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...