[5IX]∎ [PDF] Free Acacia The War with the Mein Acacia Book 1 David Anthony Durham 9780385506069 Books

Acacia The War with the Mein Acacia Book 1 David Anthony Durham 9780385506069 Books

Download As PDF : Acacia The War with the Mein Acacia Book 1 David Anthony Durham 9780385506069 Books

Acacia The War with the Mein Acacia Book 1 David Anthony Durham 9780385506069 Books

Invasion, monster-fighting, assassination, and a kingdom in crisis make for this sweeping, multi-plot adventure. A king is assassinated, his kingdom conquered and his children scattered across continents as they flee for their lives. The series involves their tales and the tales of the conquerors, who find that ruling is a lot more complicated than conquering. Lots of action, a variety of cultures and climates and, of course, magical creatures. The characters are well-rounded; no simple "good-bad" division here. An absorbing and fun read.


Tags : Acacia: The War with the Mein (Acacia, Book 1) [David Anthony Durham] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Leodan Akaran, ruler of the Known World, has inherited generations of apparent peace and prosperity, won ages ago by his ancestors. A widower of high intelligence,David Anthony Durham,Acacia: The War with the Mein (Acacia, Book 1),Doubleday,0385506066,Fantasy - General,Fantasy fiction.,Fantasy,Fantasy - Historical,Fantasy fiction,Fiction,Fiction - Fantasy,Fiction Fantasy General,Science Fiction And Fantasy

Acacia The War with the Mein Acacia Book 1 David Anthony Durham 9780385506069 Books Reviews

Just when you might think "Acacia 1" is going to turn into a typical revenge fantasy, it begins to surprise. And when you reach the artfully cynical ending, maybe you'll be totally stunned.

It begins in a Hitchcock way an assassin is sent to slay the "good king" of the island of Acacia, and in effect emperor of much of the Known World, and you can pretty much figure out by the plot description on the back cover that he will succeed. And so the suspense stems from the wait to see how he accomplishes this. And meanwhile, back at the palace (the story's told from multiple points of view), we meet King Leodan's four children, Aliver, Corinn, Mena, and Dariel (there's no queen--she died 'ere the story began), and the King's chancellor Clegg, and generals, and governers, some totally wicked barbarian fighters mounted on rhinos, and a merchant trading class. Drugs appear, and mention is made of another race living on beyond the "Known World."

Then, the assassin strikes, there's a prolonged sequence while the mortally wounded king dies, the four children are scattered according to a plan laid out years before. But nothing goes as planned. . . . only three get away, and none to where they were supposed to.

And then, nine years later, we meet the four again to see what's become of them. The escapees gradually begin slouching back toward island Acacia once again in order to put the good guys back where they belong. Unfortunately, as the reader has already learned, and they're about to find out, the empire that fell wasn't really all that "good."

And then, after a sequence with too much in the way of magical deus ex machina that bars a fifth star, scenes featuring maybe too much triumph over overwhelming odds (one stickfighter against eight? come on! This is a fantasy novel not a martial arts movie; the one survivor of battlefield carnage is The General himself?), and a logical Holmesian deduction made on a battlefield that really, really would have astounded Watson, we approach that stunning turnaround ending.

Yes, dear reader, this is of course part 1 of a trilogy. (What isn't these days?) And while I shall certainly return for part 2, to appear in Summer 2009, the ending of this book is so perfect in its way that I almost wish the author had simply left things as they were.
I was nervous about purchasing the book because of some of the comments within the bad reviews. I've never written an review but feel complelled to do so. First the multiple character POV are not difficult to follow, especially with how many different ones there are. The stories background is very accessible once one gets beyond the initial confusion of the first 100 pages. Secondly, I don't know why anyone says the story plot is predictable. If anyone has read the 3rd book of the song of fire and ice, you will have WTF moments after page 600. The difference is that in GRRM just jumps into the WTF without any foreshadowing and with DAD there is some build up into these moments within 5 pages of them happening. And for the reviewer who said that he couldn't believe that one of the females became a martial expert within a few weeks or months and so the rest of the plot became unbelievable, well there is 'magic' in the book... the giant race of people, the santooth, the tunishnevre, obviously the book belongs in the fantasy section. Anyhow I am well pleased!
I think I would have liked this book better, if I had not read the back cover first. The events described, which I thought started the book, instead took 100+ pages to get to. This made the first 100 pages seem painfully slow. Not a flaw of the book, but an expectations mismatch.

The slow pacing of the book continued throughout, though. And it is slower than I think I would have liked anyway. It doesn't make it bad, this is just my preference. If you like that in a book, you may enjoy this one.

This really reads much more like a historical novel, than a fantasy novel, fantasy aspects are pretty minimal. If you are looking for High Fantasy, this isn't it.

The book is generally well written, populated with interesting characters. And the characters on different sides are all characters, not "good", and "evil". Everyone is going for their interests, or their idea of "right", it's not "good guys" vs. cardboard characters. Durham does this really well.

There's a very large cast, and a fair amount of background. It gives the book a nice feeling of depth, and of being a view into a existing world. The depth makes the world feel much more real than many books, which sometimes feel as if their world ends one step past the events in the book.

The one thing I really didn't like about the book was the combination of multiple points of view with cliff-hangers at the end of nearly every section. It made me feel like the author has been watching too much television, and didn't realize how poorly the cliff-hangers fit the structure of the novel. Every viewpoint change became an annoyance that threw me out of the narrative, instead of being an interesting shift to new events. This is the reason I won't bother with the other books in this series.

If you like slow pacing (I suspect a ten volume set coming), and aren't bothered by cliffhangers, the author does a lot of the rest really well, and you might really enjoy the book.
Invasion, monster-fighting, assassination, and a kingdom in crisis make for this sweeping, multi-plot adventure. A king is assassinated, his kingdom conquered and his children scattered across continents as they flee for their lives. The series involves their tales and the tales of the conquerors, who find that ruling is a lot more complicated than conquering. Lots of action, a variety of cultures and climates and, of course, magical creatures. The characters are well-rounded; no simple "good-bad" division here. An absorbing and fun read.