Acacia: The War with the Mein (Acacia #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Aug 14, 2007 Peggy rated it really liked it

When I was asked to review this book, I was less than enthusiastic. I’ve been reading genre fiction for a long time, and there are things I’d decided I was done with. Topping that list was “High Fantasy Quest Novels,” followed almost immediately by “Book 1 of a Brand New Series” (with a special amount of “done” leftover for “Book 1’s in Excess of 500 Pages”). Still, the book was sent to me by someone I trust, so I decided to give it a go.

She always was the smart one.

David Anthony Durham has pu ...more

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Dec 25, 2009 Jeffrey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009, fantasy

This huge 750 page paperback is the first volume in the fantasy world created by the author. It contains impressive worldbuilding, history, magic of a sort and religion, but in some ways the huge worldbuilding and the effort of the author to cram so much into this first volume is, to my mind a real downfall.

The novel can be divided into three separate parts. The first 200 pages of the novel, which are devoted to explaining the world, the use of a drug called Mist to enslave hundreds of people i This huge 750 page paperback is the first volume in the fantasy world created by the author. It contains impressive worldbuilding, history, magic of a sort and religion, but in some ways the huge worldbuilding and the effort of the author to cram so much into this first volume is, to my mind a real downfall.

The novel can be divided into three separate parts. The first 200 pages of the novel, which are devoted to explaining the world, the use of a drug called Mist to enslave hundreds of people in the populous and the use of slave labor and sale of children to appease foreign adversaries, and also to set the stage for the attack by the Mein, is frightfully long and really just forces one at times to skim the book. The worldbuilding is impressive, but given the thrust of the story, that is that it starts on the first page with the journey of an assassin and yet takes over 200 pages for the Assassin to strike is difficul

The next 300 pages are much better as the author splits time between the children of the king of Acacia who are all forced into new lives -- Spratling is a pirate ship captain, Mena is a Priestess of the Vuma, who learns to be a great swordswoman, Aliver, is a warrior and Corinn lives in the taken palace controlled by Hamish the ruler of the Mein, and also two others from Acacia, Thaddeus Clegg, the prime Minister and a General, plus Hamish the ruler of the Mein.

The last 250 pages is consumed with Aliver's journey to meet with the Santoth's, a group of vile sorcerers who have been trapped for hundreds of years by Aliver's ancestor and the attempt by the Acacians both in the field with Aliver and by Corinn to take back control of the country.
This was also well done as we can see how Corinn becomes powerful and seizes control of a special book in a diabolical way. I liked this part less than the middle but it was still very good.

I have the second volume out of the library right now but I think I need a break from this world -- rather than rushing right into the next volume, which I think in a way is very telling.

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Feb 24, 2009 John rated it liked it

I first read this novel 15 years ago and although I didn’t review it at the time, I must have viewed it favorably, because I gave it 4 stars. It didn’t hold up as well for me the second time, and I think a big issue for me is was the characters and their relation to the plot.

Briefly, I should touch on the plot—the Acacian Empire rules the known world. The King, Leodan, is well aware of the evils that foster prosperity in his land, but feels powerless to change any of it. And, besides, he lost h I first read this novel 15 years ago and although I didn’t review it at the time, I must have viewed it favorably, because I gave it 4 stars. It didn’t hold up as well for me the second time, and I think a big issue for me is was the characters and their relation to the plot.

Briefly, I should touch on the plot—the Acacian Empire rules the known world. The King, Leodan, is well aware of the evils that foster prosperity in his land, but feels powerless to change any of it. And, besides, he lost his wife and is single-parenting. To his credit, he is a better father than king, doting on his children and hoping that my raising good kids they can be the kind of good and effective ruler that he can’t be and right there wrongs.

But then the chickens of imperial oppression come home to roost as the Mein, a subjugated people in the far north with grievances generations long, come in and quickly assassinate Leodan (not really a spoiler here) and crush the army at every turn. But the kids more or less escape, with the implicit promise that they’ll grow up to retake the kingdom and set things aright.

All pretty standard stuff.

And, to be fair, Durham makes a number of nice moves that I really appreciated in his world building and plotting. I’ve already alluded to the fact that, although the empire had certain evils at its heart, Leodan (and his kids) are good—or at least nice—people. And the point is that good people in evil systems still end up with evil results. Even the Mein and their leader, although somewhat sympathetic in their oppression and legitimate grievances, end up repeating the same evils: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. But again, it’s not good people vs evil people, it’s people against people, with different pasts, perspectives, and interests. And what’s clearly needed is a change to the system (which is never easy).

The thing is, I didn’t feel like the novel worked from the perspective of creating the characters, developing them, and driving the plot through them. The motivation always seemed very generic and very much in the service of getting us from plot point a to b and so on. There were some nice decisions in there, but it only rarely felt like real people making real decisions.

As my 3 stars indicate, I didn’t hate it, but it was only okay, and not compelling enough for me to continue the series. ...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Tani rated it really liked it

Shelves: male-author, fantasy, 2012

I've been meaning to read this ever since it came out, and now I'm kind of sorry that I put it off for so long. This is epic fantasy that is very much in the style of George R. R. Martin, with a large ensemble cast and a realism that is often depressing, but never boring. I really liked this a lot, and will have to get to the second book a lot sooner than I did the first. ...more

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