Gary Jennings

Jennings researched Aztec by living in Mexico for twelve years and learning Nahuatl, and the novel narrates the conquest from the losing side, in the voice of an old man dictating to Spanish friars. It is long, violent and explicit in ways the historical fiction of 1980 mostly was not. The Journeyer does the same for Marco Polo, filling in what the original account leaves out. He served in Korea, wrote for children first, and died in 1999, after which other writers continued the series under his name.