Moufflets - All that's right, mostly wrong, and funny about the world.: Whitley Strieber

I have decided to include book reviews on my blog, so now you have something practical to look forward to amongst my random and inflammatory posts. Of course, the books I read are not necessarily practical books themselves.

Today's special:

2012: the War for Souls
Written by Whitley Strieber
Genre: Science Fiction
Published by Tor Books
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1896-1

The Mayans predicted that on December 21, 2012, the world would end, or least the human part of it. Well, in this book, fourteen sacred sites around the world (such as the Great Pyramids and Easter Island among them), are blown up and replaced by black lens. These black lens emit mysterious orange balls of light which go about zapping people's souls out of them. Then devil babies collect the souls to sell to themselves and stuff. There's a parallel universe in which a guy named Wylie Dale is writing a book called 2012 which is about what happens in the book and no matter what he does he cannot erase 2012. Anyways, in the other parallel universe, which has two small moons and is where all the chaos is taking place, whatever Wylie Dale rights happens. Then there's all this mumble jumble about looking into your soul and such and the good guys win in the end.

Rating: 7 / 10

This book is really quite confusing. It flips between two parallel universes, and which one the story really takes place in is quite hard to understand. That's mostly all of the bad, but it counts for a lot. There's nice weaving in of mythical figures, and the story gets really fast paced and exciting towards the end, especially since you get used to the flip flopping between universes by then. The story also dips into the subtleties of human consciousness and soul-science, which is rather unique.
I would recommend this book only if you're willing to withstand the rigors of its twisting plot, but wish to get rewarded later on. But if you're looking for something about the end of the world, I would recommend Domain by Steve Alten. Same great integration of ancient and magical creatures, but with none of the confusion. Steve Alten's sequel is also recommended, as it goes into the paradox of time loops.