Obsidian and Blood
The series “Obsidian and Blood” chronicles the adventures of Acatl, High Priest for the Dead, in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. They are fantasies/mysteries: as well as being responsible for the funeral rites of the Aztec Imperial Family, Acatl also investigates crimes that break the fragile balance of the mortal world.
Book 1, Servant of the Underworld, is out now, published by Angry Robot. Book 2, Harbinger of the Storm, is now out, and the final book, Master of the House of Darts has just been released. An omnibus edition, Obsidian and Blood, containing all 3 books, will be out in July 2012.
You can download a glossary of major characters and concepts here for the Kindle, courtesy of Nathan McKnight.
A French translation is out from Bibliothèque Interdite: vol. 1 is D’Obsidienne et de Sang, vol. 2 is Le Cinquième Soleil, due in 2011.
Feel like sampling the books? In addition to the first chapters available online (see the individual book pages, below), there are also three short stories in the Acatl universe:
- “Obsidian Shards”, first published in Writers of the Future, vol XXIII
- “Beneath the Mask”, in Beneath Ceaseless Skies
- “Safe, Child, Safe”, first published in Talebones, Winter 2009
NOTE: all three books are standalones, which means you can perfectly pick up Harbinger of the Storm without having read Servant of the Underworld, and Master of the House of Darts without having read either of the previous books. Think of it as a crime series–you can read them in order if you want to, but it’s not obligatory. I’m pointing this out because I’ve become aware Servant can be hard to get hold of in the UK and by extension in Europe (the UK print run was recalled due to complicated circumstances, and the only available copies are re-imported US ones). If you feel you can’t live without the first book, you can also try the ebook version (available in multiple formats and DRM free) here.
- Omnibus: Obsidian and Blood
- Book 1: Servant of the Underworld
- Book 2: Harbinger of the Storm
- Book 3: Master of the House of Darts
- Aztec glossary
- Character Index for Obsidian and Blood
BTW, the usual disclaimer applies, and it applies even more here, because there are so few books written in Mesoamerica, and much as I love my novels, I don’t want them to be held out as some sort of historical or cultural reference. I’m quite happy seeing them as Mesoamerican fantasy, but…
See, I’m a writer–not a historian, not a researcher, not a Mexican. I did my best with a mountain of sources and an unfamiliar culture, but I’m no expert and no Nahuatl, so it’s highly possible (and, indeed, highly probable) that the Obsidian and Blood books include some mistakes–both research failures, and simple failures on my part to get the mindset sufficiently right.
If you want references about Aztec life in the 1480s, can I suggest any of the books on the research page, or the work of people like Miguel Leon-Portilla or David Carrasco.
Or, to put it another way: my books are awesome, reasonably well-researched fantasy, but very bad primary sources.
A few online sources on the Nahuatl people (though bear in mind that, insofar as I know from discussing with Mexicans, the dynamics between the Natives and the Spanish colonisers have been very different than in the US–a lot of mixing happened, leading to a population that majoritarily describes itself as mestizo, ie “mixed-blood”):
