The Highlander - Zoe Saadia

   2012; 215 pages.  Book 1 (out of 7) in “The Rise of the Aztecs” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Historical Fiction; Mesoamerica.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

    Three youths, all of noble blood, all with “sneaky” habits.

    Kuini is of the Chichimec tribe, aka “the Highlanders”, and son of their war leader.  He likes to sneak down from the highlands and observe the neighboring tribes in their huge cities with tall pyramids.

    Coyotl is of the Alcohua tribe, aka “the Lowlanders”, and the son of their Emperor.  He likes to sneak out into the desert, without any bodyguards, just to feel the spirit of adventure.

    Iztac-Ayotl is Coyotl’s half-sister, the First Daughter of the Emperor’s Second Wife.  She likes to dress up as a commoner and sneak out into her city, just for the freedom to do what she wants.

    Each of them will eventually get caught sneaking around, albeit by different persons, and with various consequences.

    And all three will come to realize that being a part of the nobility, while certainly a better lot than being a peasant, also carries duties and obligations to their Empires that none of them can ever shirk or evade, no matter what.

What’s To Like...

    The Highlander is set in central Mexico in the early 1400’s, about a hundred years before Cortez and his conquistadors arrive to obliterate everybody.  We follow the interactions of several tribes: primarily the Alcohua, Chichimecs, Aztecs, and the Tepanecs.  The Mayans are mentioned, but we don’t encounter them.  Surprisingly, the Aztecs are not the dominant tribe at this point in time; the Tepanec are.

    Coyotl, Kuini, and Iztac-Ayotl are the three main protagonists, and they get more or less equal footing in the story.  Each of them faces moral dilemmas that pit their personal wishes against their responsibilities to their tribes.  None of these get resolved here in Book One of this series, but there are another six books to get things sorted out.  Book Seven was published in 2014, so I presume this series is completed.

    This is my second book by Zoe Saadia (the first one is reviewed here), and once again I’m impressed by how well-researched it is.  Cocoa beans are used as money, several Mesoamerican deities are referenced, and it’s neat that the center of attention (at least for now) is not the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan.  I very much liked that none of the tribes, including the Aztecs, are portrayed as pure evil and/or utterly, bloodthirsty.  They each have their own cultures, and each is of course striving to be the dominant force in the region.

    Once again, I thought I’d caught an anachronism in the tale, as the three protagonists pass notes to each other, sometimes on bark, sometimes on paper.  Serendipitously, I’ve just finished reading a book on the history of papermaking (reviewed here), and it confirmed that paper, primarily made from the agave plant, and writing were well developed in Mesoamerica at this point in time, having been developed independently of any European or Asian influence.

    I liked the cusswords employed in the tale: phrases like “manure-eaters”, “filthy bastards”, and the elegantly-lengthened “stinky, dirty, pest-ridden manure-eaters”.  There’s a little bit of bloodshed, a little bit of sex, and the phrase “piss-off” is used once, but really, there's no way I'd call this an R-Rated tale.

    We never learn the names of three of the secondary, but fairly important, characters: the visiting Aztec war leader, Coyotl’s father, and the Chichimec Emperor.  I thought perhaps this was a function of each of these persons’ exalted rank, but both the Aztec  and the Tepanec Emperors’ names are given, so that shoots down my theory.  Maybe we learn their names in subsequent books.

    There are a smattering of “native” words used, and I could suss out the meanings of most of them.  Still, it would’ve been nice to have a glossary to reference, since I never did exactly figure out what “altepetl” and “calmecac” meant.  In fairness, googling both those words as I wrote this review resolved their meanings.  Finally, as with any historical fiction tale as well-researched as this one, it would've been nice to have a “what’s real and what’s made-up” section at the back of the book.

 Kindle Details...

    The Highlander (The Rise of the Aztecs Book 1) presently sells for $4.99 at Amazon, as do the other six books in the series.  Zoe Saadia offers a number of other series at Amazon, all set in various locations in pre-Columbian America,  The e-books in those range from $2.99 to $4.99.

Excerpts...

    “So what about that princess of yours?  Who was she?”

    “They say she is the First Daughter of the Emperor’s Second Wife.”

    “Oh, the Second Wife.  The cause of the whole war.  Interesting.”  Eyes twinkling, the man watched Kuini over the rim of the goblet.  “Take my advice, kid.  Don’t mess around with princesses.  They are usually an arrogant lot who will cause you much trouble while giving you no satisfaction.”  (loc. 1553)

    He bit his lips, trying to contain his frustration.  So, there would be no silly talk tonight and no kisses.  She might have not been able to make it for a number of reasons, he thought, but his anger grew, thinking that maybe she had just gotten enough of adventures with foreigners and commoners.

    He stood there, undecided.  Maybe it was for the best.  This girl, while being exciting and fun, had brought him nothing but trouble.  He was really better off without her wild, pretty, untamed presence.  (loc. 2536)

“It’s not every day strange warrior-boys go around kidnapping princesses.”  (loc. 1365)

    There are a couple of quibbles, one minor, one not-so-minor.

    The minor one concerns the dialogue style.  Several reviewers at Amazon and Goodreads felt there was too much English vernacular used.  They point out that phrases used here, such as “you are a mess, kid”, “you know?”, “you see?”, the aforementioned “piss off”, and the Wayne’s World-ish “No way!  Yes way!” were not used in ancient America.

     Well okay, I’m sure the 15^th-century Mesoamericans didn’t say such things.  But I’m equally sure that they had their own set of street slang, particularly among their teenage crowds.  And since we’ll never know what those sayings were, I’m okay with using the modern-day equivalents.  After all, they didn't speak English back then either.

    The more serious quibble concerns the ending.  Beyond the personal adventures of our trio of protagonists, the overarching storyline concerns an impending invasion by the Tepanecs.  Indeed, most of the actions of the adults center around meting this threat.  The tension builds nicely, the Alcohua gather their warriors and seek allies, the Tepanecs land on the nearby shores, the two armies face off, and…

    … the book ends.  Oh, we get a brief synopsis of what happens.  A half-dozen sentences covering the rest of this war.  But IMO, this book screams for a climactic battle scene, with lots of fighting, bloodshed, tactics, and heroism.  All I can think of is that maybe the author doesn’t like to do battle scenes.

    But hey, at least it wasn’t a cliffhanger ending.  I despise cliffhangers.

    7½ Stars.  The truncated ending notwithstanding, I enjoyed The Highlander.  The pacing was good, the characters were fun to get to know, and there was a nice balance between history, action, antics, drama, and wit.  I didn’t even mind when a bit of romance worked its way into the plotline.