Aztec

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.