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drako1357's review against another edition
3.0
Apocalipsis maya es el tercer libro de la trilogía El testamento maya, del autor estadounidense Steve Alten. La novela fue publicada en 2011 y continúa la historia de Immanuel Gabriel, el héroe gemelo superviviente descrito en el Popol Vuh, el libro sagrado de los mayas.
La novela comienza con Immanuel Gabriel y su hermana gemela, Sarah, en un viaje a Guatemala para investigar la profecía maya del fin del mundo. Al llegar a un templo maya, Immanuel descubre que es el elegido para salvar a la humanidad.
Immanuel se embarca en un viaje peligroso para detener el apocalipsis. Durante su viaje, se enfrenta a una serie de desafíos, incluyendo a un grupo de mercenarios, una organización secreta y un ejército de criaturas prehistóricas.
Apocalipsis maya es una novela de acción y aventuras que combina elementos de ciencia ficción, historia y mitología.
La novela comienza con Immanuel Gabriel y su hermana gemela, Sarah, en un viaje a Guatemala para investigar la profecía maya del fin del mundo. Al llegar a un templo maya, Immanuel descubre que es el elegido para salvar a la humanidad.
Immanuel se embarca en un viaje peligroso para detener el apocalipsis. Durante su viaje, se enfrenta a una serie de desafíos, incluyendo a un grupo de mercenarios, una organización secreta y un ejército de criaturas prehistóricas.
Apocalipsis maya es una novela de acción y aventuras que combina elementos de ciencia ficción, historia y mitología.
adamantium's review against another edition
1.0
Completely fucking stupid.
I can't think of an instance in which an author worked so hard (LOOK at all my RESEARCH) to undo everything the series has done so far, completely changing the already-convoluted timeline, mythology, etc. because the author got distracted by a shiny new interest (Large Hadron Collider scaremongering and Baby's First Kabbalah, in this case).
The cardinal sin is that, since the last book wrapped up pretty much all storyline issues, resolved the Mayan mystery, future, etc., all the stuff we're dealing with here is completely boring. If you're going to have a stupid mythology, commit to it.
Lots of skimming here to get to the "good" stuff. Lots of backstory on stuff no one was curious about, tertiary characters, scenes we've already seen in their entirety, etc.
Completely. Stupid.
I can't think of an instance in which an author worked so hard (LOOK at all my RESEARCH) to undo everything the series has done so far, completely changing the already-convoluted timeline, mythology, etc. because the author got distracted by a shiny new interest (Large Hadron Collider scaremongering and Baby's First Kabbalah, in this case).
The cardinal sin is that, since the last book wrapped up pretty much all storyline issues, resolved the Mayan mystery, future, etc., all the stuff we're dealing with here is completely boring. If you're going to have a stupid mythology, commit to it.
Lots of skimming here to get to the "good" stuff. Lots of backstory on stuff no one was curious about, tertiary characters, scenes we've already seen in their entirety, etc.
Completely. Stupid.
bherrera's review against another edition
3.0
It was ok. It had gotten boring around the middle but picked up towards the end. The actual end was a slight disappointment though. I still think the first book in the series was the best.
buildhergender's review against another edition
1.0
I sometimes wonder if we deserve sentience. Why? Because we let people publish books like this and then people like me read them.
In the first book the world was saved. In the second book the timeline was saved, I think? This book we find out why people abandoned Earth in the future sequences of the last book.
Characters
Immanuel: He is now Dr. Strange mixed with Batman. After his girlfriend dies in his arms he spends the next years training to become a new "The One" He gets to meet his own dad when his dad was a kid. And you thought you had father issues.
Lilith: She is head of the evacuation of Earth. Last book we were told all about how sexual and beautiful she was and how sex was her weapon and her abuse. More of the same.
Devlin: Daughter of Lilith and Jacob. He is supposed to be the devil, or thinks he's the devil or represents the devil in humanity. I am not sure because by the time the book is over we are told that there is no devil, that there is a devil, and that the devil is us and no real answer given.
After his girlfriend dies Immanuel goes off to train and take his super powers seriously. Wandering the globe he learns from ancient masters and improves himself. Along for the ride is Salt and Pepper.
During one of this spiritual trips he finds out that he is the reincarnated embodiment of Chilam Balaam and ancient Mayan High priest. He was leader of a group of Mayans and was betrayed by another Mayan and thrown into a well with his followers. But instead of dying they fell into a wormhole and ended up on Earth far in the future where no humanity is left. He and his followers build up a mighty civilization which eventually culminated in a floating city, the one that we see in the second book. But Balaam never sees this as he is killed by another Mayan named Seven Macaw.
Yes we now have a reincarnation of an ancient Mayan who lived in the past, died in the far future but then was re-incarnated in the books present. (This is the least complicated part of the book.)
The book firmly establishes that all of the events that have happened were because of time traveling humans. There are no aliens, just very superior advanced humans. All settled.
Next the book introduces aliens. Apparently besides all the time traveling there have been alien visitors to the Earth and some of them are captured and being held by a secret organization.
Immanuel in 2047 is finally caught by the police and is taken to Lilith. We find that she is not the bad guy she was in the last book. Her fight in the future and the subsequent cleansing by Jacob has retroactively made her good. What about the bad acts she did before now were they good? Did she not do the dirty with Jacob and conceive a Devil kid? Nope apparently all that happened. So her time traveling cleaning I guess ran out of power.
She reveals that she has been building a Mars base, where by the way they have found a buried ocean cruise liner from the year 2047, don't' ask it won't come up again but it's a setup for an as of unyet written sequel. The reason why is that she somehow knows from her future self that there is going to be an explosion of the Yellowstone caldera and this is going to make Earth uninhabitable for quite some time.
Her son Devlin has turned bad and they need to kill him before he somehow still sets up the bad stuff that happened in the last book. Oh and they need to then take a shuttle and travel to the past to stop the creation of a black hole in 2012. Black hole, did I forget to mention that. Besides the space whale that was going to kill the world in 2012, besides the nuclear war that was going to destroy the world in 2012, besides the massive eruption in the near future of 2047 that will destroy humanity apparently the world is also screwed because stupid scientists used a particle accelerator back in 2012 which created a baby black hole that lives in the force dimension that Lilith and Jacob use for their special powers.
Lilith discovers that she is the reincarnated wife of Balaam, so important is her role in the past that she is given the name 1st wife. She and Jacob with their super hormones have sex. Then while hunting for Devlin the world quickly goes to hell. Yellowstone erupts and ash is filling up the atmosphere. The US government sends the important people to Mount Weather to survive.
I stopped reading at this point and re-read part of the first book. I researched on the internet but have not found this mentioned. But apparently Steve Alten forgot he destroyed Mount Weather in 2012 with a suitcase bomb because it is now in this book to destroy. (Yes this is the same timeline and yes, no reason is given for it being back)
Running out of time Lilith and Jacob go to Houston and take the last space shuttle into space. Not knowing that Devlin is hiding in the back. They go into space they watch the world first get covered in ash then get eaten by a black hole. Lilith goes into the back of the ship to make a sandwich or something and ends up coming back only as a disembodied head. Jacob fights and kills Devlin, whom we find out is a reincarnation of Seven Macaw, but the space ship enters the wormhole wrong and instead of landing in 2012 like expected it instead lands in 1990 Peru.
Immanuel is found in the middle of a Nazca line drawing with no memory of anything by Gabriel and Michael....you know what I am just going to walk away now....
Stomp stomp stomp (WHATTHETHJIODGBJKNWEOIRJFAJFHJO:JRPOANJOIJH)
Okay back
We now find that Borgia is still alive, of course, and after not getting the girl he went into government service and started working on interrogating aliens. Why the aliens are in this book I don't know. They serve no purpose and just make everything even more confusing. After finding out that some of the aliens know about ancient Mayan culture he has Julian, brought in.
Meanwhile Immanuel has fallen in love with Michael's aunt. Eventually it's discovered that she is the reincarnation of Balaam's wife and the Pre-reincarnation of Lilith.
Borgia starts to talk to mirrors and it is revealed that he is talking to his Seven Macaw and that he is a reincarnation of Seven Macaw. (The world apparently only consists of 12 people and everyone knows each other.) Macaw warns Borgia that it would be in his best interest to make sure Mick is not around when he betrays Julian.
Gabriel finds a girlfriend. His father tells him to dump her. He doesn't and he runs away to marry her.
Julian works with Borgia but finally has enough. He sets up the archaeological conference that he died at in the first book. Borgia sets him up again and again Julian has a heart attack. When Immanuel tries to give him his heart medicine he soon discovers that they are Tik-Tak's and were replaced by Borgia.
Immanuel attacks Borgia blinding him and is sent to the insane asylum that Mick originally was sentenced to. Mick gets a call on his wedding night that his father is dead. His new wife turns to him and says, "It was nice knowing you. The priest was fake." She had been hired by Borgia to distract Mick.
Mick picks up his father's calling. A few years pass and it's 2012. Dominique is assigned to be Immanuel's psychiatrist. She is confronted by Mick who tells her that Immanuel was set up and is totally sane, he isn't. She doesn't believe him until she is taken to Peru and meets a witch who turns out to be her mother. Her mother says she is one of the super power descendants of the old white dudes and she can see the future. She sent Dominique away as a kid so that she would one day cross paths with Mick and that she should listen to him.
Immanuel escapes, Mick and Issac fall in love have sex and become super saiyans. For some reason the dragon does not rise this go around but instead the worm hole that was supposed to appear in 2047 appears now. No explanation is given as to why it was 35 years early. It is about to destroy the earth when the original Dominique and Mick fly the moon Phobos into the mouth of the black hole and destroy it. Immanuel is trapped in the force inside the ship Balaam because the super saiyan sex that Mick and Dominique had got her pregnant and one of the kids inside her is Immanuel and two souls or something or another can not be on the same dimension at the same time.
The book closes with a scene on ancient Mars. A cruise ship sucked up by the black hole at the beginning of the book is on Mars. The passengers are quickly introduced to some relative of the Gabrel's. He apparently saved the ship when the black hole took it. He tells them he will explain more later but first they need to repel the invaders. Over the railing of the ship Lizard Aliens start to attack.
The book promises a sequel, which has thankfully not happened.
This series started off with aliens and ancient prophecies and ended up with a warning from the author that the Large Hadron Collider or some other particle accelerator was going to kill us. He hoped that we all survive the year 2012.
I really really wish I was someone who drank.
In the first book the world was saved. In the second book the timeline was saved, I think? This book we find out why people abandoned Earth in the future sequences of the last book.
Characters
Immanuel: He is now Dr. Strange mixed with Batman. After his girlfriend dies in his arms he spends the next years training to become a new "The One" He gets to meet his own dad when his dad was a kid. And you thought you had father issues.
Lilith: She is head of the evacuation of Earth. Last book we were told all about how sexual and beautiful she was and how sex was her weapon and her abuse. More of the same.
Devlin: Daughter of Lilith and Jacob. He is supposed to be the devil, or thinks he's the devil or represents the devil in humanity. I am not sure because by the time the book is over we are told that there is no devil, that there is a devil, and that the devil is us and no real answer given.
After his girlfriend dies Immanuel goes off to train and take his super powers seriously. Wandering the globe he learns from ancient masters and improves himself. Along for the ride is Salt and Pepper.
During one of this spiritual trips he finds out that he is the reincarnated embodiment of Chilam Balaam and ancient Mayan High priest. He was leader of a group of Mayans and was betrayed by another Mayan and thrown into a well with his followers. But instead of dying they fell into a wormhole and ended up on Earth far in the future where no humanity is left. He and his followers build up a mighty civilization which eventually culminated in a floating city, the one that we see in the second book. But Balaam never sees this as he is killed by another Mayan named Seven Macaw.
Yes we now have a reincarnation of an ancient Mayan who lived in the past, died in the far future but then was re-incarnated in the books present. (This is the least complicated part of the book.)
The book firmly establishes that all of the events that have happened were because of time traveling humans. There are no aliens, just very superior advanced humans. All settled.
Next the book introduces aliens. Apparently besides all the time traveling there have been alien visitors to the Earth and some of them are captured and being held by a secret organization.
Immanuel in 2047 is finally caught by the police and is taken to Lilith. We find that she is not the bad guy she was in the last book. Her fight in the future and the subsequent cleansing by Jacob has retroactively made her good. What about the bad acts she did before now were they good? Did she not do the dirty with Jacob and conceive a Devil kid? Nope apparently all that happened. So her time traveling cleaning I guess ran out of power.
She reveals that she has been building a Mars base, where by the way they have found a buried ocean cruise liner from the year 2047, don't' ask it won't come up again but it's a setup for an as of unyet written sequel. The reason why is that she somehow knows from her future self that there is going to be an explosion of the Yellowstone caldera and this is going to make Earth uninhabitable for quite some time.
Her son Devlin has turned bad and they need to kill him before he somehow still sets up the bad stuff that happened in the last book. Oh and they need to then take a shuttle and travel to the past to stop the creation of a black hole in 2012. Black hole, did I forget to mention that. Besides the space whale that was going to kill the world in 2012, besides the nuclear war that was going to destroy the world in 2012, besides the massive eruption in the near future of 2047 that will destroy humanity apparently the world is also screwed because stupid scientists used a particle accelerator back in 2012 which created a baby black hole that lives in the force dimension that Lilith and Jacob use for their special powers.
Lilith discovers that she is the reincarnated wife of Balaam, so important is her role in the past that she is given the name 1st wife. She and Jacob with their super hormones have sex. Then while hunting for Devlin the world quickly goes to hell. Yellowstone erupts and ash is filling up the atmosphere. The US government sends the important people to Mount Weather to survive.
I stopped reading at this point and re-read part of the first book. I researched on the internet but have not found this mentioned. But apparently Steve Alten forgot he destroyed Mount Weather in 2012 with a suitcase bomb because it is now in this book to destroy. (Yes this is the same timeline and yes, no reason is given for it being back)
Running out of time Lilith and Jacob go to Houston and take the last space shuttle into space. Not knowing that Devlin is hiding in the back. They go into space they watch the world first get covered in ash then get eaten by a black hole. Lilith goes into the back of the ship to make a sandwich or something and ends up coming back only as a disembodied head. Jacob fights and kills Devlin, whom we find out is a reincarnation of Seven Macaw, but the space ship enters the wormhole wrong and instead of landing in 2012 like expected it instead lands in 1990 Peru.
Immanuel is found in the middle of a Nazca line drawing with no memory of anything by Gabriel and Michael....you know what I am just going to walk away now....
Stomp stomp stomp (WHATTHETHJIODGBJKNWEOIRJFAJFHJO:JRPOANJOIJH)
Okay back
We now find that Borgia is still alive, of course, and after not getting the girl he went into government service and started working on interrogating aliens. Why the aliens are in this book I don't know. They serve no purpose and just make everything even more confusing. After finding out that some of the aliens know about ancient Mayan culture he has Julian, brought in.
Meanwhile Immanuel has fallen in love with Michael's aunt. Eventually it's discovered that she is the reincarnation of Balaam's wife and the Pre-reincarnation of Lilith.
Borgia starts to talk to mirrors and it is revealed that he is talking to his Seven Macaw and that he is a reincarnation of Seven Macaw. (The world apparently only consists of 12 people and everyone knows each other.) Macaw warns Borgia that it would be in his best interest to make sure Mick is not around when he betrays Julian.
Gabriel finds a girlfriend. His father tells him to dump her. He doesn't and he runs away to marry her.
Julian works with Borgia but finally has enough. He sets up the archaeological conference that he died at in the first book. Borgia sets him up again and again Julian has a heart attack. When Immanuel tries to give him his heart medicine he soon discovers that they are Tik-Tak's and were replaced by Borgia.
Immanuel attacks Borgia blinding him and is sent to the insane asylum that Mick originally was sentenced to. Mick gets a call on his wedding night that his father is dead. His new wife turns to him and says, "It was nice knowing you. The priest was fake." She had been hired by Borgia to distract Mick.
Mick picks up his father's calling. A few years pass and it's 2012. Dominique is assigned to be Immanuel's psychiatrist. She is confronted by Mick who tells her that Immanuel was set up and is totally sane, he isn't. She doesn't believe him until she is taken to Peru and meets a witch who turns out to be her mother. Her mother says she is one of the super power descendants of the old white dudes and she can see the future. She sent Dominique away as a kid so that she would one day cross paths with Mick and that she should listen to him.
Immanuel escapes, Mick and Issac fall in love have sex and become super saiyans. For some reason the dragon does not rise this go around but instead the worm hole that was supposed to appear in 2047 appears now. No explanation is given as to why it was 35 years early. It is about to destroy the earth when the original Dominique and Mick fly the moon Phobos into the mouth of the black hole and destroy it. Immanuel is trapped in the force inside the ship Balaam because the super saiyan sex that Mick and Dominique had got her pregnant and one of the kids inside her is Immanuel and two souls or something or another can not be on the same dimension at the same time.
The book closes with a scene on ancient Mars. A cruise ship sucked up by the black hole at the beginning of the book is on Mars. The passengers are quickly introduced to some relative of the Gabrel's. He apparently saved the ship when the black hole took it. He tells them he will explain more later but first they need to repel the invaders. Over the railing of the ship Lizard Aliens start to attack.
The book promises a sequel, which has thankfully not happened.
This series started off with aliens and ancient prophecies and ended up with a warning from the author that the Large Hadron Collider or some other particle accelerator was going to kill us. He hoped that we all survive the year 2012.
I really really wish I was someone who drank.
si0bhan's review against another edition
2.0
The first book in the trilogy was a decent read. The second book in the trilogy was nowhere near as good – to the point where I had to drop my rating right down. The third book was somewhere between the two prior books. It was okay, but only just so. In fact, the two stars I have given it is to sum up the whole series: nothing great but at least I can say I have read it.
With this final book, I felt as though it was a case of taking everything that had been built so far and throwing it straight out of the window. I do not mean this merely in the sense of it is the cliché time altering ending, but in the sense that even characters seemed to be completely different from prior books. It was as though the drastic changes in the characters came about simply so that the story would go in the desired direction. I could have, possibly, lived with such a thing except the reasons given for a lot of the characters made no sense at all. Plus, a lot of these changes, because they were so drastic, seemed to leave characters rather flat. Where had their individuality gone?
Alas, such a thing seemed to be necessary for the whole timeline change to occur. We all saw it coming, just as we have in many movies and books. I have no problem with this device, as it is not the worst one out there, yet it was not executed as well as it could have been. Too many things were thrown at us, certain events not as amusing as they were probably intended to be.
Overall, I was disappointed by this last book. Actually, I was disappointed by the whole series. It had such potential yet it all got lost somewhere down the line. I think the hardest part for me is the ‘to be continued’ ending to this trilogy. I get that it is due to the changes that occurred in history, leaving our mind open to what could possibly come to be, yet a part of me is fearful that another book may come. With the scariest part being that I’m the kind of person who would go ahead and pick up the book despite knowing better.
Basically, if you have started the series it is something you have to finish yet if you haven’t there are better books to spend your time reading.
With this final book, I felt as though it was a case of taking everything that had been built so far and throwing it straight out of the window. I do not mean this merely in the sense of it is the cliché time altering ending, but in the sense that even characters seemed to be completely different from prior books. It was as though the drastic changes in the characters came about simply so that the story would go in the desired direction. I could have, possibly, lived with such a thing except the reasons given for a lot of the characters made no sense at all. Plus, a lot of these changes, because they were so drastic, seemed to leave characters rather flat. Where had their individuality gone?
Alas, such a thing seemed to be necessary for the whole timeline change to occur. We all saw it coming, just as we have in many movies and books. I have no problem with this device, as it is not the worst one out there, yet it was not executed as well as it could have been. Too many things were thrown at us, certain events not as amusing as they were probably intended to be.
Overall, I was disappointed by this last book. Actually, I was disappointed by the whole series. It had such potential yet it all got lost somewhere down the line. I think the hardest part for me is the ‘to be continued’ ending to this trilogy. I get that it is due to the changes that occurred in history, leaving our mind open to what could possibly come to be, yet a part of me is fearful that another book may come. With the scariest part being that I’m the kind of person who would go ahead and pick up the book despite knowing better.
Basically, if you have started the series it is something you have to finish yet if you haven’t there are better books to spend your time reading.
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