End of days

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Title:

End of days

Author:

Alten, Steve.

ISBN:

9781935142164

Publication Information:

[Cabot, Ark.] : Variance Pub., 2010.

Physical Description:

487 p., 5 p. ; 24 cm.

Series:

Grim Reaper.

General Note:

Excerpt from Phobos : Mayan Fear in back of book.

Subject Term:

Plague -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction.

End of the world -- Fiction.

Grim Reaper (Symbolic character) -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Manhattan (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction.

Genre:

Science fiction.

Summary:

Patrick "Shep" Shepherd was a promising major league baseball pitcher before September 11th, 2001. Shaken by the terrorist attacks, Shep left behind his wife and newborn daughter to enlist in the Armed Forces. Eleven years later, Shep finds himself in Manhattan's VA hospital. His left arm is gone, his wife and daughter are gone, and his tarnished soul is haunted by the nightmares of war. Mary Klipot, a scientist working at a biohazard level-4 lab in Fort Detrick, enters Manhattan with Scythe, a swift-acting version of the Black Death. Believing she was chosen to bring forth the End of Days she infects herself, unleashing a pandemic. Shep is the only one with the vaccine which he is determined to use to save his wife and child.

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	FICTION ALT	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Patrick Shep Shepherd was a promising major league rookie baseball pitcher when September 11th, 2001, hit. Shaken by the attacks, Shep left behind his soul mate and newborn daughter to enlist in the Armed Forces. Eleven years and four deployments later, Shep finds himself in Manhattan's VA hospital. His left arm is gone, his wife and daughter are gone, and he is haunted by the nightmares of war. December 21st.: While world leaders meet at the U.N., Mary Klipot, a bio-hazard level-4 scientist working at---the CIA labs in Fort Detrick, enters the Big Apple with Scythe, a swift-acting version of the Black Death designed to wipe out Americas enemies abroad. Believing she is carrying out God's wishes, Mary infects herself, then unleashes Scythe upon Manhattan. The threat of a worldwide pandemic forces officials to seal off the island . . . the president among those trapped. Determined to rescue his wife and child, Shep follows his guide, Virgil Shechinah, through the plague-infected neighborhoods of Manhattan, revisiting the Nine Circles of Hell as portrayed in Dante's Inferno. And the Grim Reaper, loosed upon the land by a humanity who has once again tipped the scales in favor of evil over good, is stalking Patrick Shepherd.

Author Notes

Steve Alten is the writer of such thrillers as Meg, Fathom, and The Trench. While critics often find fault with his works, the books continue to be popular. Disney Productions optioned Meg, which has been described as "Jaws meets Jurassic Park" or "Jurassic Shark."

He was born in Philadelphia. As a young man he planned to become a sports coach and earned his PhD. In sports administration.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

At the start of Alten's new apocalyptic series, a plan to infect the Iranian delegation at the UN with a weaponized bubonic plague called Scythe goes awry, unleashing the plague on Manhattan. Manhattanite Patrick Shepherd, a crippled vet, is quickly tapped by the Secretary of Defense as the new poster boy for the military. Though reluctant at first, he discovers that a Scythe vaccine exists; with his estranged wife and daughter trapped in Manhattan, he begins a desperate journey through the dying metropolis to save them, along the way picking up the reluctant hero's requisite companions and going through the expected spiritual awakening by having to confront disturbing truths about reality, divinity, and the human race's capacity to self-destruct. Veteran Alten takes on a modern-day retelling of Dante's Inferno through the lens of a frighteningly all-too-possible biological attack on a densely populated American city. But terrifying plausibility is quickly muddled by ham-fisted allusions to Inferno, extreme leftwing conspiracy theories, vague spirituality, and enough blood to flood the Hudson. By the implausible end, readers will wonder how they went from genuinely scared to amusingly confused. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Alten has taken Dante Alighieri's Divinia Comedia, the Black Death, extrapolations of contemporary biochemical warfare, the Kabbalah, and various unsavory political trends and turned them into an epic. Mary Klipot, a microbiologist, develops Scythe, a variant of the Black Plague. God then commands her to release it in Manhattan, to bring about the End of Days. The government seals Manhattan, trapping three million people, including the U.S. president. Patrick Shepherd was a promising baseball player before September 11, 2001. He joined the armed forces, leaving his wife and newborn daughter. As the story opens he is in a VA hospital, minus his left arm, his family, and much of his sanity. Having discovered Klipot's plan, Patrick is determined to use the vaccine against Scythe to rescue his family. He and his therapist trek the plague-stricken neighborhoods of Manhattan, analogs to the nine circles of the Inferno. But human greed, corruption, and violence have brought about the End of Days. Alten shows his craft in story construction, but like most variations on the classics , this frequently seems contrived.--Murray, Frieda Copyright 2010 Booklist

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Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

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