Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 2/25/2023 + 1223 more book reviews

Poul Anderson was a very prolific fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until the 21st century. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. Although I used to read a lot of science fiction back in the 60s and 70s, for some reason I never read anything by Anderson. The Dancer from Atlantis was published in 1971 and is a time travel novel that blended sci-fi and historical fiction. In it a man named Duncan Reid is flung from 1970 back to about 1400 B.C. in a future time travel experiment gone wrong. Along with Reid are Oleg, a medieval Russian; Uldin, a pre-Attila Hun; and Erissa, a lady from Crete who had also lived in Atlantis. The foursome are conveniently supplied with a device that eliminates language problems. Erissa is only twenty years in her past and she co-exists with a younger version of herself who falls for Duncan. The novel relies heavily on myth and includes characters such as Theseus, the mythical king of Athens. As for Atlantis, it is described as an island north of Crete that is destroyed by a huge volcanic eruption.

Although I did find this novel to be somewhat interesting, I also found it to be tedious reading during some of the descriptions of Bronze-Age Greece and Crete. It also referred sporadically to possible time travel paradoxes but nothing seems to occur along those lines. Reid is able to build an advanced ship that will attract the time travelers from the future and thus return him to 1970. This novel did not give me much incentive to read more of Anderson and I would only mildly recommend it.

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