My knowledge of the 16th century Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico and the elimination of ancient native civilizations is limited to the movies and I long ago read Bernal Diaz’s eyewitness account “The True Story of the Conquest of New Spain” in graduate school. That said, to read this exciting new novel by Austin Briggs, all you really need to know is that the Spanish are invading and that Mexico’s various civilizations are too busy warring with each other to understand the greater threat posed by white men. While the reader will already know who will win and who will lose, “Five Dances with Death” isn’t about winning and losing, it’s about a talented author bringing to life what those ancient civilizations might have been like and understanding the politics that led to their failure to work together to defeat the Spanish, whom they call in this novel the “outsiders.”
But apart from the sad and violent historical setting, “Five Dances with Death” is also an intriguing novel, fast-paced and even fun to read; It is by no means a difficult story to follow. Briggs has made the world of five centuries ago that should seem very strange to us as real as possible for the reader. He has done so by changing the names of those almost impossible to spell or pronounce words like “Tenochtitlan” and “Matlalcueyetl” mountain, translating them to mean Cactus Rock and Blue Mantle Mountain. Some other reviewers of this book have expressed that they wish Briggs had used the actual Aztec names, and while that might have made the book feel more authentic in some ways, I’m glad he didn’t because it would have completely confused me. . long, ornately spelled words that look similar.
So, in short, this book is very easy to read. Because the characters’ names are quickly recognizable, such as Wasp (the main character), Stern Lord (Montezuma), Hernán (Hernán Cortés), and Smoking Mirror (Tezcatlipoca, Aztec God of Fate), readers can follow the story without have to keep trying to remember who’s who, and Briggs provides a list of characters and places with their Aztec words for easy reference for those who want that information. I found that I never needed to go back to the Notes section as I read, but then I went back to look at them because the book made me want to know more about Aztec history.
The story begins with a lot of tension from the beginning. We are immediately brought into this world and into the mind of the Wasp, the narrator of the story. Wasp is one of the warrior leaders of his people, and he tells us that he and his people have been summoned to the Mexica, their rival nation against whom they frequently fight:
“They had invited us to their festival under the guise of praying together for a good harvest. But we knew they really wanted us to witness the sacrifice of our warriors captured in the last season of war. We knew they wanted us to understand the futility of our resistance and losing our will to fight. However, the enemy’s generous display of power did not bother us. We only came to retrieve my daughter.”
Wasp’s quest throughout the book is to rescue her daughter from the Mexica, but in order to do so, she faces several other quests and distractions, including the arrival of outsiders. The novel is full of some graphic moments – there are some Aztec sacrifices (they would take their victims’ hearts out while they were still alive), and at one point, Wasp is almost sacrificed – but beyond that there is a lot of interesting and powerful politics. relationships between the characters. One of the novel’s key moments is when a young boy dies suddenly and the Wasp’s tribe thinks the mark behind his ear suggests he has been bitten by a vampire, causing the Wasp’s wife to be blamed, as she is considered a sorceress; this moment results in an interesting chain of events that propels the novel towards its end.
The back cover of “Five Dances with Death: Dance One” describes this book as “An Aztec supernatural adventure novel” and that promise does not disappoint. The supernatural enters through the way the Wasp and his wife, who is some kind of sorceress or priestess from another culture, experiment with various drugs so that she and the Wasp can travel outside of their bodies, search for their doppelgangers and even enter others. people’s thoughts; Wasp actually gets into Hernan’s (Cortez) head at one point. Wasp describes the process early in the book, saying that he learned this form of sorcery from his wife: “She had taken me into the deepest passages of the underworld to steal energy from the formless creatures that dwelt there; and little by little, After month, its dim light accumulated within me, building up enough mass to become my double.” In this state, Wasp first begins to learn about outsiders and understand the power of him, something he tries to make his own people and the other nations of Mexico understand before it’s too late.
As in the Greek myths, in “Five Dances with Death”, the gods and the supernatural are deeply involved in human affairs. In one of her visions, Wasp is subjected to tricks by the God of Fate, Smoking Mirror, and is warned by a bird in another similar state, in reference to gods that eat humans, that “A man can choose which god he will consume.” the. And here is the core of it. As strong as the gods are, they cannot consume a human if he resists. Such is the law of nature. But the gods can confuse a man and deceive him. The fear of death and the promise of salvation, of a life by the sun, are the common ruse.” Additional stories of the gods are included, including a fascinating story of the creation of man and how he came to have free will. .
The subtitle of the book makes it clear that this book is the first in a series of five. It’s not a long novel, about 250 pages, and it’s a fast read, so I found it hard to put it down, and I was particularly intrigued by the supernatural aspects: the drug-induced visions reminded me of “Black Elk Speaks” and the visions that the Native Americans in North America had over white men destroying their land and their people. I imagine some Native Americans might take offense at this imaginative retelling, but Briggs didn’t write the story for the cheap thrills typical of Indiana Jones-type adventure novels. He truly is a student of Aztec culture and civilization, as he states on his website: “I spent over 10 years researching the history of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish Conquest with the dream of creating a series of historical fiction that would fascinate readers. . who likes a good tale based on history. I even got to experience some of the magical rites of the ancient Mexica.” In addition, he makes it clear that he wanted to give the conquered the opportunity to tell the story from his perspective: “Many times they tell us that history is written by the victors. My stories are told from the perspective of those who lost – even though they fell fighting. My fascination with the Aztec empire during the time of the Spanish conquest began because I am intrigued by the idea of a society that is about to be completely lost. I wanted to show how difficult and painful – and sometimes strangely inspiring – that process can be.”
Briggs beautifully captures the how and why of that loss. As a 21st century reader well aware that the Spanish have the power, despite their limited numbers, to destroy the Aztecs, he watched with fascination as Wasp and his people misread the situation and the threat from outsiders. Holding his breath, he watched Wasp try to warn people of him only to see them think they could ally with the outsiders to conquer their enemies, the Mexica, in the belief that they could then push the outsiders back into the sea. The reader anticipates the coming disaster and shakes his head, but he reads on, unable to look away to see the fatal events he knows will follow.
The book ends in an appropriate moment and somewhat cliffhanger, but it made me wish the book hadn’t ended. It’s the kind of book where I wish all five volumes were already out so I could read them one after another. It’s hard to properly review a series without having read all the books, but “Five Dances with Death” is off to a good start with plenty of promises to follow with even meatier volumes.
The only real criticism I have is that I would have liked to see a map so I could understand which nation lived where in Mexico and perhaps it would have been helpful to retain some of the more familiar names, like Aztec, that are familiar to modern Americans. readers
Overall, “Five Dances with Death: Dance One” is a highly imaginative look at a lost civilization. The reader is instantly propelled into that civilization as if he lived there and fascinated by the way it operates. At the same time, we watch from afar, horrified by the characters’ inability to see the threat of the Spanish as the natives fight each other. Fast-paced, captivating, but never lacking in cheap thrills or unexpected plot twists, Briggs has written a very balanced and historical story of the last days of ancient Mexico.
This book is available only in eBook format, but it’s a good excuse to buy a Kindle if you haven’t already. A print version is scheduled to be released soon. For more information on Austin Briggs and the “Five Dances with Death” series, visit http://www.AustinBriggs.com
– Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. and author of the award-winning “Narrow Lives”