Please note this is novel is a direct sequel to The Mayan Resurrection and third in an on-going series. This review may contain potential spoilers for those who have not read books one and two. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Fate comes full circle… It is 2047: fourteen years since Jacob Gabriel descended into the Mayan netherworld, while his twin brother turned from their chosen path, opting to remain behind.   Immanuel Gabriel – still running from the forces that hunt his bloodline – believes his actions proved his role in the Mayan prophecy to be nothing but an ancient myth. Now, though, he will realize his mistake.  As the prophecy begins to repeat itself and mankind once again faces annihilation, Immanuel learns there was only ever one person with the power to end the cycle of destruction: himself. Three successive generations of the Gabriel family have now been involved in the race to save the Earth from itself. This novel finally brings them all together, no mean feat when at least one of them has been dead for decades. The action moves from 2047 back to 1990 and then forward again to the eve of the apocalyptic event the Mayans predicted…

Please note The Mayan Resurrection is the direct sequel to The Mayan Prophecy and the following review will likely contain spoilers for those that have not read the first novel. The prize was our salvation. The price was his soul. After sacrificing himself to preserve the human race, Michael Gabriel is imprisoned in a torturous, purgatory-like dimension in the Mayan netherworld. The Mayan prophecy states that the Hero Twins – Michael’s sons Jacob and Immanuel, born to his wife Dominique the year after his entrapment  – must travel to the Mayan realm in their twentieth year to free and resurrect him. Yet it also carries a warning. Born on the same day as the twins is a dark force that threatens their destiny. This, the Abomination – the female yin to their yang – represents evil in its purest form, and will not yield until they succumb to its temptation. The 21st December 2012, the winter solstice has come and gone and the prophecised apocalypse has been averted by Michael Gabriel. He has saved all of humanity by sacrificing himself. The Mayan Resurrection picks up a few months after the events in the climax of The Mayan Prophecy and follows…

An ancient prophecy. An evil older than mankind. It is the beginning of the end. I was about three or four pages into The Mayan Prophecy by Steve Alten when I had a niggling suspicion that everything seemed awfully familiar. After bit of hunting around at the front of the book I discovered that the novel was originally published under the title Domain back in 2001. Though I had read it before, I decided to re-read and refresh my opinion of the novel. The Mayan calendar runs out on the 21st December 2012. Some have predicted that this heralds the end of mankind. The novel uses this premise as the basis for a thriller/science fiction adventure. In a Miami mental asylum inmate Michael ‘Mick’ Gabriel has spent the last eleven years incarcerated in solitary confinement for attacking a politician. He forms a relationship with the new psychiatric intern, Dominique Vazquez, who is assigned to care for him. As she gets to know him, she learns about his unconventional upbringing in South America. Mick was raised by his archaeologist father, Julius, amongst the ancient ruins of the Mayan culture. Julius, having spent decades researching the Mayan’s lost history, firmly believed that…

To round off Zombie Appreciation Month I’ve decided to read Handling The Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Set in Stockholm, during the midst of a heatwave, strange things are starting to occur. Electrical appliances won’t switch off and everyone is suffering from unexplained headaches. Over the course of a single night, every person that has died in the previous two months is reanimated, including those that have been buried. The ever pragmatic authorities move from one disastrous idea to another when trying to find a solution to the problem. The dead are all collected and taken to a hospital but the staff are unable to cope with the demands of caring for the deceased.  It seems that when brought together in groups, the ‘reliving’ are able to channel the emotions of the living. They also cause spontaneous telepathy amongst the living. These mental stresses prove too difficult for the doctors and nurses to manage.  Unsure sure of how to proceed, the government try to relocate the reliving to disused housing and secure them behind an electric fence. There is a certain degree of ambiguity regarding the cause of reanimation. I liked this as it gave the author an opportunity to let his…