Book excerpt: The Zama Codex is a fictional novel set in Central America and structured as alternating chapters describing parallel stories, one set during the fall of the Mayan classic age and the other at a present day archaeological excavation. The reader is drawn into the life of Zama, a scribe and noble living in a highland Mayan city-state (circa 800 A.D). When the city's high priest prophesizes the demise of Mayan civilization, Zama becomes apprentice and scribe to Chaco, a sorcerer with an ambitious plan to save the best of Mayan mystical knowledge from oblivion. The parallel story follows events surrounding the discovery of Zama's codex containing instructions for the acquisition of mystical power on a cosmic scale.