Apocalypse 2012
A Novel
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3.4 • 10 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In ancient Mexico, the "End-Time Codex"--prophesizing the world's end in 2012--is entombed. A young Aztec-Mayan slave tells us its story.
Gifted in math and astronomy, Coyotl rises to king's counselor in Tula, a golden city of milk and honey ruled by the brilliant god-king, Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent of lore. Gathering artists, scientists and craftsmen, this legendary ruler builds a city that will awe humanity for one thousand years. But he also faces war, catastrophic drought, betrayal and the rise of an evil death-cult religion. Instituting the infamous "Blood Covenant," its priests drag thousands of people a year atop temple-pyramids and rip their hearts beating from their chests. To stop them Quetzalcoatl must defy the flames of bloody civil war.
A thousand years later scientists discover the End-Time Codex. While struggling to decipher it, they realize their own age mirrors Tula's. Can they crack the 2012 code and save their world from Tula's deadly fate?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gleason and Podrug's uneven third entry (after Aztec Fire) in the late Gary Jennings's historical series focuses on the ancient Mayan prediction of an apocalypse in the year 2012. In A.D. 1001, Toltec warriors capture a 16-year-old Aztec, Coyotl, in a raid. After the Toltecs notice Coyotl's stomach bears a scar tattoo in the shape of a star constellation, they take the boy to the magnificent Toltec capital of Tula, where he becomes the resident astronomer's assistant. Meanwhile, in the present, U.S. president Edward Raab convenes "the newly created Presidential Scientific Advisory Board" to hear NASA scientist Monica Cardiff present her theory of an upcoming global disaster. The authors lovingly describe the world of their pre-Columbian characters, but skimp on the modern story, whose characters have little motivation or substance. Jennings's fans will find the discrepancies between the two periods easy to overlook in the wealth of sex and violence.
Customer Reviews
Disappointing
I have been a fan of Jennings since first reading "Aztec", so I expected a well-researched, richly detailed, and completely engrossing story. I didn't get that in this book. I found the sequences between past and present very choppy and hard to follow, an over-inflated vocabulary (does anybody really use the word "vertiginous"?) and characters that had little depth to them. In short, a disappointment.