Prince Ram of Atlantis and the Idiot

Letters From Atlantis

by Robert Silverberg

Reviewed by Aaron DeWeese

I picked this up because I recently became aware of Graham Hancock's work, reigniting my interest in the legendary Atlantis. Even though Graham drinks Ayahuasca in search of reality (join the club of the postmodern New Age of the West), truly I think he is worth looking into.

Here too, within Silverberg's novella, entheogens play a part in reality revelation through the visionary world—what creative triteness (even in 1990)! Robert Silverberg really doesn't offer anything new here in the way of Atlantean Mythos either. The idea that an alien race came to Earth and brought the gift of technology and civilization is as commonplace as the belief of aliens at Area 51.

I was a bit turned off by the simplistic letter writing of Roy Colton. Not only that, but the fact that he dared to write letters to that damn Lora, jeopardizing not only their futures, but the future of the world as they knew it, is infuriatingly annoying!

I cannot believe that the scientists of his Home Era would send such a fool on such an important errand. Gads! The man is an idiot! He justifies himself by saying that revealing himself to his host, Prince Ram, was the "only honorable choice"—never mind completely rewriting the history of the world. Thankfully, Prince Ram was truly honorable, or we might not have pizza to get back to.

At 136 pages, that's really all I can garner to say here. I didn't hate it while I was reading it, though looking back, I seem bitter at what was NOT, but should have been, an intriguing adventure into Atlantis.