Grim Reaper: End of Days

Grim Reaper is a modern-day Dante’s Inferno, one of the greatest and most revered works of world literature, which describes Dante’s journey through Hell, depicted as nine circles of suffering. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. Amazingly, there are some bizarre parallels to our present-day “evils of society” and the time period in which Dante composed Inferno. Seven centuries ago, Europe was suffering through war, famine, the corruption of the Church, and the evils of the pogrom – murderous acts that brutally massacred tens of thousands of Jews. Shortly after Dante’s passing, the Black Plague would strike Europe and Asia – a near “End of Days” event that killed off half the world’s population while giving birth to a new legend depicted in paintings and dance: The Grim Reaper. The hero in GRIM REAPER: End of Days is Patrick Shepherd, an Iraqi war vet and tainted soul who returns home to find his wife and child gone and his country mired in economic collapse, two endless wars – and a very real covert biological program which could lead to global pandemic and our own self-destruction.

From Publishers Weekly

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. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

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. --Frieda Murray

From the Inside Flap

From Revelations to the Mayan Calendar s 2012 prophecy, all major religions warn of a darkness to come. . . a supernal event that will be the modern-day equivalent of Noah s Flood. In the 13th century, Europe suffered through war, famine, and the evils of the pogrom acts of hatred that massacred tens of thousands of Jews. In 1346, at the height of corruption, the Black Plague struck the Eurasian continent, wiping out half the world's population while spawning a new legend: The Grim Reaper. In GRIM REAPER: End of Days, international best-selling author Steve Alten takes us on a classic hero s journey of good versus evil, transformation and redemption. Far more than it seems, the story draws frightening parallels between the lack of morality that corrupted 13th century Europe and the greed that has mired our own society in economic collapse, two endless wars -- and a very real covert biological program, exposed by the author, which could lead to a global pandemic and our own prophesied self-destruction in 2012. . .666 years after the Black Death struck Europe!

From the Back Cover

Grim Reaper is a modern-day Dante s Inferno, one of the greatest and most revered works of world literature, which describes Dante s journey through Hell, depicted as nine circles of suffering. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. Amazingly, there are some bizarre parallels to our present-day evils of society and the time period in which Dante composed Inferno. Seven centuries ago, Europe was suffering through war, famine, the corruption of the Church, and the evils of the pogrom murderous acts that brutally massacred tens of thousands of Jews. Shortly after Dante s passing, the Black Plague would strike Europe and Asia a near End of Days event that killed off half the world s population while giving birth to a new legend depicted in paintings and dance: The Grim Reaper. The hero in GRIM REAPER: End of Days is Patrick Shepherd, an Iraqi war vet and tainted soul who returns home to find his wife and child gone and his country mired in economic collapse, two endless wars and a very real covert biological program which could lead to global pandemic and our own self-destruction.

About the Author

New York Times and International best selling author, Steve Alten is the creator of the Meg series, Domain (2012 series), The Loch, Goliath, and The Shell Game. He holds degrees from Penn State University, The University of Deleware and Temple University. Alten is founder and director of Adopt an Author, a nationwide non-profit program for teens that has over 10,000 registered teachers. Grim Reaper End of Days is his tenth novel.

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