The Journey of Atlantis by Jeff Knoblauch

My Rating: 9/10

Amazon:  The Journey of Atlantis

Author: Jeff Knoblauch

Publisher: Independently published

Page #: 220

Published: September 29, 2016

Jeff Knoblauch’s The Journey of Atlantis is a refreshing spin on an old formula. Two astronomers have discovered that a neutron star is on a collision course with the Earth. . . leaving 89 years  until impact. The earth has assembled a team of experts in their respective fields to devise a plan to save mankind. Can humanity put aside their differences in order to escape Earth and save themselves?

I don’t know about you but I love a good hard SciFi novel: especially one with the technical feats required to build an interstellar spaceship with the capacity for 15 million of humanity’s finest. And that’s exactly what The Journey of Atlantis delivers. After we learn that humanity has 89 years to leave the earth, we follow “the Project” through status updates from quarterly meetings amongst the different technical heads - dubbed the “Consortium”. The Consortium includes the heads of obvious departments such as construction, mining, project security, and logistics. One of the departments that I thought was interesting were “Plant, Animal, and Materials collection” which is responsible for gathering and storing as many of Earth’s species for the trip to the new home. Another department I enjoyed hearing from was the Selection Committee, which was responsible for selecting the 15 million humans lucky enough to make the trip. . . quite the moral dilemma.

Another aspect of this book that I really enjoyed was the Consortium’s feelings about Sonny and Alice - the A.I.s created to help the Project. Sonny and Alice are consistently vague about their methods and motivations. This leaves the Consortium, as well as the reader, trying to determine if the benefit of having a benevolent and seemingly-all-knowing ally outweighs the risk of a potentially self-concerned and all-powerful demon.

My only real complaints about this novel was the abundance of gramatical errors as well as the characters kind of sounding like they are reading a script. Nothing against the plot elements, but Knoblauch should really consider using an editor/publisher next time.

Note: I did receive a free copy of this book to review. This did not influence my review.