Fall already!

The Fall of Atlantis is an interesting, although flawed book. The flaw is found in the failure to create a coherent world. There are many hints at the structure of the story-world in which this book takes place, but there is a lack of actual description on the part of the author, Marion Zimmer Bradley. Rituals, phrases, and hierarchies are described, without explanation for the naive reader.

The main characters are two sisters, Domaris and Deoris, who are priestesses of an unnamed religion. The religion which predates all future religions, perhaps. The (mainland) temple in which they live encapsulates the action of the story, with Atlantis lurking in the background. Atlantis, always out of focus, is a somewhat unorthodox colony where a new temple has recently emerged. The narrative thread begins when Domaris and Deoris are teenagers, and follows their diverging paths. Domaris accepts the world as it is and follows the path of the light. Deoris, on the other hand, is rebellious and rejects the light to follow the path of certain darkness. Bradley manages to portray the "good" and "bad" sides well; however, showing how cruel and inhuman the "good" can be and how accepting and kind the "bad" can be. To state the focus shortly the overarching theme is the complexity of loving relationships.