Forthcoming from Fairwood Press, August 25, 2026!

The legions of New Serraña have a sacred custom: when a legionnaire falls in battle, a member of their company must bear the body home to the dead soldier’s family. Álbaro Ceynos is the only surviving member of his company. He’d been garrisoned at Presidio Los Primos, known as the realm’s safest assignment, until a fabled monster emerged from legend, crept down from the mountains, and laid waste to the old fortress.

Now, with one horse, one wagon, one sword, and all his slain brethren, Álbaro the bonebearer roams a decaying empire, bringing home his comrades' remains. As he meets an array of mourners who move him to question past choices and future commitments, he’ll reveal how the tragedy unfolded, death by death, and how it is that he yet lives.

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"A deeply imagined and beautifully written blend of travelogue, memorial, and fantastical history amid an unfolding mystery of what really happened to the tale-teller’s comrades. A story to savor." —Kate Elliott, author of The Witch Roads

"An addictive read. Story by story, a fascinating world is revealed, at times heartbreaking, comic, or terrifying, but always compassionate and original. A fantasy has never felt so real, its people so true." —Sue Burke, author of Semiosis

"Astonishing and strange, sublime little gems both surreal and somehow perfectly true! The Book of the Jaguar has all the humor and introspection of Nicholson Baker, and the lightness when confronting the absurd of Italo Calvino. Like if the traveller in Invisible Cities had a name and drove a wagon full of ashes, memories, and lies into an imagined colonial Mexico. The language was stunning, luring me into these gorgeous gems of Álbaro’s arrival to each bereaved family, which surprised me every time. The fantasy only heightens the excavation of the human soul. Victor Ladis Schultz has given us a gift in Álbaro, a mirror for us all." —Brenda Peynado, author of Time's Agent, winner of the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award

"Álbaro Ceynos … narrates this brilliant mosaic novel of his experiences as he delivers the cremated remains of his eighty-plus comrades to their families. Schultz wraps each of Álbaro’s vignettes in sublime prose while allowing the truth of the events to leak out, providing the reader a ‘pot of diadems’ that slowly and artfully coalesce to reveal what befell both Ceynos and the other members of his battalion.

Like Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, what at first appear to be random episodes are, rather, perfectly pitched personal histories that fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces. But here we’re in a 10th century world where the fantasy elements assemble so quietly you might miss them. Most highly recommended." —Gregory Frost, author of Rhymer and Shadowbridge

"The Book of the Jaguar is literary magic, weaving together the crushing weight of colonial history, the pure inventiveness of Victor Ladis Schultz’s fantastical world, and the full emotional range of grief and the life that continues despite it all. This debut is a truly revolutionary work of memory and imagination." —Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief of the Chicago Review of Books

"Victor Ladis Schultz's [work is] Latinx 'weird fiction' that might remind readers of the early Julio Cortázar." —Chiricú Journal