Beyond 2012: The Omega Point

The solar system’s entry in 2020 into a supernova’s atmosphere threatens the future of life on Earth in Strieber’s over-the-top sequel to 2012: The War for Souls. On arrival at West Virginia’s Acton Clinic, Dr. David Ford, the clinic’s new chief psychiatrist, learns from the woman who hired him, Aubrey Denman, that the job involves more than being a medical administrator. He must also protect the clinic’s secret mission from its enemies, who include “the members of the Seven Families who control the wealth of this planet.” When Denman dies shortly thereafter in a car bomb explosion, Ford has to fend for himself. Ford’s later researches in the Acton library lead him to conclude that Osiris, Moses, and Jesus, among others, were time travelers from a lost civilization. Ponderous prose (“No doubt Goliath is many things, but one of them must be that violet light—the highest color of alchemical growth and also the color of ultimate death”) does little to help the nonsensical plot. (June)