I am such a sucker for mysterious theories like the Mayan prediction of the end of the world on December 21, 2012. (Apparently it isn’t so much the end of the world as it is the end of a cycle. But I digress.) I also love fiction set in historical Mesoamerica—Gary Jennings’ Aztec, for example, and Simon Levack’s wonderful and not-well-enough-known Yaotl mysteries. So when I saw Brian d’Amato’s In the Courts of the Sun I snatched it up immediately.
I wasn’t disappointed. Wow. What a ride. What an immersion in an ancient, utterly alien culture. It’s part historical fiction, part science fiction, part speculative fiction, part game-theory treatise. The dissonance between the modern-day protagonist and the world he’s thrown into is staggering and really brilliantly done.
I do have to ask, though—why does every book I read these days seem to end with a tacked-on “hook” into the next book? Why can’t a book just end, complete and beautiful in itself? I loved this book and I would have found and purchased a sequel, all by my lonesome. Really, I would.
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The Second Duchess
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The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
I plan a huge party on December 12, 2012. Either way it will be a result to celebrate.
We’ll all be there!
Elizabeth, you asked
>Why can’t a book just end, complete and beautiful in itself?
Frank Herbert did that with Dune.
Didn’t Dune have five or six sequels? I lost track.
The next book in Brian’s trilogy should be out before the end of the year, and I am anxiously awaiting it!