The valley was isolated in time and space, a land of barbarous science and human sacrifice.
Coatlice the Dreadful stalked the night, her twin serpent heads dealing death to taboo-breakers.
Citallatonac the First Priest sacrificed anyone believed to be possessed by the gods.
Chimal rebelled: he wanted to escape the atavistic confines of his lost civilisation, to venture into the unknown world beyond the valley, a world of hope, and nightmare, too.
Harry Harrison (1925-2012) Harry Harrison was born Henry Maxwell Dempsey in Connecticut, in 1925. He was the author of a number of much-loved series including the Stainless Steel Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero sequences and the Deathworld Trilogy. He was known as a passionate advocate of Esperanto, the most popular of the constructed international languages, which appears in many of his novels. He published novels for over half a century and was perhaps best known for his seminal novel of overpopulation, Make Room! Make Room!, which was adapted into the cult film Soylent Green.