The Atlantis Gene by A. G. Riddle is the first book in the series The Origin Mystery. Kate Warner is a geneticist working on potential genetic treatments for Autism and she is currently working on a long-term study in Jakarta when she finally sees potential improvement. Almost immediately her study is interrupted when her research facility is invaded by armed men who literally kidnap the two children who have shown signs of improvement. Kate is immediately brought in by the police as a suspect in the kidnap which attracts the attention of David Vale. David is an intelligence agent working for an international group known only as Clocktower and is stationed in Jakarta as well. Having recently noticed a few unusual occurrences he realizes that Clocktower is compromised, by the same organization that went after Kate’s research and the same organization that he has been searching for and monitoring for some time. This organization known as the Immari has recently discovered an unusual structure in Antarctica and are convinced that this structure and Kate’s research hold the only key to saving the human race, but only by sacrificing 99.99% of it. Now Kate and David have to work together and race against time to stop them.
I want to start this out by saying that this was a good book and I did enjoy reading it. At the same time I also felt like the story was a little all over the place and it didn’t always seem like there was much of a logical progression of events. What was there felt extremely rushed and often lacked either context or explanation. The ending also felt really predictable in a lot of ways and many of the reveals were fairly obvious, at least to me. The plot was mostly based around conspiracy theories and it seemed to be a bit of a mash up of the more common ones that float around out there. Don’t get me wrong as I do not think the book was bad or horrible but I do feel like it was predictable and therefore not as thrilling or pulse-pounding as it could have been considering the topic and the genre. I did like the characters though and I am looking forward to seeing more of them in the future. You don’t get to see many female main characters that are geneticists of all things, if they are scientists they are frequently in some other field instead. That did make for a nice change. It did do a decent job of blending the conspiracy theories into an interesting storyline which makes me curious about how they are going to continue some of them in the later books. A good book overall even if not what I would consider a great one. I am giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
This book would probably best be classified as a science fiction thriller blend which typically makes for an interesting blend. I would think this book would hold the most appeal to readers who enjoy either of those genres though more for those who read science fiction than thrillers. It would also probably be appealing to readers who like reading about conspiracy theories. The book is aimed primarily at adults and I would mostly agree with that because there is some adult content and human experimentation, along with numerous other potentially tricky topics. Outside of those two primary issues I would think it would potentially be fine for older teens. I would still consider it worth trying out if it sounds appealing though. If you do feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.