Hearts in Atlantis is a transitional book for Stephen King. For decades, he's entertained his audience with such horror classics as Carrie, The Shining, and It.

With Atlantis he has written a book that delves deeper into the characters than ever before, breathing life into them, and making you care about what happens to them.

This book is one from the "new King" who first showed us that he has a soft side with books like Eyes of the Dragon (which was written for his daughter) and Bag of Bones.

Hearts in Atlantis is an experimental book for King, broken up into three major stories that are inter-related with each other, sharing main characters, secondary characters, and even auxiliary/supporting characters. For instance, a main character in the first part of the book (set in the early 1960's) is a secondary character in second part of the book (set in 1966, six years later).

No matter how hard he tried, King couldn't stay away from the Dark Tower story thread that must continually nag him in the back of his head. One of the main characters in the first part of the book gives the reader plenty of insight and foreshadowing into what the fifth (and possibly sixth) volumes of that series may be about. He's done this with other books, intertwining subplots of the book you are reading into books he's written in the past, with the most common parallels leading the reader right back to the all-encompassing Dark Tower epic.

From a literary perspective, King is trying lots of new things. By intertwining seemingly unrelated books with minor and major subplots, he is breaking new ground in literature. Similarly, with the three major stories told in Atlantis we see different points of view from different characters at different times in their lives. It's like turning a circle on its side and seeing that it is really flat. The multiple points of view really add a lot to the depth of this novel. It's not a literary theme you see very often.

Overall, Atlantis is as well-written as anything else by King, and the die-hard King fan will be pleased to know that he has thrown in just enough of his trademark oddities (mostly towards the end of the book) to make you stop and scratch your head and wonder what exactly he is up to.



Recommended: Yes