World Without End: A Novel of Atlantis

Combining myth with modern adventure (as they did in The Forever King, 1992), and fantasy with science fiction, Cochran and Murphy imagine the fall of Atlantis. The heroes and rulers of that ancient continent, they postulate, inspired classical Greek mythology. In the present, salvage diver Sam Smith finds unusually ancient relics that lead him to a fellowship of psychics, and to mysteries that include his ties to a decades-old psychic experiment and the question of his true parentage. Some of the mysteries are explained when Sam finds himself back in time and in Atlantis, where he meets Zeus, Athena, Hades and others-and where he learns about a bloodline started by an extraterrestrial ""Stranger."" Much is left unexplained, however, and the two story threads-one set in the present, the other in Atlantis-are knotted together awkwardly. But the characters are lively, the writing is brisk and the authors' ideas-some because they're innovative and others because they're out of fashion-seem always fresh and unexpected. (Mar)