Raising Atlantis

By: Thomas Greanias

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 9 hrs

Publisher's summary

The truth is down there. A secret U.S. military dig has uncovered ancient ruins two miles beneath the ice of Antarctica and activated the ultimate weapon. Now rogue American archaeologist Conrad Yeats and beautiful Vatican linguist Serena Serghetti must team up to unlock the secret origins of human civilization before a global cataclysm ends it.

Thomas Greanias builds excitement and suspense every step of the way in this daringly original, thought-provoking adventure that moves with electrifying force. This is the ultimate voyage, a journey to the center of time, as awe-inspiring as the dawn of man...and as inevitable as doomsday. This is Raising Atlantis.

©2005 Thomas Greanias (P)2005 AtlantisAudio, a division of Atlantis Interactive, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Raising Atlantis is a wonderfully honed cliffhanger, an outrageous adventure with a wild dose of the supernatural. A thrill ride from start to finish." (Clive Cussler)
"A gripping page-turner....I think it's a lot like The DaVinci Code, but I like the ending on this one better." (CBS News)
"A remarkable first novel. Raising Atlantis grabs hold of you from the first page and pulls you into an astonishing world of scientific fact and fiction, suspense and good old-fashioned adventure. Thomas Greanias is a superb writer who knows how to tell a tale with style and substance. Thoroughly entertaining." (Nelson DeMille)
"It's not hard to see why this techno-thriller has already been such a success: a gripping plot about the discovery of an island believed to be Atlantis, not in the Aegean but buried under the ice of the South Pole; some colorful characters, including a father-and-son team of archeologists; and some clean, no-nonsense writing that adds to the reading speed and suspense." (Chicago Tribune)

Stargate+Da Vinci Cod= Raising Atlantis

Raising Atlantis is like reading a weird hybrid between DaVinci Code and Stargate. Lets see, you have the annoying whiningly-superior academic protagonist: check. Obscure government experiment: check. Catholic conspiracy involving the Vatican: check. Someone who can decipher ancient codes and text: check. Someone spouting cryptic religious messages: check. Characters with extremely dysfunctional parents: check. Pyramid and Alien connection: check. All that was missing was a Tielk-like sidekick, and Robert Langdon's obscure preaching about cryptic philosophical points... Oh wait... There's Conrad.

Okay, all joking aside, I enjoyed Raising Atlantis, but I found myself gritting my teeth when the ex-nun character was summoned to the Vatican. The story lost a great deal of punch when the character "Mother Earth" became involved. (Seriously does every action novel these days have to involve the Pope or the Vatican?)

Then there's Conrad. Golly, if I have to listen to Conrad whine one more time about how his daddy don't love him as much as he loves his military career, I wanted to slap the character. Seriously, did anyone like Conrad? He was whiney, irritating and self-centered. I don't blame his dad for wanting to throw him in the brig.

I think this book had some great adventure. But I can't help but wonder what it would've been like with protagonists I actually LIKED. 4 stars.

Are you kidding me?

This is the worst book I've ever finished. It is a bad attempt at a redo of Raiders of the Lost Ark meets the Day After Tomorrow. (Unless Day After Tomorrow was based on this book, in which case I apologize.) There were no characters that I cared anything about. In fact, I was hoping they would all die so the book would just get over. The story was predictable at first and then it just became impossible. This book was so bad that Scott Brick couldn't even save it. Actually, even Scott was subpar here with a bad Australian accent. I did give the book one star because I do love Scott Brick even at his worst.

Goes on and on and on

A good yar filled with bits and pieces of other good yarns a dabbling of current events, some religion for those who need some nd unfortunately, once again, the salvation of the world is dependent on superstition and judeo/christian dogma. The hero takes a 20 foot leap to a stone floor with no damage to his ankles, the heroine falls 30+ from a helicopter and is unharmed all in all a bit "over-the-top".

Your never quite sure if science or reason has any place in the tale and by the time you've decided, none, it gets even more bizarre with the never-ending end that seems to go on and on and on.

3 stars is the best I could do for this audiobook and those only because the "graphics" or visuals created by the story are truly wonderful. I'm a sucker for special effects.

I couldn't disagree more

I have read review after review of this book that proclaim it to be horrible drivel with *maybe* a good idea for a story but was badly realized with characters that were poorly developed, etc. Well, for this genre, I couldn't disagree more. I came back here to see if there was a sequel because it was clearly setup for one, and I enjoyed this book so much I am looking forward to it. It should probably be loosely categorized in the Science Fiction genre, not Suspense, and especially not Espionage. There is definitely a lot there to work with, and I enjoyed it immensely. All books of this sort require total suspension of disbelief. But that's why it's called "fiction". If you take the various "facts" that are presented, about the characters and about what's going on, at face value and start from there, the book is quite compelling. I am not the only one to think so, apparently. It achieved #1 Amazon sales ranking in April 2002 and #2 on Amazon’s eBook fiction list (Mysteries & Thrillers) in May and June 2003 behind Dan Brown’s THE DA VINCI CODE. It was reported to be on the NY Times Best Seller list, but I was not able to confirm this. At any rate, I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading Atlantis-themed books. It may not be the best book out there, but it is most certainly an enjoyable read.

An absolutely appalling book

A preposterous story strung together with cliches and characters who are uniformly arrogant, angry, and sarcastic. I stopped listening when I realized that I wanted each of them to meet a bad end.

Whew

High hopes for a decent adventure are dashed very quickly. While Scott Brick does a great job, he can only read what is written. While obviously a great premise, and not a bad story concept, the writer seems to rush through each scene as if impatient to get to the next chapter. Details are lacking, and characters are shallow, inconsitent, and make illogical and out-of-character decisions throughout the story. The author constantly adds props "on-th-fly" to the story, to brace up the flimsy structure of the story. I was surprized how poorly written the story turned out to be, particularly after reading the initial peer reviews by other authors I enjoy. I listenend to the entire story, hoping for redemption, but it never materialized. Whew.....

Very Entertaining

This was an amazing book. If you?re into ancient civilizations, celestial mysteries and modern technology that doesn?t match up to mysterious nature of the pyramids you will love this book. Shrouded by the US trying to keep a secret discovery found miles beneath ice under wraps things get dicey when other countries fear a ?secret nuclear test site? of the Americans. This book is an interesting read for Atlantis enthusiasts.

Pull the lever for more formula

Let's see, egyptian mythos, the Catholic Church, a fallen nun, a self centered archaeologist with an insane father who's also a senior military officer and a pyramid two miles under the Antarctic ice. Well at least it has multiple formulaic plot elements. The reader Scott Brick has a great track record but he seems to get stuck reading crap (last one I heard was The Traveler - oh barf). Unfortunately the story is long, boring, wandering and not all tied together. Run away.

Painfully silly. Cussler, Ludlum fans beware

This book represents a miracle of marketing-- how else could they get blurbs from Nelson DeMille and Clive Cussler?? I hear they posted a job listing on Monster.com to recruit agents for the "Atlantis Project" so maybe that kind of stunt has drawn people to read this excuse for a thriller.

I don't mind an outlandish plot-- I love escapist fiction. But the descriptions are so banal and the characters so unlikeable that I found myself laughing at the writer's choices (rather than enjoying the ride of a compelling story).

Definitely my harshest review ever, but the combination of poor prose, whiny characters and contraction action (comes every two minutes whether the plot calls for it or not) deserves zero stars.

Mary

Of all the audible books I've listened to, this is the worst. It is amazing how some books get published. The story is immature, perhaps a 6th grade level. The relationships between characters is also immature and unbeliveable. A story about Atlantis sounds interesting but this story was anything but interesting.

raising atlantis

This had potential to be a good yarn: however it was ill constructed, disjointed and badly written, in short it makes Dan Brown look like a literary Genius. Don't bother.

Good... funny accents!

I enjoyed this. Its no masterpiece but an interesting storyline. My only gripe... the narrator does some awful accents!! The English.Australian middle aged nun sounds like a teenage chimney sweep from 1800s England!!

Indiana Jones meets Stargate Atlantis

A disgraced archaeologist joins forces with a Vatican linguist in a race against other world powers to investigate a miraculous phenomenon in the Antarctic, which could be the lost city of Atlantis.

This is a well-written book, with interesting and believable characters, both good and bad, a fast-paced story and a high un-putdownable factor. Having just returned another title for ridiculous implausibility (yes, I am a fussy reader/listener), it was a pleasure to digest this through to the end, and I promptly paid for and downloaded the sequel on Audible. I would add that the narration is good, except for the poor editing which has left too short a gap between chapters (literally milliseconds), but this is a minor gripe.

Don’t waste your time.

Very poor performances along with the worst editing I’ve heard make this painful to listen to.

One of very few books I could not waste my time on

This audiobook sounds a bit like C movie put on paper and read by a person who didn't enjoy it a bit.

Good book

I really enjoyed this book the story had me gripped I got through it quite quickly

stories fine But the editing is dreadful.

story synopsis seemed fine but there are no gaps between chapters! it is so off putting, why haven't Audible fixed it?

Bad edit

I enjoyed this book but wow whoever did the editing so poorly needs to move to a different department

annoying!

I couldn't stand the narrator's voice! Tried to persevere as I like this author but I couldn't.

Entertaining nonsense - would make a good bad movie

Imaginative, with an action packed plot; good fun to listen too, but lacking in subtlety and depth. All characters are one dimensional, not so much archetypical so much as stereotypical. Would make a good film as there are a lot of nice ideas that would lend themselves to the Hollywood special FX, and the premise itself is interesting; but the science is bad, and there are one too many cringe moments to make it a truly great book.