P.R.O.D--Press Release of the Day

My awesome coworker and I get awesomely bad press releases every day.  And we have decided the world must share in our awe and glee that comes with reading the P.R.O.D.  We are both journalists covering business... but the P.R.O.D. is never restricted to business... as evidenced here... in a press release I got yesterday:

“Please read the following press release and let me know if I may set up an exciting interview for you with Steve Alten – one that is sure to have audiences/listeners on the edge of their seats, filled with trepidation and hammering him with a million questions!  Thank you.”




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


An Epic Story Of Choices: Do We Become A Part of Each Other’s Journey Or Do We Destroy Each Other And Our World?


West Palm Beach, FL, September 12, 2011 - Alighieri’s Dante’s Inferno is considered one of the most revered works of world literature and portrays Dante's journey through Hell, depicted as nine circles of suffering. It was composed while Europe was suffering through war, famine, the corruption of the church and the massacre of tens of thousands of Jews. After Dante’s death, the Black Plague struck Europe and Asia, wiping out half the world’s population - a time when it was said the Angel of Death was seen dancing through the many dead.
There are some startling parallels to the pre-pandemic years and our own society today. Greed and corruption preceded the Black Death - now jump to the present day, and NY Times bestselling author Steve Alten’s provocative new novel, Grim Reaper: End of Days (Tor/Forge – St. Martin’s Press), to see the unmistakable similarities that give us even more reason to be concerned about the fast-approaching date of December 21, 2012!
During Alten’s significant research for his novel, some disturbing facts surfaced and this never before released information is revealed in Grim Reaper: End of Days, detailing how mankind may ultimately be responsible for its own species’ demise. How might the end arrive? Read on…
At the beginning of Alten’s classic hero’s journey of good versus evil, transformation and redemption, a microbiologist develops a new strain of bubonic plague (called Scythe). A Christian zealot, she is convinced she has been chosen to launch Revelations. Her plan to release the plague on the Iranian delegation at the United Nations goes horribly awry and instead it is unleashed on all of Manhattan. Three million people, including the President of the United States, are trapped when the island is sealed off to stop the disease from spreading.
As the pandemic races through the city, a crippled U.S. soldier who served four tours of duty in Iraq gets his hands on the Scythe vaccine and embarks on a desperate and deadly journey to save his estranged wife and daughter who are trapped in locked–down Manhattan. While his journey parallels the horror, death and destruction of Dante’s ‘nine circles of suffering,’ it also becomes a time of spiritual awakening and soul-cleansing when he is forced to face truths about his own actions during the war, and the disturbing realization that mankind will ultimately destroy itself.
One of the facts exposed by Grim Reaper is an illegal, covert U.S. bio-warfare program that is creating biological weapons designed to wipe out entire populations. Using insider information, and flying way above the radar, Alten names the CIA-sponsored U.S. lab that weaponized the 2001 anthrax attacks on Senators’ Daschle and Leahy and which ultimately sealed the passage of The Patriot Act.  
Critics are calling Grim Reaper: End of Days "one of the best books you will ever read, period!" 
The first in a series that Hollywood might best describe as “The Stand meets Dante’s Inferno,” this book is not meant to quiet fears about the future. Alten has already received offers from Hollywood producers competing to option the series’ rights for this extraordinary story that reveals the dark side of war, the dark side of humanity, and the true purpose for our existence.
For more information, please visit www.SteveAlten.com.
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My awesome co-worker's response:


That’s how I like my listeners…filled with trepidation. They won’t know what him ‘em! I’m buying a million shares of canned food and emergency flares right before we go to air with this exciting interview! 


My favorite line:



“No chance coincidence that 2012 arrives exactly 666 years after the Black Death!”


Somewhere, you KNOW there is an intern having to do end-of-days calculations and thinking: This is NOT why I went to Harvard.

Also, not to get SUPER anal, but the first line: "Aligheieri's Dante's Inferno"? I assume they mean Dante Alighieri's Inferno...

OK--maybe the intern did not go to Harvard.