Servant of the Underworld
Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A Priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, High Priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead. ...
show more
Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A Priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, High Priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead. Aliette De Bodard is the hottest rising star in world SF and Fantasy, blending ancient crimes with wild imagination. This is her debut novel. FILE UNDER: Modern Fantasy [The Aztecs / Locked room mystery / Human sacrifice / Destroy the Gods]
show less
ISBN:
9780007346547 (0007346549)
Publisher: Angry Robot
Edition language: English
Category:
Fantasy,
Magic,
Novels,
Science Fiction,
High Fantasy,
Historical Fiction,
Mystery,
Speculative Fiction,
Crime,
Alternate History,
Mythology
Series: Obsidian and Blood (#1)
Series: Obsidian and Blood #1 Servant of the Underworld is a fantasy mystery novel set in the Aztec Empire in the 15th century. Overall I liked it, but it was more of an intellectual liking than an emotional one. The concept of reading a Mesoamerican fantasy novel was interesting, but writing in a...
Two stars for the worldbuilding, which kept me reading despite feelings for the main character that wavered between apathy and antipathy. de Bodard's descriptions of the social and political arrangements of the Aztec Empire are really interesting. I wish the magic had been equally interesting, but a...
I really liked de Bodard's short stories and decided to try this fantasy / mystery book as well. It was fascinating, but quite not as good as the short stories. Aztec names and a foreign mythology made this both interesting and hard to read. If you want to try something new, this is the book for you...
This murder mystery set in the Aztec empire reads quickly, and it's refreshing to encounter such a unique setting, where blood rituals, human or animal sacrifice, and slavery are simply everyday aspects of life, as unremarkable to the main character Acatl as the brutality and violence of today's tel...
A fantasy-murder mystery set in the Aztec empire. It was ok, but felt a bit disjointed and rushed. I would actually have appreciated an info dump here and there. There turned out to be a bit of historical/cultural/political background explanation as an appendix, but it was rather too late by then. I...