Attack from Atlantis

Teen-aged Don Miller felt lucky to be one of the few aboard the atomic-powered submarine, the TRITON, on its first official depth test run. Even when the ship began to falter and the diving planes jammed, neither he nor the rest of the crew realized they were fighting a losing battle against an unknown enemy. Quick repairs and a frantic attempt to surface brought renewed hope to the crew until they spotted strange-looking "bubble men" lashing through the water on creatures supposed to have been extinct millions of years before. All efforts to fight off the sea men failed, and the crew of the crippled TRITON had no alternative but to let their captives drag them toward the giant "bubble city" resting on the ocean floor. Lester del Rey has written here an intriguing tale of an outcast race that had migrated into the sea with a secret power that shut out the sea waters. As prisoners of a superstitious and frightened people, Don and the others frantically plotted their escape from "a city of no return." How Don finally turns the Atlanteans' weakness into a weapon and nearly wrecks the city with fear fills this story with breathless suspense. Besides providing thrill-packed reading for teen-agers, ATTACK FROM ATLANTIS suggests fascinating answers to legends that cannot die until men conquer the last barrier of this planet and find out for themselves what lies hidden beneath the mysterious sea.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction, Science Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.