In the Courts of the Sun
-
-
4.1 • 9 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
“A stunningly inventive novel that . . . weaves together Mayan history, modern science, game theory and the coming Mayan apocalypse. BEWARE DECEMBER 21, 2012!”—Douglas Preston, author of The Monster of Florence
It was predicted. We were warned. December 21, 2012. The day time stops.
The year is 2012. Jed DeLanda, a descendant of the Maya, is a math prodigy raking in profits from online trading. But Jed’s life is thrown into chaos when his former mentor, Taro, and a mysterious female game designer enlist Jed’s help in deciphering an ancient Mayan codex containing the secrets of the Sacrifice Game.
It foretells of the end of civilization, and only Jed can prevent the coming apocalypse. He must play the Game himself—in a mind-bending journey that stretches from thousands of years into the past to the very brink of the end of time.
“Remarkable . . . prodigious in its scope, its originality, its ambition, its intelligence, and the mastery of its research. In a word: awesome.”—Raymond Khoury, author of The Last Templar
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of the late Michael Crichton will welcome this engrossing SF thriller, the first in a projected trilogy by D'Amato (Beauty). As December 12, 2012, the date the Maya predicted would mark the end of the world, approaches, the Warren Group, a shadowy conglomerate, seeks to use technological advances to forestall disaster. One way is to send the mind of Jed DeLanda, a savant skilled at a contemporary version of the Mayas' sacrifice game, into the body of a seventh-century Mayan hip-ball player to learn more about why the apocalyptic prediction was made. DeLanda's time-travel comes just as a devastating calamity, possibly triggered by biological weapons, hits Orlando, Fla. The action shifts easily between the near-future and the past. While the use of modern idiom in the historical scenes may take some getting used to, the period details are as convincing as those in Simon Levack's superb Aztec mysteries (The Demon of the Air, etc.).
Customer Reviews
Fantastic fantasy
This fantasy thriller weaves back and forth from a present-day Armageddon to the height of meso-American culture, slowly teaching you to count your days in eighteens and your months and years in cycles up to the end ... in 2012. Mezmerizing -- and a climax that features Shostakovich in fourteenth-century Tenochtitlan!
In the Courts of the Sun
A riveting, hypnotic foray from a crisis in our own time to its roots in the final days of Mayan ascendency. Finely detailed, thoroughly researched, written with frantic passion, this epic quest follows a modern geek through his technologically mediated de-incarnation into the body (and mind) of an ancient Mayan warrior as he seeks to resolve an imminent crisis of his own time. Not for the squeamish. This is in places a raw, gutsy book that will burn a patch in your brain.