In the Courts of the Sun by Brian D'Amato

From the Publisher

The year is 2012. Math prodigy Jed DeLanda is enlisted to decipher an ancient Mayan codex containing the secrets of the Sacrifice Game. It foretells 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 in the past to the very brink of the end of time...

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.). (Mar.)

Jeff Ayers - Library Journal

The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, and many wonder what will happen on that fateful day. That is the question D'Amato (Beauty) examines in this sprawling tome. Familiar with a game that the Mayans used to predict the future, Jed Deland successfully makes money on the stock market using the same methods. He ends up helping an organization with access to time-travel technology so that he can travel back at the height of the Mayan civilization, interact with these ancient people, and find out what the world can expect when the calendar ends. Not a thriller, a work of science fiction, or a historical, this novel is hard to define. End-of-the-world aficionados will find it compelling, but librarians will have a hard time booktalking it. It also ends with the dreaded four words: End of Book One. Will the entire series be published before the apocalypse? For larger collections only. [See Prepub Alert, LJ11/1/08.]

What People Are Saying

Douglas Preston
"In the Courts of the Sun by Brian D'Amato is an enthralling and original read, a stunningly inventive novel that will keep you turning the pages until the wee hours. With the sure hand of a master storyteller, D'Amato weaves together Mayan history, modern science, game theory and the coming Mayan apocalypse to deliver a gripping read. Beware December 21, 2012!"--(Douglas Preston, author of The Codex and The Monster of Florence)

Raymond Khoury
"A remarkable, unique, stand-out book. Prodigious in its scope, its originality, its ambition, its intelligence, and the mastery of its research. In a word: awesome. Or brilliant. Make that two words: awesome and brilliant."--(Raymond Khoury, author of The Last Templar and The Sanctuary)

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