Nights of the Witch: War God, Book 1

Tozi is a magical person, daughter of a witch , and she has a great destiny before her. Trapped in the fattening pen of the Aztecs things start getting rather urgent. Persecuted by others for her magical ability and the increasing appetite of the Hummingbird God make it imperative for her to escape.While in this fattening pen Tozi befriend a young baby Coyotl and a Mayan slave girl named Malinal.On the outside things are getting worse. Europeans are arriving under the leadership of Hernan Cortes and they are armed to the teeth. Montezuma the great speaker hallucinates mushrooms and the a hummingbird god tells him to sacrifice 50 thousand women to help him to defeat Cortes. The blood sacrifices ar endless. It takes a heavy toll on the other tribes that are not under Aztec rule.It is during this run of sacrifices that Tozi and her friend make their escape. Tozi links up with an Aztec spy who wants to bring down Montezuma. Together they hatch a plan. Meanwhile Malinal goes back to her home town where in we find she was royalty but through acts of betrayal found herself a slave. Coyotl gets lost in the mix.While looking for sacrifices an Aztec chieftain is caught by Shikotenko a Tlascan warrior. The two fight and the Aztec nephew is left for dead . But he lives and through Tozi he lives but this is part of the plan.All the while the Mayan are slaughtered by European munition. This is a work,of historical fiction . The author does a good job of exposing the flaws of both European and Native populations. Both were human and both had serious flaws . The coming of Europeans to America was not a good thing.

I really enjoyed this book, I like well researched historical novels that are long enough to give you a sense of being there, not feeling let down by being so sort you feel like you just read a movie script.I especially liked the weaving of the known history with the Supernatural in a way that is totally in keeping with the cultures in question. It took me awhile to realize what was going on with "The" War God - and I won't say anymore and be a spoiler but lets just say once I did figure it out I think I understood things a lot better.The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that I was a little overwhelmed by extremely detailed battle scenes which I'm sure my husband would love (we've both done a lot of historical re-enactment and he does fighting) but eventually just made me feel a bit lost and like I wanted my story back. I think this is a personal preference in reading styles, so those who like military fiction are likely to really enjoy these pages, but I just can't handle them after while (and I feel the same way about the long battle scenes that are sometimes in my husband's own novels).I also felt just a tiny bit unconnected having so many point of view personages to follow, again I realize this is a popular modern style of writing and useful when you have multiple stories to tie together. But I couldn't help remember how gripped I felt reading the novel AZTEC years ago, which is done as an "autobiography" of the view point personage; and while I thought Mr. Jennings went way over the top in his descriptions of some of the darker stuff, I did feel very connected to his point of view Character; whereas in War God I felt most connected to Tozi the young "witch" girl and Pepito (a young boy of similar age). After while having so many others to try and sort out because a bit hard to deal with, and I realized I was starting to confuse them - that said, I like novels with lots of characters so on balance I would rather have this problem that the usual tendency of modern historical novels to only have five or six people in them.Still, all in all, I could not stop reading until far into the night for several evenings when I should have been sleeping, always the sign of a good book.And three cheers for Mr. Hancock for refusing to hide the Aztec's blood lust for sacrifices behind some PC modern revisionist screen. That's because serious historical know that the Aztec's had gotten so out-of-control in this department, that their neighbors totally hated their guts and many were happy to side with Cortez, even saw him as a deliverer from the evil Aztec Empire, especially at first.Yes, other tribes had similar practices but not nearly to the same degree; the Aztecs were a society that had gone totally out of control on this issue, needing ever expanding wars to bring back prisoners to execute. That in no way takes away from the many amazing things they accomplished as a people; their temples, public buildings, social structure, agriculture, writing (of which precious little is left), military skills etc - but to ignore it also skews history (and I have a degree in history and anthropology).I am not sure however, that I would have portrayed Moctecazuma in exactly the way that Mr. Hancock has chosen to do so, but his presentation is highly believable and fits with the story (as well as some of the limited historical records).All together, I recommend this book to anyone; a great combination of history and supernatural fantasy without a vampire or ware-wolf to be seen!I am waiting happily for the next installment!

OH great!If you love a person, how can you destroy his or her freedom? If you trust a person, you trust her or his freedom too.One day it happened that a man came to me who was really in a mess, very miserable. And he said, 'I will commit suicide.'I said, 'Why?'He said, 'I trusted my wife and she has betrayed me. I had trusted her absolutely and she has been in love with some other man. And I never came to know about it until just now! I have got hold of a few letters. So then I inquired, and then I insisted, and now she has confessed that she has been in love all the time. I will commit suicide' he said.I said, 'You say you trusted her?'He said, 'Yes, I trusted her and she betrayed me.'What do you mean by trust?—some wrong notion about trust; trust also seems to be political.'You trusted her so that she would not betray you. Your trust was a trick. Now you want to make her feel guilty. This is not trust.'He was very puzzled. He said, 'What do you mean by trust then, if this is not trust? I trusted her unconditionally.'I said, 'If I were in your place, trust would mean to me that I trust her freedom, and I trust her intelligence, and I trust her loving capacity. If she falls in love with somebody else, I trust that too. She is intelligent, she can choose. She is free, she can love. I trust her understanding.'What do you mean by trust? When you trust her intelligence, her understanding, her awareness, you trust it. And if she finds that she would like to move into love with somebody else, it is perfectly okay. Even if you feel pain, that is your problem; it is not her problem. And if you feel pain, that is not because of love, that is because of jealousy.What kind of trust is this, that you say it has been betrayed? My understanding of trust is that it cannot be betrayed. By its very nature, by its very definition, trust cannot be betrayed. It is impossible to betray trust. If trust can be betrayed, then it is not trust. Think over it.If I love a woman, I trust her intelligence infinitely. And, if in some moments she wants to be loving to somebody else, it is perfectly good. I have always trusted her intelligence. She must be feeling like that. She is free. She is not my other half, she is independent. And when two persons are independent individuals, only then there is love. Love can flow only between two freedoms. tvis204I have seen couples who have lived together for thirty or forty years; still, they seem to be as immature as they were on their first day together. Still the same complaint: "She doesn't understand what I am saying." Forty years being together and you have not been able to figure out some way that your wife can understand exactly what you are saying, and you can understand exactly what she is saying.But I think there is no possibility for it to happen except through meditation, because meditation gives you the qualities of silence, awareness, a patient listening, a capacity to put yourself in the other's position.It is possible with me: I am not concerned with the trivia of your life.You are here basically to listen and understand.You are here to grow spiritually. enligh16

Excellent read! Very violent and at times hard to stomach but well worth it. I love learning through story and though I am aware this is a non fiction, it manages to provide great insight into a very dark and important event in our history. Loved it, have just ordered the next one! Can't wait to continue the journey :)

Part fantasy, part historical fiction. Probably wouldn't pass as literature. Some clumsy moments (e.g the boy and his dog sub plot) but what the hell because this is every bit as epic and engrossing as J R R Martin or Tolkien. All the more astounding for being based on a significant moment in world history which would beggar belief were it not so well documented. Hancock basically gets the sequence of real events correct so the trilogy offers an entertaining and convenient means to understanding the Spanish conquest of old Mexico; a subject we probably all know something about without knowing the details. Some haunting moments and characters. The trilogy ends with the story far from completely told. I understand there will be volume 4. Looking forward to it

First off, this is an extremely enjoyable and emotionally engaging book. It's not history, but it takes historical events and brings them to life through the fictionalised first person point of view narratives of various people set in historical settings. There is the gold and conquest crazed Spanish, who are seen through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old slave boy, as well as a bloodthirsty psychopathic lieutenant, and Cortez himself, who is written as an ambitious, conquest hungry violent man who justifies his actions through a highly dubious and unconvincing reading of the Bible, and instructional dreams of `Saint Peter,' who is most probably a demon intent on causing as much death and misery as possible. The Mayan, Aztec and Mexica people are seen through the eyes of a slave girl witch who escapes the gruesome `fattening pen,' a beautiful courtesan/prostitute, a rival war chieftain who opposes the sacrifice crazed Mexica, and the leader of the Mexica, the historical Moctezuma, who is portrayed as a cowardly psychopath who is being manipulated by a blood thirsty demon who has disguised itself as a God. The most interesting thing about this book is not the individuals themselves, but the `Gods' who are manipulating the story through their influence on the main characters in the narrative. These `Gods' appear in different forms to the different characters, but they all appear to have one thing in common. That being, they want blood, and they want as much blood as is possible. Gods, or demons pretending to be Gods? It's a fascinating question, and one that has as much relevance today as it did back in the times of Cortez and Moctezuma. This book is just the beginning of the story of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. It follows the Spanish into their first major battle, and as it ends they have their eyes on the big prize. The city of Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Mexica, and the land that promises the Gold that the Spanish are prepared to butcher and murder for. It's a fantastic beginning, and the epic first battle between the technological advanced Spanish war machine and a woefully unprepared and overmatched Mayan tribe is awful, yet highly informative. Telling the reader exactly how such a small band of just five hundred men defeated a huge army of tens of thousands of brave but technologically overmatched warriors.In conclusion, this is a fantastic page turning work of historical fiction. The big problem was always going to be that the Spanish were obviously murderous scumbags, and the Aztecs themselves were human sacrifice hungry scumbags as well. How do you pull for either side, when both sides consist of serial killing, murderous psychopaths who are perfectly willing to butcher thousands of people to serve their own war Gods, who are almost certainly the same demons pretending to be Gods, in order to get both sides butchering each other? It could have been an insurmountable problem, but by telling the story through characters on both sides who are essentially slaves, the author (Graham Hancock) largely gets around this problem, as the reader can pull for the individual rather than either sides of the psychopathic, blood thirsty, warring armies.When you finish a book and your first reaction is disappointment that you've finished and there's nothing more to read, you know the author has done his job. That's how I felt after reading War God: Nights of the witch. Luckily for me, and anybody else reading this fantastic book, this book is just the beginning. The story will continue in, War God: Return of the plumed serpent. Put my name down for that one as well. I'm looking forward to reading it already.

Fasten your seat-belts for a roller-coaster ride when you embark on War God. You meet, in short order, young Pepillo by Santiago harbour, carrying the unspeakable belongings of his master, the dark hearted inquisitor. At the same time, a few hundred miles away from Cuba, the orphaned witch Tozi is struggling to stay alive in the fattening pens, in sight of the blood soaked pyramids of the Aztecs. Dominating a pyramid is the Aztec king Moctezuma, on a huge killing spree, while his armies gather to attack neighbouring tribes to capture more victims for slaughter. Spying from a hillside above one of these armies, the courageous warrior Shikotenka, has a desperate stratagem to save his people from the altars of blood.Graham Hancock's first novel, charting the clash of two warrior empires, is both gripping and convincing. War God is described as historical within the fantasy genre. Hancock uses forays into the paranormal to powerful effect and in a way that is entirely believable. The Spaniards, with their absolute certainty of their moral right, live in a world where saints can, and do, intervene in human affairs. Moctezuma, uses hallucinogens and the psychic power of mass slaughter, to alter his consciousness to commune with the fickle god, Hummingbird. He knows he lives in a year when the fates decree his empire is at risk and he is determined to prevent this. Young Tozi can, at great physical cost to herself, become briefly invisible to others not skilled in her magic. This is how she has, so far at least, avoided losing her heart to a slash of an obsidian knife.Both militant Christianity and the barbarous rites of the Mexica people, involved mass slaughter of innocents. Yet within each of these traditions were individuals of true nobility who influenced the course of history. Hancock provides an attractive portrayal of the wily and courageous Cortes. The war exploits of Shikotenka presents some of the finest action writing since O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series.We must hope this novel is the first of a his own series.

Admittedly I'm only about 65% through the book at the time of writing this but I'm hooked and really enjoying the story very much. I love Hancock's writing style and the way he sways from one character's progress to another and manages to even relay the slight overlaps in perspective when appropriate. The characters are developed really nicely and the descriptions of scenery, clothing, weaponry, body language, character-interactions and even thought processes are vivid - I also really like the vocabulary which is enhanced by the fact that the Kindle edition allows me to check dictionary definitions when I come across words that are new to me. Having read Hancock's last fictional offering 'Entangled' I would say that, although I did enjoy it & look forward to the next instalment, I'm enjoying this much more. To my knowledge this book is part-one of the War God story so I'm expecting some sort of cliff-hanger ending but just relishing the journey with every new page.I think as Graham has stated in interviews that having the freedom to explore certain themes within the realm of fiction that certainly deserve much more research, attention and at least acknowledgement by the mainstream scientific community, but instead seem to receive ridicule, is a great move on his part. I applaud him for his research and works of non-fiction as well as his novels and commend him for successfully expanding the minds of his readers in both genres. I highly recommend War God!