Opening Atlantis: A Novel of Alternate History

Turtledove, the master of “what might have been,” is at it again with the first in a planned trilogy that posits a world with an eighth continent—Atlantis. Unlike the mythical sunken island, in this alternate universe, the tectonic plates shifted so that the western half of the Mississippi watershed became a continent unsettled by humans, set between Europe and what we call North America (Terranova in the novel). Atlantis had palmettos, crocodiles and dodo birds (called honkers, and still lacking in the necessary fear of humans to spare them extinction). This first volume carries alternate history from Atlantis’ discovery by a European fisherman some 50 years before Columbus to the late 1700s—the American Revolution, in our reality. It’s a fascinating look at a fantastic alternative.