Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #404169 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-18
• Released on: 2007-09-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Strieber's epic sequel to 2006's The Grays blends equal parts science fiction thriller, supernatural horror and provocative spiritual speculation. As struggling author Wylie Dale works on his latest novel, which revolves around an upcoming date when the earth crosses both the galactic equator and the solar ecliptic—a time that the Maya predicted would mark the cataclysmic end of this age—he begins to uncover evidence that what he's writing about is actually happening on a parallel earth. If nothing is done, on December 21, 2012, gateways will open into this world and reptilian invaders will not only enslave humanity but feast on their succulent souls as well. While Strieber's exploration into the existence and import of the soul isn't exactly profound, it is wildly entertaining. Fans of apocalyptic page-turners like King's The Stand and Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer will enjoy this ambitious—and audacious—tale as it invokes everything from rectal probes and Ann Coulter to the destruction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Archaeologist Martin Winters gets out of the collapsing Great Pyramid of Khufu just in time to see a gigantic lens arise from the rubble. Simultaneously at equally ancient monument sites all over the world, other lenses emerge. What's happening is a kind of alien invasion, but the aliens, whose advance agents have been subverting human society for some time, aren't really another species. They're their world's degenerates, whose earlier incursions into human history inspired the way the evil beings of religious mythology have been represented. In short, they're demons, fortunately killable but possessed of awesome power by the standards of Martin's world, which is one of three parallel Earths. The others are the invaders' and ours, in which buff sf writer Wiley Dale is compulsively and automatically writing Martin's story, which is more transmission than story. Eventually the demonic aliens pop up in Wiley's as well as Martin's Kansas homeland. Each Earth has advantages over the others; one of those, in both Martin's and the aliens' worlds, is that the physical existence of the soul has been discovered. The implications of that discovery drive the action of Strieber's hyperactive cosmological thriller. Despite Wiley and his cop buddy's excruciating hardy-har-he-man palaver and the exposition turning to cardboard whenever love is mentioned, it's immensely entertaining, and it's optioned for a big, splashy, FX-laden movie. Oh boy! Olson, Ray

Review

Customer Reviews

The War for Souls delivers on its promise.
The Mayan calendar places the end of the current age, and perhaps of the world, on 21 December 2012, the Winter Solstice, when we supposedly align with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Whitley Strieber's novel 2012 The War for Souls portrays this date as a sort of cosmic Samhain, when the veils that normally separate parallel universes and parallel worlds become thin and permeable, and the people and circumstances of one world can enter another.

2012 posits three parallel earths (although there may be others): one that is our own, one that is very much like it but somewhat fairer, and one that is very foul indeed. As 21 December approaches, the gentler earth is rocked by catastrophic events that had their origin thousands of years before, the last time the worlds came together. One man in this world has the key to unlocking the secret that may save it from the ravening hunger of the dark earth, and his fate is tied to his counterpart in our world. The prize sought is nothing less than the soul of every person on earth--and that of the world itself.

The novel draws from the deep wells of mythology that surround the ancient Maya, Atlantis, Egypt, and the sacred sites that have existed since the end of the last Ice Age, as well as the fields of quantum physics, psychology, and theology. Can souls be eaten like junk food? Is there a science of the soul? And if so, does anyone--or did anyone--know it?

Strieber takes the reader through fascination, through terror, to despair, and finally dangles hope. It seems that that Devil is real, and he is us; that every wicked and anti-human twist that has shaped our history is the work of a reptilian humanity that is us but is not us, yet penetrates our culture at every level.

Yet nothing is quite as it seems. Not even Ann Coulter, and she shows up too.

This book is worth a read and a re-read. It is disturbing, and provoking, and fun.

A chilling ride into human potential
Picking up this book for a forthcoming vacation, I was expecting a fun, light read. What I received inside the covers was insightful glimpse into the potential that everyone holds within. I typically take weeks to finish a book. With 2012 I literally could not put this down and completed it in two and half days. The manner in which Mr. Strieber weaves the entangled characters with their increasing realization of each person's importance, takes hold and does not let go. I read late into the night as sleep could not compete with my desire to learn more about the characters. Above all the book was a thought provoking rush of a experience. Highly recommended.

The Alien Apocalypse
I've never been drawn to Whitley Strieber's work, but I forced myself to finish this one because I'm very interested in the whole 2012/Mayan calendar phenomenon. I have to say that, taken strictly as a work of fiction, I did not enjoy reading most of this book. The style of nonstop action, similar to many Stephen King and Dean Koonz novels, seems like the script for a typical B movie (which, no doubt, it soon will be). There is so much action, chase scenes and horror that I felt worn out, and rather jaded by the first 50 or so pages. You can only have so many "the most incredible/horrible/unbelievable thing he ever saw" before a sense of hyperbole sets in. For suspense to be effective, you need some build up, not simply constant mayhem. And speaking of the writing style, there's a very sloppy error -one of the main characters' names is alternately spelled "Wiley" and "Wylie." This does not occur only once or twice, but many times. I suppose we're meant to equate this character, who is a writer, with "Whitley" (which is a bit pretentious considering his savior role in the book), but he could at least have chosen one spelling. Another apect of the book that I found annoying was much of the dialog. Most of the novel takes place in Kansas, and Wylie and others often lapse into a drawl that seems more like a sitcom version of Midwestern characters than the way people actually talk.

The metaphysics behind 2012: The War for Souls is similar to the theories of Zacharia Sitchin and David Icke. A race of malevolent reptilian aliens from another dimension is bent on conquering the earth. These beings lack human qualities such as love and compassion, so, in addition to stealing the earth for its land, they also want human souls. The whole idea that the soul can be stolen by technology is a bit bizarre. What makes it really strange is that Strieber also sneaks in Christian beliefs about God into the novel. I say "sneaks" because all of the main characters start out as atheists or agnostics, but as the plot moves along, they start to pray more and more. Also, the book is full of Bible quotes. Yet the notion that souls can be stolen using a higher technology seems to me to be a materialistic idea. As I see it, the whole point of the soul, if you believe in it, is that it is something beyond the material world and indestructible. Of course, this is a work of science fiction, sort of, but I suspect Strieber really believes most of what he is writing here. As a plot device, I don't think it's a bad one. It is possible, after all, that beings such as the reptilians might, in desperation, try to steal souls.

The other major idea of the book is that of multiple or parallel universes. In the novel, there are two earths with different, though similar, histories. One of these earths has two moons; in this one, the alien invaders have taken over most of the planet by December of 2012, close to the time when the "gateway" between worlds will open (December 21, 2012, the date the Mayan calendar supposedly ends). Wiley (or Wylie's) challenge, as a resident of the other earth (our earth, the one with only one moon), is to figure out a way to stop the aliens from entering his world. I like the concept of multiple worlds. It's somehow more credible than the idea that aliens arrive by traveling through space, which would mean many hundreds of light years. Interdimensional travel, by contrast, only requires a gateway. The belief that such gateways exist in sacred spots around the world is pretty standard for believers in alternative archeology, UFOs, etc.

In summary, the basic ideas of 2012: The War for Souls are interesting but I found the execution less than satisfactory. I also did not particularly like the overall style of the book. Despite the complex metaphysics contained in his novel, Strieber is one of those people with a basically dualistic outlook -that is, he believes very strongly in the reality of evil. That is probably why, despite its supposedly hopeful message, it is mostly a very dark book, with many drawn out descriptions of torture, destruction, even cannibalism. In the final analysis, I would categorize Strieber as basically a religious fundamentalist with a new age slant. The book is, indeed, full of quotes from Revelations. 2012 can be seen, in this light, as one interpretation of Armegeddon/the Apocalypse.