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In the Courts of the Sun

by Brian Damato

In the Courts of the Sun Cover

ISBN13: 9780525950516
ISBN10: 0525950516
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

A mind-bending, time-bending, zeitgeist-defining novel about the days leading up to December 21, 2012—the day the Maya predicted the world would end

December 21, 2012. The day time stops. Jed DeLanda, a descendant of the Maya living in the year 2012, is a math prodigy who spends his time playing Go against his computer and raking in profits from online trading. (His secret weapon? A Mayan divination game—once used for predicting corn-harvest cycles, now proving very useful in predicting corn futures—that his mother taught him.) But Je‛s life is thrown into chaos when his former mentor, the game theorist Taro, and a mysterious woman named Marena Park, invite him to give his opinion on a newly discovered Mayan codex.

Marena and Taro are looking for a volunteer to travel back to 664 AD to learn more about a“sacrifice gam” described in the codex. Jed leaps at the chance, and soon scientists are replicating his brain waves and sending them through a wormhole, straight into the mind of a Mayan kingÂ…

Only something goes wrong. Instead of becoming a king, Jed arrives inside a ballplayer named Chacal who is seconds away from throwing himself down the temple steps as a human sacrifice. If Jed can live through the next few minutes, he might just save the world.

Bringing to mind Neal Stephenso‛s Cryptonomicon and Gary Jenning‛s Aztec, yet entirely unique, In the Courts of the Sun takes you from the distant past to the near future in a brilliant kaleidoscope of ideas.

Review:

"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.)." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

About the Author

Brian ‛Amato is an artist whose sculptures and installations have been shown in galleries and museums all over the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1992, he co-organized a show at the Jack Tilton Gallery in New York that was the first gallery show to explore the then-new medium of“virtual reality” His first novel, 199‛s Beauty, was a bestseller; Dean Koontz called it“the best first novel I have read in a decade”

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

dafoster, April 12, 2009 (view all comments by dafoster)
Half historical novel (set in the Maya Classic Period) and half near-future thriller, 'In the Courts of the Sun' ties the two together with an ancient divination game that may provide the clue to what will happen on December 21, 2012 (and how to prevent it). I'm looking forward to the next installment.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780525950516
Author:
Damato, Brian
Publisher:
Dutton Adult
Author:
D'Amato, Brian
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Children's 12-Up - Fiction - General
Subject:
Science fiction
Subject:
Time travel
Copyright:
Publication Date:
20090326
Binding:
Hardback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
704
Dimensions:
9.52x6.20x2.08 in. 2.18 lbs.

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In the Courts of the Sun Used Hardcover
0 stars - 0 reviews
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Product details 704 pages Dutton Books - English 9780525950516 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "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.)." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
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