In the Courts of the Sun - Hardcover

Brian D’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, 1992’s Beauty, was a bestseller; Dean Koontz called it “the best first novel I have read in a decade.”

According to the ancient Maya, December 21, 2012, could be the day the world ends. In this ambitious novel, a modern-day descendant of the Maya, Jed DeLanda, goes back in time to save mankind. Well, he doesn’t go back physically; that’s not possible in D’Amato’s world, but it is possible to send back the consciousness of a person and to place it inside the mind of someone living in the past. The plan was to put Jed’s mind inside the body of a Mayan king in the year 664 CE, but, instead, he winds up inside the head of a man about to be killed by ritual sacrifice. Can Jed keep his host alive long enough to save the world? This is the sort of novel that Robert Silverberg might write (and, in fact, it feels a bit like Silverberg’s classic Up the Line)—a richly detailed, intellectually stimulating adventure through time. Unfortunately, it takes too long for the adventure to begin. While it’s fine to describe the future world in which Jed lives and even to establish his credentials for being chosen as humanity’s savior, we shouldn’t be made to wait 200-odd pages before Jed is flung back into the past. Still, he is an engaging narrator, telling his story in an easy, often humorous style. With the release later this year of the high-profile movie 2012 (also based on the Mayan prophecy), prepare for this title to be in high demand. --David Pitt