Customer Reviews

2012: Seeking Closure

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A contemporary twist on a quotidian premise, Gregory Banks fictionalizes the 2012 doomsday prediction with a stock disaster story heavy with religious overtones that sees the human race tumbling towards apocalyptic calamity. It is December 21st, 2012 and the President of the Unites States has alerted the world that they are on a crash-course with an asteroid, and that in three hours all will be destroyed. We're familiar with this scenario, the movie Deep Impact comes quickly to mind, but I was curious to see how the author would reconcile this seemingly Christian morality tale with a doomsday scenario based on Mayan paganism.

The fast-paced story quickly unfolds into a series of character-driven vignettes centering on the terrible mistakes people have made and the various ways they decide to address their past. Violent and even savage at times, Banks paints a bleak picture of humanity where people are "sophisticated beasts who must be given direction" and whose souls can be freed only by death (with just hours remaining the Israelis and Palestinians still can't stop killing each other). Once the three-hour fuse is lit, the story moves quickly towards disaster and the situation becomes more desperate as we move along. In such a character driven story it was odd that I felt more compelled by the doomsday scenario than by the people it would affect.

This is a very easy read, with short chapters that are never boring but there are so many characters that there is not enough time to get to know anyone, or to develop those characters we are supposed to care about the most. One of the most interesting threads concerns a bizarre religious cult reminiscent of the Heaven's Gate UFO group whose mass suicide in 1997 coincided with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp. We also get to know a fictional American president whose controversial decision to hide in an underground bunker while the rest of humanity awaits destruction drives his guilt and ultimately becomes his undoing. And the story of three immoral men trapped in an elevator with three hours to live would be a great setting for a one-act play but we are never with them long enough to develop a strong personal connection or a sense of involvement with their feelings.

Speckled with drug use, violence and gang warfare the story is balanced with mushy themes of repentance and redemption. The end of the world seems to be caused not by man's own doing but by a cosmic or even supernatural event out of our control and it is our reaction to certain doom that sparks destruction, instead of the event itself. What ensues is a chaotic exercise where evil men are just as damned as those who repent and where no one has anything to lose. In the end, 2012: Seeking Closure is an exploration of man's ability for chaos where one wonders why anyone deserves a second chance and why humans need to find greater meaning even if there isn't one. Banks succeeds by addressing the question: how would we react if we learned we had only three hours left? The answer won't be pretty.

Strengths: compelling use of a countdown, fast-paced, easy reading that is never boring

Opportunities: familiar premise, lots of characters

Will appeal to: light readers, persons of faith, fans of doomsday/apocalyptic literature

Mark McGinty is the author of ELVIS AND THE BLUE MOON CONSPIRACY

Strong recommendations. Exciting, great imagination and just waiting for the movie to be release in the fall.
Tks

Gregory Bernard Banks' 2012: SEEKING CLOSURE is a very fast paced read, and difficult to put down. It tackles a disturbing question - what would you do if the President announced that the world would end in 3 hours....and there was nothing - nothing that could be done?

I found the chapters to be well-written and the characters interesting. Banks' descriptions made me feel for many of the characters and sympathize with their stories. I didn't just ask myself what I would do with my last 3 hours....I wondered what I would do if I was in these characters' places in their last 3 hours.

I don't want to call this book a fluffy read, as it is deeper than that. But it is extremely fast paced and difficult to put down. Well done, Mr. Banks!

J.R. Reardon
author, CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS

A novel of fiction is turned toward realism in the hands the author, Gregory Bernard Banks. He has set a good part of this story in a stalled elevator, where three men with diverse backgrounds remove their shrouds of fake imaging. The dire circumstances brought on by a world ending makes the real life problems of these three men surface and boil in a cauldron of emotions.

A chance escape from the elevator into the outside environ of fear is peppered with revenge...revenge so strong that one "elevator" man even foregoes the attempt of a temptress to entice him into a last act of sex before the end comes. His revenge transends any desire to respond.

2012: Seeking Closure, is briliantly crafted to expose the weakness of the three "elevator" characters during their fast pace attempt to close out the wrong deeds done by them and to them before the world will end. But does it?

This novel by Gregory Banks reels toward the reader like a movie, because it is one. I learned more about the film, by going to the web site refered to on the books back cover.

The book enhances an interest in that film by the same name...2012: Seeking Closure.

The book begins with a chilling premise--a giant asteroid will wipe out all life on earth. Though scientists and world leaders have known for months, the powers that be have chosen to wait until 3 hours before the end to make the horrific announcement. Of course the leaders have arranged safe bunkers for themselves and their families and other people they've deemed essential to world re-population. The story is carried forward by a focus on a few characters, their families, and other people in their lives. After the announcement about the impending doom, some people rise to the occasion and conduct themselves with dignity as they prepare for the end. But many remain all too true to the worst in human nature and chaos ensues.
The writing is wonderful and the story fast-paced. The tension rises quickly and the ending satisfies. Mr. Banks has done a fine job with this entertaining book.

What would you do if you only had 3 hours to live? Would you spend it with your loved ones? Or would you spend your last few hours alive seeking self-gratification? This is the situation faced by every human in the world in Greg Bank's 2012: Seeking Closure. This doomsday novel explores the primal nature of the human race when faced with its final annihilation.

2012: Seeking Closure is an intimate portrait of a motley cast of very flawed characters who share little in common except that they must all decide how they will end their lives. With their doom quickly approaching, they must wrestle with their inner demons in order to come to terms with their often dark and tortured pasts. Decisions are made within these final 3 hours of their lives which will test the resolve of these characters and lead them to their ultimate fates.

This is a fast-paced and captivating book that holds the reader in suspense as the doomsday clock winds down to zero. If you are looking for a tense and gripping read, look no further than this book. Highly recommended.

Gregory Bernard Banks wrote a powerful novel based on Tom Townsend's short story.
You will run the gamut of emotions reading this book - horror, hate, panic, love, forgiveness, and so much more.
Let me ask you to think - What would you do if you were told that the world would end in 3 hours and you had no control over it? How would you react?
Hold those you love closely?
Find revenge on those who wronged you?
Pray to God to help?
Seek a false God to exempt them from this event?
Mr. Banks follows a number of people dealing with the news that you only have 3 hours to live. It also gives pause - The President and those in power (all others in power around the world) have known for a long time that a series of comets will come near and probably hit the earth and do catastrophic damage - they build huge bunkers way underground and take the 'elite' who when the comets have done their thing, can rebuild civilization!!!
But the John Q. Publics don't know that the leaders are broadcasting from safety...
As I was reading 2012: Seeking Closure - I remember my brother either read or watched the film On the Beach - for those of you who have never heard of this, Australia is the last place where folks are living - the rest of the world has perished because of atomic radiation, and that radiation is coming towards Australia. You know these people will be dead soon, and the effect on you is, like my brother's reaction devastating.
Those are the emotions I felt reading 2012.
Is it an easy book to read? No - but it surely will get you thinking - with all the buzz about 2012 - from complete destruction to spiritual awakening - what will happen?
I remember when I was a little girl, the newscasters said that some ancient civilization predicted the end of the world a particular weekend. My parents were leaving out of town to go to a wedding. I was upset that my parents would leave my big brother and myself when the world was going to end.
But you know, they came back and the sun was still in its place.
It's a matter of trust -
While I hope 2012 opens a spiritual awakening, I trust we can work things out.
2012: Seeking Closure by Gregory Bernard Banks certainly will make you think. And hope we can behave differently if/when the time comes.
A great read.

The plot in this book had potential to be a 5 star book.

The writing in this book was terrific; there was just not enough of it.

The story is told from many different viewpoints and the characters are believable, but I feel that they could have been fleshed out a bit more. Also, I really felt kind of a let down at the end. I was just left wanting more.

This is definitely worth the read, though. It seemed pretty realistic for the minimum types of viewpoints received.

One can see right off why this exciting book became a movie - a good disaster film which many of us enjoy. That's why they make so many of them - for television, as well as the big screen.
Only three hours to live? What would you do? It's such a two-fisted question and the basis for the book. As the characters struggle with final decisions, morality, ethics, and personalities come into play in the last hours of life. Religion also plays a huge part in the book with religious leaders and their followers, trying to come to terms with life and death, some to great extremes.
I think it would have been a plus if the author would have had a Foreword, explaining the meaning of the date December 21, 2012 because I am sure there a many readers out there not acquainted with the significance of this date according to the Mayan calendar and the alignment of the celestial bodies at this time.
However, it's still well worth reading for those who relish excitement and edge-of-your-seat stories!

I have just finished reading "2012 the Mayan prophecy" and this book covers the same subject but in a very different way which I think is better. It consists of a number of different stories of the way that individuals and groups approach the knowledge that the end of the world is coming and they have 3 hours before the comet hits Earth. There are a range of stories from the President of the USA who knew that it was going to happen but apparently did little and has to live with his conscience to a few people trapped in a lift, a conventional clergyman, the leader of a cult and a few more. Some of the stories entwine and others are completely separate but with the same theme, the end of the World is coming. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and thought each of the stories equally strong with the characters and locations well described so that I could relate to them. Unlike the "2012 the Mayan prophecy" this one does not end with an unlikely twist although the ending is not quite what I expected. According to the book there is to be a movie made of this story I will certainly go and watch it.