If popular reviews are anything to go by, chances are you either love or hate Steve Alten's Domain. No matter your propensities in this case, this is not the writers usual fare.
It is easy to see why some readers feel Steve Alten buries them under a mountain of information. This does, at times, feel like an encyclopedic "who is who" of ancient monuments and mysteries. Be that as it may, when all is said and done (assuming you have finished reading the book), whether you like it or not, you will have learned plenty about the history of the Mayas, have plenty of astronomical specialist knowledge, and have had explained in detail, by a madhouse inmate and main character of the plot, how this all supposedly networks with a long foretold end of the world scenario. Premises less than promising? Well, again that will depend on the reader.
The choice of characters and focus on former, the gravity and earnestness (yes, despite the apocalyptic conspiracy) and the proportionally large amount of both, detailed information and narrative without actual dialogue or action, might appear unexciting to some. Admittedly, Steve Alten's Domain does strike me a bit old school. But, that is exactly why I belong to the readers who review Domain positively.
In an age where enormous pains are taken - by authors and 'readers' alike with the introduction of seemingly ever more numerous hosts of quasi main characters that are to cover different races, sexual orientations and age-groups, which in then in turn necessitate dilution and muddling of the literary essence even more in a vain attempt to introduce an equal number of plots strands that consequently must degrade into mere filaments in the desperate attempt to supply sufficient word count for each character, in such an age if you are anything like me old school increasingly becomes "good school". The "squeezing" in of such characters, and the premises they come can quickly get alienated by the plot and vice versa.
One does understand the fear of an author to be branded conservative or worse, one equally understands the commercial reasons behind such questionable literary compromises; after all the more target groups one addresses the higher the chance of a book sale), yet I humbly dare say such sought after conformity taints a substantial percentage of the output of otherwise talented writers.
Therefore, I congratulate Steve Alten, a writer of fiction who has the guts to dare to inform and entertain us as at the same time and all that with a limited host of characters he directs his full focus upon. And if such has become "Old school" then we should like it even more. ( )

So this was actually about 60% entertaining-stupid. I started skimming all the politics ("politics") sections less than halfway through and the outcome was the same. Definitely should have stuck to the Mayan-prophecy-alien storyline.

The main character's name is Michael Gabriel. His mother is Maria. He was born on Christmas.

The villain that is not a space devil is named Pierre Borgia.

That's how subtle we're playing this.

21 de diciembre de 2012... El día en que termina el calendario Maya... A lo largo de los siglos, los científicos han creído que este dato era simplemente una curiosidad histórica. Después de muchos años de investigaciones, el conocido arqueólogo Julius Gabriel descubre la verdad acerca del calendario Maya, una verdad tan antigua como poderosa que podría revelar el funesto destino de la humanidad. La investigación de Julius completó un antiguo rompecabezas cuyas piezas estaban diseminadas por todo el planeta, desde Stonehenge a las inmemoriales ruinas mayas. Los secretos sobre los orígenes de la civilización y el destino último de la humanidad estaban al alcance de Julius, esperando sólo a que fueran revelados cuando ocurre lo inesperado... Durante más de una década, Mick ha permanecido abandonado en el psiquiátrico, víctima de una compleja trama de conspiraciones. Todos se ríen de sus amenazas apocalípticas, hasta que un día, alguien cae en la cuenta de que Mick no está loco. Dominique Vázquez, una joven becaria que está a punto de licenciarse, encuentra las notas de Julius y entiende la terrible verdad, así como el papel que le corresponde desempeñar a Mick en este asunto. Juntos, Dominique y Mick deben escapar y emprender un viaje por todo el mundo para desenmascarar una conspiración que se remonta a 65 millones de años y que ha alterado el tejido mismo de la civilización. El calendario Maya, Stonehenge, las pirámides de Egipto, el templo de Angkor Wat -cada monumento de la antigüedad ofrece una pista de un misterio milenario, un misterio que afectará a todo los seres vivos de la Tierra-. El Testamento Maya, el best-seller internacional de Steve Alten, es un thriller que atrapa al lector y lo guía por un emocionante viaje alrededor del mundo para descubrir antiguos secretos sobre la historia de la humanidad y el futuro de la existencia. Dominique y Mick saben que se debe desvelar la verdad, pero, ¿podrán hacerlo antes de que llegue el día del Juicio Final?

I love Steve Alten's Meg series. I can't say the same about most of his "stand alone" books except for The Loch. The idea of the story line was good but it was very long winded in many places. Sorry Steve. ( )

I started reading this book years ago when i was on a long distance bike trip and staying at a friends house for a few nights. I had never heard of the mayan doomsday prophecy or even of many of the ancient places in this book like the nazca plateau. I was horrified, i was intrigued. Unfortunately i had to leave before i could finish the book. It had ignited in me an intense curiosity of the mayans and their prophecy and i started learning all i could about both which led me to learning much more about the ancient world and its amazing structures. For that i'm very grateful that i came across this book. I finally tracked down the book again (i had forgotten both the title and authors name) and determined i would finish it. Of course i couldnt remember most of the story line so i had to read it all over again and what a disappointment it was. The characters are, each and every one of them, completely unbelievable and actually quite unlikeable, especially the main character Dominique. What a sniveling, whining, unimaginative, gullible excuse for a phycologist who could always be counted on to do the wrong thing, be the annoying screamer, and trust the wrong person. The writing was boring, too bogged down by wordy descriptions and excerpts from too many different peoples perspective that had little to nothing to do with the rest of the story. I found myself skipping or quickly skimming whole sections of the book, mostly the political scenes and the scenes where i could tell, following the previous pattern, that the person whose perspective it was written in was about to die. I read it, i managed to finish it, i'm relieved to be done with it. Finishing this book took a serious act of willpower, ugg. ( )