enough to be followed), but then near the end of the book, Greanias tosses in a chapter taking place with George Washington. I don’t mind this, but he only did it twice, at the beginning and then randomly in the second half. It made no sense to include at that spot (or any spot the way the book was written) even though it was significant to the overall plot. The book lacked a smooth flow with the story lines as well as character momentum. Sometimes I felt like a character was one spot and then jumped 50 feet in another direction without a clear narration about how the character got from point A to point B.
Greanias tries to allude to a backstory in book one between Conrad and Serena, but I never felt any meaningful connection between them. There’s friction, but there’s no chemistry. It’s just mean! In fact, all the relationships in both books were actually very dysfunctional. I got very annoyed with book one’s characterizations. The characters felt better fleshed out in book two, but that could have been because I had just finished the previous book.
I liked the story in book one a lot more than book two. Book two felt a bit too much “been there, done that.” Plus the characters are put through some extreme physical beatings that feel simply impossible for someone to overcome so quickly. For example: You’ve been shot in the shoulder but are going to climb a ladder up the Washington monument? This happens in different fashions multiple times. Now I get that there is a hint that the main character, Conrad, has some supernatural DNA, but he seems to ache and bleed like everyone else in the book. There needed to be more of the DNA plotline. I didn’t even give the thread weight to the story as a whole as its mention is so sparse. He spirals to the left, and you drop it? Is he Superman? What????
The characters also make some extremely poor decisions. After uncovering the item you’ve been searching for throughout book 2, Conrad gets all dramatic and refuses to unbury the thing until he gets some answers about what Serena knows about his history. So you have someone out to murder you, the weight of America and China hangs in the balance (I mean, civilization is about to be destroyed as we know it), and you’re going to sit and pout on the greatest find of the century because your would-be girlfriend is holding out on something? Really? You’re not going to unbury, go to a safe house, and then bring this up? “Who cares about American lives, what do you know about my backstory????”
One thing Greanias did very well was Serena’s religious grounding to the story. There are a lot of alien origin theories floating around the stories, and I sincerely appreciated that Greanias was not afraid to have a character take a strong religious stance and be able to argue convincingly against the alien theories/anti-religious views. Well-plotted Biblical history. And thank you for having a religious figure be a positive influence instead of a close-minded prick.
I think Greanias is good with plotlines and unraveling a mystery. His character personalities need work. I want a few more answers to Conrad’s origins, so I will probably read book three though not extremely enthusiastically.