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dstoeberl's review against another edition
2.0
Far fetched, but entertaining if read as semi-fiction.
thomasroche's review against another edition
2.0
It's kind of physically painful to give this book two stars, but it's really one of the few works I could find that cover the subject in this detail. I would give it three for its utility to me... but really, it's practically unreadable.
Semi-self-published by some culty lunatic asylum in Illinois, the book (part of a rather large series) would clearly have benefited from an agressive book editor or project manager who would have trimmed down Childress's meandering prose and tightened the book by a hundred pages, then beaten the interior page designer with a tire iron. Never mind that said book editor might also have challenged some of Childress's more bizarre lapses in documentation which -- quite apart from the outlandish and unsupported claims he makes throughout the book -- make the thing of limited utility even to scholars of esoterica like this humble poster.
To be honest, the unreadable and amateurish layout meant I could not read the whole thing cover to cover -- if I had, I would be making this post from inside Arkham asylum. However, I did pull some interesting theories from it, including that of "Lake Tritonis," which was more or less what I was looking for. Lake Tritonis was a vast inland lake that supposedly covered a good deal of what is now the Sahara desert. The existence of this lake appears to be more or less accepted among geologists, but Childress claims it existed within human memory -- which there's little support for, but hey, that's why it's fringe history, right?
Childress, a fringe archaeologist, draws his information from a single source: The Ancient Atlantic by L. Taylor Hansen, an Amazing Stories author who also wrote on fringe archaeology (as did several of pulp's best-known authors -- L. Sprague de Camp and Avram Davidson being notable examples).
Sadly, I have been unable to secure a copy of this valued tome. Childress, as far as I can guess, took from it verbatim the information he relates... since Hansen's rather obscure book is the only reference he sites, and he refers to the place as Lake Triton (not Tritonis), a name I can't find anywhere else. I can only assume the name comes from Hansen.
Regardless, as it turns out the supposed lake is referred to by Herodotus and Apollonius of Rhodes. Dude! Way to note primary references. It's kind of physically painful to give this book two stars, but it's really one of the few works I could find that cover the subject in this detail. I would give it three for its utility to me... but really, it's practically unreadable.
Semi-self-published by some culty lunatic asylum in Illinois, the book (part of a rather large series) would clearly have benefited from an agressive book editor or project manager who would have trimmed down Childress's meandering prose and tightened the book by a hundred pages, then beaten the interior page designer with a tire iron. Never mind that said book editor might also have challenged some of Childress's more bizarre lapses in documentation which -- quite apart from the outlandish and unsupported claims he makes throughout the book -- make the thing of limited utility even to scholars of esoterica like this humble poster.
To be honest, the unreadable and amateurish layout meant I could not read the whole thing cover to cover -- if I had, I would be making this post from inside Arkham asylum. However, I did pull some interesting theories from it, including that of "Lake Tritonis," which was more or less what I was looking for. Lake Tritonis was a vast inland lake that supposedly covered a good deal of what is now the Sahara desert. The existence of this lake appears to be more or less accepted among geologists, but Childress claims it existed within human memory -- which there's little support for, but hey, that's why it's fringe history, right?
Childress, a fringe archaeologist, draws his information from a single source: [b:The Ancient Atlantic by L. Taylor Hansen] by [a:L. Taylor Hansen|8164|Lewis Carroll|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192735053p2/8164.jpg]. Sadly, I have been unable to secure a copy of this valued tome. Childress, as far as I can guess, took from it verbatim the information he relates... since it's the only reference he sites, and he refers to the place as Lake Triton (not Tritonis), a name I can't find anywhere else. I can only assume the name comes from Hansen.
Regardless, as it turns out the supposed lake is referred to by Herodotus and Apollonius of Rhodes. Dude! Way to note primary references.
The problems with this section, which was the only part I was really willing to pore over, are endemic to the book. After a couple hours of alternating boredom and curmudgeonliness, my efforts to read the whole thing really didn't seem worth it. Following enough of an effort to bring myself to head-pounding frustration with the font and the lack of editing, I gave up.
In short, open memo to Mr. Childress: 1) Get a book editor, 2) Get a better designer, 3) Stop rambling! Oh, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -- no, no, let's just scratch that one, because really who cares? It's fringe theory, fringe archaeology, and I forgive it every failing except the ones I don't forgive it. Because that's how my inner Von Daniken rolls, babe.
Semi-self-published by some culty lunatic asylum in Illinois, the book (part of a rather large series) would clearly have benefited from an agressive book editor or project manager who would have trimmed down Childress's meandering prose and tightened the book by a hundred pages, then beaten the interior page designer with a tire iron. Never mind that said book editor might also have challenged some of Childress's more bizarre lapses in documentation which -- quite apart from the outlandish and unsupported claims he makes throughout the book -- make the thing of limited utility even to scholars of esoterica like this humble poster.
To be honest, the unreadable and amateurish layout meant I could not read the whole thing cover to cover -- if I had, I would be making this post from inside Arkham asylum. However, I did pull some interesting theories from it, including that of "Lake Tritonis," which was more or less what I was looking for. Lake Tritonis was a vast inland lake that supposedly covered a good deal of what is now the Sahara desert. The existence of this lake appears to be more or less accepted among geologists, but Childress claims it existed within human memory -- which there's little support for, but hey, that's why it's fringe history, right?
Childress, a fringe archaeologist, draws his information from a single source: The Ancient Atlantic by L. Taylor Hansen, an Amazing Stories author who also wrote on fringe archaeology (as did several of pulp's best-known authors -- L. Sprague de Camp and Avram Davidson being notable examples).
Sadly, I have been unable to secure a copy of this valued tome. Childress, as far as I can guess, took from it verbatim the information he relates... since Hansen's rather obscure book is the only reference he sites, and he refers to the place as Lake Triton (not Tritonis), a name I can't find anywhere else. I can only assume the name comes from Hansen.
Regardless, as it turns out the supposed lake is referred to by Herodotus and Apollonius of Rhodes. Dude! Way to note primary references. It's kind of physically painful to give this book two stars, but it's really one of the few works I could find that cover the subject in this detail. I would give it three for its utility to me... but really, it's practically unreadable.
Semi-self-published by some culty lunatic asylum in Illinois, the book (part of a rather large series) would clearly have benefited from an agressive book editor or project manager who would have trimmed down Childress's meandering prose and tightened the book by a hundred pages, then beaten the interior page designer with a tire iron. Never mind that said book editor might also have challenged some of Childress's more bizarre lapses in documentation which -- quite apart from the outlandish and unsupported claims he makes throughout the book -- make the thing of limited utility even to scholars of esoterica like this humble poster.
To be honest, the unreadable and amateurish layout meant I could not read the whole thing cover to cover -- if I had, I would be making this post from inside Arkham asylum. However, I did pull some interesting theories from it, including that of "Lake Tritonis," which was more or less what I was looking for. Lake Tritonis was a vast inland lake that supposedly covered a good deal of what is now the Sahara desert. The existence of this lake appears to be more or less accepted among geologists, but Childress claims it existed within human memory -- which there's little support for, but hey, that's why it's fringe history, right?
Childress, a fringe archaeologist, draws his information from a single source: [b:The Ancient Atlantic by L. Taylor Hansen] by [a:L. Taylor Hansen|8164|Lewis Carroll|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192735053p2/8164.jpg]. Sadly, I have been unable to secure a copy of this valued tome. Childress, as far as I can guess, took from it verbatim the information he relates... since it's the only reference he sites, and he refers to the place as Lake Triton (not Tritonis), a name I can't find anywhere else. I can only assume the name comes from Hansen.
Regardless, as it turns out the supposed lake is referred to by Herodotus and Apollonius of Rhodes. Dude! Way to note primary references.
The problems with this section, which was the only part I was really willing to pore over, are endemic to the book. After a couple hours of alternating boredom and curmudgeonliness, my efforts to read the whole thing really didn't seem worth it. Following enough of an effort to bring myself to head-pounding frustration with the font and the lack of editing, I gave up.
In short, open memo to Mr. Childress: 1) Get a book editor, 2) Get a better designer, 3) Stop rambling! Oh, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence -- no, no, let's just scratch that one, because really who cares? It's fringe theory, fringe archaeology, and I forgive it every failing except the ones I don't forgive it. Because that's how my inner Von Daniken rolls, babe.
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