Pillar Island

A Minoan Novella

It all started on a vacation in the Bahamas, when my wife and I stayed in the fancy and overpriced "Ocean Club" hotel on Paradise Island (which later served as a setting in a James Bond movie). Down the road we visited this unbelievably cheesy theme hotel "Atlantis". It offered all the regular rip-off attractions, gambling saloons and what have you, and in the basement - in huge water tanks - lurked sharks, hammerheads, giant octopuses and other creatures. In between the sharks were ruins of Atlantis.

Sure, the name of the hotel justified having fake Atlanteans diving in their basement water tanks, but really? Wasn't this a story from Plato? Didn't it belong to the Mediterranean world?

It happened that my wife kept an old book about Atlantis in her shelf, by J.V. Luce, which I read after we had bounced my credit card and returned home.

Luce pointed to the Minoans and the Thera eruption as the most likely origin of the Atlantis saga, and I was fascinated. So I visited Crete to find out. In the next year I came back. And in the next. The more I saw, however, the more I forgot about the Atlanteans; the Minoan culture alone makes a far more interesting story to tell.

And here it is: My Minoan novella in 111 small sections. I hope you enjoy.

Part I (1-22)

Part II (23-38)

Part III (39-65)

Part IV (66-81)

Part V (82-99)

Part VI (100-111)

Appendix

Not necessary to enjoy the story, but for those who want to read some background, for those who get lost in the locations or the cast, here you find some orientation and details.

Cast

Locations

Additional background information, acknowledgements, and an extended glossary you find on the Pillar Island product page