THE LAST VOYAGE

Advanced descendants of lost Atlantis return to modern Earth to enlighten and advance the planet, but alien hostiles threaten all.

In the latest by fantasy author Clare, whose last book was Journey Into the Past (2004), Atlians, the elite of lost Atlantis, are smart enough (or, in another interpretation, selfish enough) to have fled Earth before their high-tech civilization destroyed itself. Now, supported by an interplanetary Alliance of Galaxies, Atlian “Voyager” Jareth Dagda’s mission? Return to 21st-century Earth and boost humanity into a more harmonious evolutionary state before climate change and war trigger another Atlantis-type debacle. But fallout from a U.S.–Russian missile duel in space unintentionally shakes the dimensional grid of distant planet Reged. Its water-dwelling inhabitants (inspiration for yarns of mermaids and merrows) retaliate with a strike on Earth’s electromagnetic grid, spawning massive earthquakes and volcanoes. Moreover, Tirich, another Atlian, secretly compromised by the Regedians and infatuated with Jareth’s lover, Charmaine, uses the opportunity to sabotage a mystic teleportation node to dispose of the heroic Voyager and have sylphlike Charmaine all to himself. The ensemble is thrown to a chaotic Earth, and, as the author weaves in multiple New Age tropes, the otherworldly heroes and their paranormal pals do not respond as readers might expect. The stranded Atlians continue their good deeds at ground level, sequestered among fellow survivors on richly described coasts of northern Scotland and Ireland; others are left to their various fates. Exhortations of better, enlightened living and shoutouts to SF heroes, like Masaru Emoto, alternate with a fair quantity of occult action and intrigue set against succinct strokes of geopolitics practiced on a wounded globe. Readers in a prepper frame of mind get a persuasive look at a potential WWIII scenario/outcome (albeit with nasty alien merfolk). Though follow-ups are promised, this can be read as a stand-alone.

An entertaining mix of New Age quasi-magic and post-apocalyptic SF.