2012: The War for Souls » (First Edition)

WHITLEY STRIEBER is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including the legendary Warday, Nature's End, and The Coming Global Superstorm, the basis of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. His most recent books, The Grays and 2012: The War for Souls, are both being made into films. His website, Unknown Country, is the largest of its kind in the world, exploring the edge of science and reality.

December 21, 2012, may be one of the most watched dates in history. Every 26,000 years, Earth lines up with the exact center of our galaxy. At 11:11 on December 21, 2012, this event happens again, and the ancient Maya calculated that it would mark the end, not only of this age, but of human consciousness as we know it.

But what will actually happen? The end of the world? A new age for mankind? Nothing? The last time this happened, Cro-Magnon man suddenly began creating great art in the caves of southern France, which to this day remains one of the most inexplicable changes in human history.

Now Whitley Strieber explores 2012 in a towering work of fiction that will astound readers with its truly new insights and a riveting roller-coaster ride of a story. A mysterious alien presence unexpectedly bursts out of sacred sites all over the world and begins to rip human souls from their bodies, plunging the world into chaos it has never before known.

Courage meets cowardice, loyalty meets betrayal as an entire world struggles to survive this incredible end-all war. Heroes emerge, villains reveal themselves, and in the end something completely new and unexpected happens that at once lifts the fictional characters into a new life, and sounds a haunting real-world warning for the future.

Publishers Weekly

Strieber's epic sequel to 2006's The Graysblends 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 Standand Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammerwill 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.)