A Distant Mountain

In his compelling and fresh sixth book Craig A. Grimes takes a speculative look on history, power, and society. How so often little things lead to unforeseen big things, and carefully planned big things so often lead to nothing.

A Distant Mountain takes one to The Valley of Mexico about 1350. The Aztecs have yet to rise to power; they are just one of the many Nahua city-states making up, as they knew it, the One World. What we know of these people, crushed in an eye-blink, generally begins and ends with ritual blood sacrifice. Yet at that time they had the most modern society of any in the world with, uniquely, free public education for all children, hospitals, efficiently managed public works, an ethical judicial system, and government supported associations that cared for the needy. The towns and cities were orderly, clean, prosperous and efficient. Which suggests that their society had both a rational and irrational aspect to it- like most.

Craig observes: “Although the novel is fictional it is largely based on actual events and practices. In A Distant Mountain I explore, through a series of individual decisions made with the best of intentions, how societies can give birth to their own disappearance. We follow the trajectory of Lord Quinatzin, who has unexpectedly become King of Azcapotzalco and must now guide the realm through the treacherous shoals of existence. Within The Valley lives Kulcan, an unlikely champion who has a task of vengeance placed upon his prodigious shoulders. The two are bound by a wrong decision, inadvertent miscalculation, which creates a chain of events rippling out through space and time. A Distant Mountain is a meditative reflection on the ephemeral nature of power, and how societies begin as one thing and end up as another.” 

Age and youth, peace and war, death and love, the strikingly beautiful story is alive with a truth and understanding that illuminate the soul as a marvellous dream.