JUNIUS PODRUG
GARY
JENNINGS AZTEC NOVELS
Aztec,
Gary Jennings New York Times bestselling literary masterpiece
is the quintessential historical novel of that mighty civilization
and its conquest by the Spanish conquistadors. Before he passed
away, in Aztec Autumn he took the conflict between the Aztecs
and the Spanish to their next major clash, a war that erupted two
decades after the conquest.
ROBERT GLEASON, who had been Gary’s editor, and JUNIUS PODRUG carry
on the tradition that Gary began with his two brilliant
dramatizations of the history of "New Spain" (colonial Mexico). They
are the authors of Aztec Blood and Aztec Rage.
Aztec
Blood
is the colorful and exciting tale of a beggar boy who
rises to claim a noble birthright—and helps found a proud new
people: the mestizo, a people bearing the blood of two great
races—indio and español .
"Never less than spellbinding, this golden tale . . . follows the
exploits of a mestizo boy (half Aztec, half Spanish) in
seventeenth-century New Spain (Mexico), struggling for survival
against Spanish nobles in league with the Inquisition . . . a
dashing, glittering tale, sending the redoubtable Cristo and
irrepressible Mateo through the dingy streets of Veracruz, lean
Aztec villages, grand Spanish haciendas, deadly silver mines and
teeming Mexico City. Injustice has seldom been so keenly sketched,
nor valor so compellingly portrayed as in this swashbuckling
adventure. —Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
"Ay
de mi! Why is Cristo in a dank prison being tortured? What’s all
the mystery surrounding his birth? What’s this business about
treasure? The questions are all answered in Aztec Blood, Gary
Jennings’s latest historical novel set in Mexico . . . at the time
of the Inquisition . . . This is a sprawling book, with lots of
juicy historical tidbits . . . it’s a wonderful mishmash of
far-ranging esoterica, with were-jaguars the merest beginning."
—The
Washington Post Sunday Book Reviews
"This
lush, exotic page turner fairly crackles with intrigue, romance and
adventure. Following the pattern he established in Aztec and
Aztec Autumn, Jennings continues to retrace the remarkable
history of the Aztec Empire. Vanquished by the Spanish
conquistadors, the once proud Aztec people are enslaved and
condemned to toil on the grand haciendas owned by their conquerors.
The
author has meticulously researched the torturous history of the
colonization of New Spain, revivifying the all-forgotten era upon
whose brutal foundation the modern nation of Mexico was forged."
—Booklist
"The
sights, smells, and sounds of the era come alive in what is a true
Tom Jones-style picaresque. Cristo is a lepero, a scorned mestizo
beggar who lives by his wits, conniving and scheming merely to stay
alive . . . Ultimately he fulfills his destiny by founding and
leading a proud new people. Readers will lose themselves in this
long, absorbing novel.
--Library Journal
"Highly entertaining . . . witty . . . charming . . . overflowing
with interesting details about Spanish colonialism, heady Indian
mysticism, and numerous puns and winking references to the
picaresque novels of the period."
—Kirkus Reviews
Aztec Rage
is set in the era of blood and fire when valiant Aztec men and women
rise to fight their brutal overlords—at the same time the courageous
people of Spain defend their cities and homes from the armies of
Napoleon: Don Juan de Zavala, a wealthy caballero, becomes a Prince
of Rogues after a dark secret of his birth is revealed. His
adventures and redemption are told during the transformation of the
"blood-tainted" mestizo to a people whose prides and passions shake
the world: the mejicanos.
“Gleason and Podrug continue the late Jennings's
Aztec series with this fast-paced, absorbing fourth volume,
featuring Spanish-born Don Juan de Zavala, who comes of age in
colonial Mexico in 1808. Just as Don Juan expects to claim his
inheritance, his dying uncle accuses him of illegitimate, half-Aztec
origins, and Don Juan is then unjustly pegged as his uncle's
murderer. Prudently hitting the road, Don Juan meets a charming,
erudite rogue named Carlos, and together they head for Veracruz.
When Carlos is murdered by a Mayan mob, Don Juan returns under
Carlos's name to a Spain now erupting in revolt against Napoleon. He
joins the resistance there before returning to Mexico. Back in the
New World, where he's determined to take back his inheritance, he
throws in his lot with rebels agitating to reclaim their
independence from Spain. Don Juan has his consciousness raised about
European racism towards the "indio" population (especially by
curvaceous Aztec babe Marina), and the authors paint a vivid picture
of the early stages of the bloody war of independence. Just as
preoccupied with swashbuckling and womanizing as its predecessors,
this latest Aztec novel is likely to be irresistible to fans of the
series.” --
Publishers Weekly (*starred review)
“Jennings, this time with two coauthors, returns to
the fascinating history of the Aztec empire and the colonization of
New Spain in this latest entry in the best-selling cycle he began
with Aztec (1982) followed by Aztec Autumn (1997) and Aztec Blood
(2001). The focal character in this atmospheric yarn is
swordsman Don Juan de Zavala; it is his swashbuckling adventures,
and the threat of exposure of his true parentage, that lead him—and
spellbound readers—from colonial Mexico, where the Aztec
civilization lies in ruins, to the Spain of Catholic repression and
Napoleonic ferment. What the novels in this series do so well,
and this latest installment is a prime example, is to lend a
resonant understanding of not only Aztec and colonial customs and
even mind-sets but also how repressed peoples, whether by the act of
conquest or the act of religious control, will indeed have their own
day—how their resentment builds, in other words. A beautifully
detailed novel for historical fiction fans.” —Brad Hooper [YA/M:
Strong teen readers will learn from the vivid history. BH.]
Booklist (American Library Association)
"Thrills twist through the pages like a tornado, sweeping you from
glittering Mexico City to snake-and-croc-infested jungles, to lost
Mayan civilizations to the torture chambers of the Inquisition, to
beautiful Barcelona and the bloody carnage of Napoleon’s war in
Spain, to the bloodiest and most spectacular of New Spain’s
(colonial Mexico) revolutions." --Douglas
Preston,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Tyrannosaur Canyon
"AZTEC
RAGE is a once-in-a-lifetime reading experience, crackling with
excitement and grandeur of language, but most of all there are
unforgettable characters that you will carry in your heart forever.
There is swashbuckling adventure, exotic places and women so
beautiful and decent you’d want to fight and even die for them, but
beneath it all is the pride and passion of common people who rise to
uncommon valor to defend their families, homes and honor against
villains as wicked as sin." --David Hagberg,
USA Today-bestselling
author of Soldier of God, winner of the American Book Award
and three-time winner of the American Mystery Award
"AZTEC
RAGE is a major epic, a grand literary canvas of thrills and
chills, fire and passion . . . Colonial Mexico, the land called New
Spain by the Spanish, was a place of mystery and magic where the
ancient rites of the Aztecs and Mayans clashed with the Europeans
who mastered the land—but never conquered the people. Even if you
think you know Mexico, you will never again look at Mexico the same
way. You will look on the Mexican people with new eyes as well, and
you will be changed. The final chapter will move you to tears—"I am
mejicano!"—will ring in your ears forever."
--Kathleen O’Neal-Gear and Michael Gear, award-winning,
USA Today-bestselling
authors of People of the Moon
"What
a spell-binding read! This monumental novel shows us the violent
turbulence of both the Old and New Worlds of the 19th
century . . . take equal parts of Cervantes, di Lampedusa, Patrick
O’Brian and Fodor, mix them up at a head-spinning pace, and you get
the immensely satisfying tour de force AZTEC RAGE. Filled
with memorable characters, fascinating situations and immersed in
the bloody history of the 19th century, this is a
continent-spanning novel you’ll never forget." --Walter J. Boyne, author of Roaring Thunder and
one of the few writers ever to appear on both the fiction and
nonfiction New York Times bestseller list
"Big, bold, bawdy, Aztec Rage is fiction in
the grand tradition." -- Stephen Coonts, New York Times
bestselling author of The Assassin
Aztec Fire sweeps readers
from the desert mountains of Old Mexico to the fabled ruins of
ancient Tula; from the slave-labor galleons of "the Manila Run" to
Southeast Asia's pirate dhows, opium smugglers, and tempestuous
typhoons; from a sado-erotic Sultanate overrun with eunuchs,
torturers, and bizarre sex slaves to a South Seas jungle island
teeming with crocodiles, snakes, and blood-crazed cannibals.
Returning to Mexico, Juan and his friends find their country in
flames, struggling in a last climatic revolution against its hated
Spanish oppressors.
"A story of sweeping grace and power,
Aztec Fire draws you into the turbulent, violent, and
luminous world of Mexico in the early nineteenth century, when
that country threw off the Spanish yoke. Impeccably researched
with magnificent characters and splendid settings, Aztec Fire
is a story for the ages." -- Douglas Preston, New
York Times bestselling author of Blasphemy
"If you're looking for high adventure,
here it is. Rip-snortin', slam-bang, action-filled
entertainment that hits the bull's-eye. Once the hero, a young
indio weapons-maker, begins his quest, there'll be no turning
back...for him or for you." -- William Martin,
New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Constitution
"I stayed up all night reading Aztec
Fire, and I was sorry I'd read it so fast." --
David Hagberg, USA Today bestselling author of Dance
with the Dragon
"Aztec Fire is a tumultuous tale
set in turbulent times, it begins and ends in Mexico, but in between
it takes the reader on a far-ranging, E-ticket ride through early
nineteenth-century history." -- Lucia St. Clair
Robson, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Warrior
PREVIOUS
/ HOME