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Series
The Aztec sequence follows Indigenous and mixed-ancestry protagonists through five centuries of Mexican history, from the height of Tenochtitlan to the wars that ended Spanish rule. The first novel gives Mixtli’s account of the empire under Ahuitzotl and Moctezuma II and carries his life into the conquest. Later volumes move through the Mixtón resistance, seventeenth-century New Spain, the Inquisition, the Manila galleon trade and the Mexican War of Independence.
Gary Jennings wrote Aztec and Aztec Autumn; later novels were developed from the historical world and material associated with his work by Robert Gleason and Junius Podrug. Although the books use different narrators and generations, they share an interest in survival under conquest, the formation of mestizo identities and the persistence of Indigenous culture within colonial Mexico. This series entry contains the six historical novels recognised in the publisher’s Aztec sequence.
Reading order
Mixtli, called Dark Cloud, dictates the history of his life to Spanish clerics after the conquest of Mexico. Born near the lakes of the Basin of Mexico, he moves through schooling, trade, war, court service and long journeys that reveal the social worlds of commoners, merchants,…
After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Tenamaxtli refuses to accept that Spanish victory has ended Indigenous resistance. Travelling through a country disrupted by epidemic disease, enslavement, tribute and missionary rule, he recruits survivors from communities divided by their earlier relations with the Mexica Empire. His campaign depends…
In 1624, the imprisoned Cristo the Bastardo writes an account intended for the viceroy of New Spain. Raised in poverty and treated as socially disposable because of his mixed ancestry, Cristo survives by intelligence, performance and deception while searching for the identities of his parents. His…
Don Juan de Zavala enters adulthood in a New Spain shaken by crisis in the Spanish monarchy. Skilled with horses and weapons but uncertain of his own ancestry, he is drawn from Mexico City into Indigenous communities, hidden settlements and the coercive world of the Inquisition.…
Juan Rios, descended from Indigenous warriors, is spared execution when a Spanish gunmaker recognises his knowledge of gunpowder and buys his labour. He becomes a gifted gunsmith and marksman while secretly supplying weapons to the independence movement. His partnership with the writer and revolutionary Maria turns…
Forty-eight years after the fall of Tenochtitlan, Juan survives on the margins of New Spain as a beggar, horse handler and thief. His mixed Spanish and Indigenous ancestry denies him secure status, yet his ability with horses and weapons allows him to move between roads, estates…