The Atlantis Connection

"The Whisper of Pialigos gets off to a fast start to draw in the curious reader, and this page turner keeps up a strong pace. A fine writer, Bottorff keeps us interested via his active verbs and realistic dialogue which move his story along, and believable characters we care about. The intricately detailed backdrop of Greece, its islands, history and archeology provide a Rick Steves travel show for romance and adventure--a wonderfully interesting setting for the mystical intrigue and the wise lessons we can take away. This is a well done story!" Writer's Digest
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Atlantis has been found.

Well, maybe. It isn't with scientific certainty that we can make this claim. Many researchers have had their day in the sun stepping up to the public podium to announce they have discovered Plato's lost continent. Each one puts forth compelling proof to back up their claims. It was one such television documentary linking Atlantis to ancient Thera (modern Santorini) that caught my attention and gave me the idea for the setting of my first novel.

According to the documentary the Minoan civilization that inhabited Thera and the surrounding islands were, by all accounts, far ahead of their time. These people produced fabulous works of art and made revolutionary advances in architecture and household conveniences. They were rulers of the sea, champions of world peace, masters of commerce. They could not, however, master the volcano upon which rested the beating heart of their illustrious empire.

If the Minoans do, in fact, prove to provide us with that elusive Atlantis connection then the legend becomes a believable piece of history. As such, further research will reveal that it is not likely that Minoans jetted around the universe in anti-gravity flying machines or came and went at their pleasure through wormholes connecting multiple dimensions, or corroborated with extraterrestrials to perform feats in empire building that transcend normal human capabilities. That their "continent" sank into the sea is evidenced in the horseshoe shape of Santorini whose center collapsed with the 1628 BCE eruption. As the super-eruption spewed magma from its enormous underwater chamber, the center of the volcano collapsed creating the thousand foot caldera that has become a world attraction. Tourism would not have done so well in present-day Santorini's formative moments. In addition to its thirty mile plume of killing ash, the collapsing magma chamber sucked in an immeasurable volume of sea water and spewed it back out in the form of a mega tsunami that thundered like a giant steamroller over shores as far away as Turkey. Some even link this event to the flood that inundated the Egyptian army in pursuit of Moses and his people.That it was indeed a global event is proven in traces of ash from the eruption found from the ice sheets of Antarctica to the rings of the ancient bristle cone pines of California.

I became fascinated with the area and began toying with the idea of setting a story in that part of the world. I immersed myself in researching the Greek islands and began studying the art of writing fiction. Having had two nonfiction books published, I discovered quickly that fiction requires an entirely different set of skills. I wanted to tell a story that was fun, captivating, educational and inspirational and would leave the reader with the feeling of having been on a meaningful adventure. Of course I wanted it to be well written and a former editor of mine had doubts that I would be able to make the transition from nonfiction to fiction. He later wrote, "My dread evaporated quickly within a few pages and from that point on my admiration soared. This is better than it has a right to be ... "

Writing the story was itself an adventure with research thrusting me into delightful worlds, modern and ancient, that I had never before visited. The story played through my mind like a perpetual film running. The characters became real friends--or enemies--acting out their lives and telling me their thoughts. I lived with one foot in my daily life and the other in a world exploring questions of destiny, of soul mates, of spiritual self-discovery, and the meanings of life and death and the possibilities of our having experienced multiple incarnations.

It is at this juncture that some would automatically dismiss this story as New Age flakiness. This is understandable because many traditional religious thinkers are simply not open to considering alternatives to their chosen models of life and death. One who is open to the research of people like the late Dr. Ian Stevenson or Dr. Jim Tucker from the University of Virginia will discover that cases involving children who claim verifiable past life experiences are difficult to simply dismiss as products of childish imaginings. And the scientific studies being conducted in Near-Death research challenge traditional views of what it means to die and, for that matter, what it means to live.

One thing I discovered with fiction is that people who will not read nonfiction material based on a subject as controversial as reincarnation will read a novel with a reincarnational theme. It's safe. They can allow themselves to suspend their disbelief and consider, "What if ... " It was not and is not my intention to try to prove anything with this work. My hope is that those who read it come away with something more than a satisfied entertainment factor. My hope is that it stirs a larger sense of life and meaning in my readers. You can imagine that I was especially pleased by the response of another reviewer who wrote, "This book was truly astonishing for me. I felt like the story was meant for me. I felt like there was a message in this book for me. And I think you will, too."