A Good Thriller

• Date: 01.10.2008
• Book: The Delphinus Chronicles
• Author: plappen

Review

The Delphinus Chronicles, R.G. Roane, ISBN 0972329803, 1998


Simon, the world’s most sophisticated supercomputer, is retired, and given to tiny Cabrillo University in San Diego, bypassing the “big” schools, like Harvard, MIT and Stanford. Installed in the basement of one of the buildings, everyone thinks that the wall between Simon’s new home and a dolphin holding tank at the water park next door is thick enough so as not to interfere with Simon. It isn’t thick enough. Simon hears noises on the other side of the wall, and having the ability to think for itself, starts talking to the dolphins.

As soon as Professor Ross Erricson and his graduate students realize what’s going on, the dolphins in captivity map the entire ocean floor. At a certain spot in the ocean, there’s a mountain here, a gully there, a human cannon over there (how would they know it’s human?). The captive dolphins are able to communicate with those in the ocean; since dolphins have no written language, they need to have quite a collective memory. The dolphins also report the location of a Spanish galleon that went down over 350 years ago, carrying over 30 tons of silver and gold back to Spain. This is the source of the legend of dolphins picking up humans in the water and transporting them to the nearest land.

The old saying goes something like, “Be careful what you ask, you might not like the answer.” The dolphins are asked how man started on Earth. Their answer has nothing to do with evolution.

The focus shifts to Atlantis, which was actually in the Aegean Sea, near Greece, not in the Atlantic. The group manages to attract the attention of the Fortezza, a secret society that is bigger than governments. They are the sort of people who wear identical gray suits, and drive dark sedans with tinted windows. Their purpose is to suppress all knowledge of the Kadut (read the book to find out just what it is) by killing everyone who even gets near such knowledge. The group has several narrow escapes, until they come within seconds of execution. Also, the cause (and cure) for aggression in the human species is found.

This book is excellent. It’s a good thriller, it will certainly get the reader thinking about a lot of things, and it’s a gem of a story. Recommended.