Tomorrow’s Sphinx — (1986) Young adult. Publisher: Two unusual black cheetahs share a mental link, one cat coming from the past to reveal scenes from his life with the young pharaoh Tutankhamen, and one struggling to survive in a future world ravaged by ecological disaster.
People of the Sky — (1989) Old technology survives and even thrives on the challenges of a new planet populated by ancient human spirits. Kesbe Temiya, a freelance flyer, accepts a commission to deliver an ancient-but-restored C-47 (a Gooney Bird in 20th Century parlance, named The Gooney Berg by its new owner) to a collector of rare aircraft on the planet Oneway. Dropped off by a starship, Temiya gets side-tracked by bad weather, rescued by a mysterious figure riding an alien flying creature and stranded in a long-vanished Pueblo Indian colony which follows the prophecy of the Blue Star Kachina and lives the old ways, isolated from technology and away from the white man. Despite her own Pueblo blood, Kesbe is an outsider and only by adopting the ways of the People of the Sky, including a ritual that may turn her, too, into a throwback and could even kill her, can she find the help she needs to fulfill her mission-and find the life that is right for her.
The Jaguar Princess — (1993) Young adult. Kirkus: Young slave girl Mixcatl, abducted from her eastern jungle home when a toddler, evinces a rare talent for painting, so the scribes of the ruling Aztec city Tenochtitlan set her to copying ancient texts and glyphs, while also attempting to instill in her the elements of their religion — which involves vast, bloody sacrifices to the warrior-god Hummmingbird on the Left. But Mixcatl suspects herself to be different from other folk: she has preternaturally sharp senses, an ability to animate dead jaguar skins and claws, and a disturbing tendency to change her shape, as if something within her body was attempting to emerge. In the rival but independent city of Tezcotzinco, meanwhile, the gentle Speaker- King, Wise Coyote, desperately searches for a means to retain his independence in the face of the implacably expansionist Tenochtitlan. From the old scribe Nine-Lizard, Wise Coyote learns of the ancient Olmec magicians and their half-jaguar, half-human rulers, and wonder whether Mixcatl is not one such, and whether he can use her to destroy the revolting Hummingbird cult. If, for instance, he could persuade Mixcatl to transform herself into a jaguar in full view of the people, Hummingbird would be discredited…
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