Colin Falconer

This has been reissued as Feathered Serpent. This is a novel depicting the dramatic and horrific events of Cortes and the Conquistadors' conquest of the race now known as the Aztecs (though this is a 19th century coining for a range of warring ethnic groups living under the domination of the Mexica led by the Emperor Motecuhzoma (Montezuma)). The plot pivots around the Aztec woman Malinali who becomes Cortes's interpreter and eventually lover, betraying the wider civilisation in the end as her own tribal group chafes under Montezuma's domination. Aside from the bloody horrors perpetrated by both sides, the strongest theme to emerge from the story for me is the clash of civilisations and utterly different mindsets. Modern readers will understandably view Cortes's actions in modern terms as the crudest imperialist conquest and subjugation, yet he would have defended his actions in terms of bringing the benefits of Christian civilisation to a race that practised the bloodiest forms of human sacrifice on an industrial scale. So each had their own utterly opposing and utterly mutually incomprehensible conceptions of religion. Notwithstanding these fascinating ideas, this was not a pleasant read, with all the torture and killing - and yes, I know it is historically accurate, but I felt it could have been leavened with some deeper character development. Perhaps one of the most interesting characters was the Spaniard Norte who had lived among the Aztecs for some years, and adopted their customs, married an Aztec wife and had children, and yet still yearned eventually to be accepted again by his former Spanish comrades in arms. Malinali is still a famous and very controversial figure in Mexican history for the ambiguous role she played.… (altro)

Oh. It pains me to write this review. This book is probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I read books from every time period, every genre, writing style and so on. But this for me was a bust.
The concept and story was brilliant and a great subject. But the writing style was unreadable. The chapters were extremely short...some not even two pages. It was impossible to become vested in anything that was going on in the story because of the pacing. Before I could settle down and get into the story I was being dragged to a different character. Trying to read a story with paragraph breaks every other sentence was annoying. I as a reader need much more than a couple of hundred pages to travel the Silk Road. There was nothing to sink your teeth into. It read like a screenplay full of grammatical errors. I am only giving this two stars and not zero simply because I like the genre and subject. I still don't want to give up on this writer. Something tells me the editor is the cat behind the curtain who messed this potentially great book up. I will surely give this another read. It is my understanding that there has been some updating done to more recently released publications of this series. This series is far too interesting to just give up on.… (altro)

Mediados del siglo XIII, un caballero templario y un monje dominico emprenden viaje desde Jerusalén hacia Mongolia a lo largo de la Ruta de la Seda. Josseran Sarrazini y Guillermo parten con la misión de transmitir un mensaje del Papa al Gran Khan y fraguar una alianza contra los sarracenos, que amenazan la unidad de los cruzados y también la del reino mogol. En el camino, deberán hacer frente a los más diversos peligros mientras descubren un mundo cuya riqueza, tanto material como espiritual, les fascina y desconcierta a la vez.… (altro)