Speculative Fiction Junkie

David Anthony Durham

David Anthony Durham's Acacia is a book that I've been hearing about everywhere lately. It was recently released in paperback so I decided to pick up a copy and give it a go.

Acacia is the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy by Mr. Durham set in the Known World, Mr. Durham's creation and a world with a wide range of cultures and climates on a scale that rivals our own. The Known World is ruled by the Acacian Empire with the dynastic Akaran family at its helm. Towards the beginning of the book, the King is assassinated and the Acacian Empire falls to the Meins, Viking-like invaders from the North. The four Akaran children are quickly separated and find themselves scattered across the Known World, where they become completely different people over the next decade. As the book ends, the eldest Akaran has decided to avenge his father and reclaim the Akaran throne.

The first thing I really liked about this book was the sympathetic picture Mr. Durham paints of the Akaran family. The reader can feel how close knit it is and truly aches when it is scattered. This is something I have never really experienced in an epic fantasy book before and I thought it was a great way to begin the story.

Mr. Durham's second achievement is the way he explores the difference between the image the Acacian Empire projects and the reality of its weakness. While the average person inhabiting the Known World thinks of Acacia as a more or less all-powerful empire, the truth is that it is relatively weak and subject to the mercy of a merchant guild and a never-before-seen race of people across the sea to whom the empire must send a quota of slaves periodically. The assassination of the King brings this reality to the forefront and I really thought that this contrast between image and reality was one of the book's most interesting dynamics.

In fact, my first complaint about Acacia is that this thread was not explored more. While Mr. Durham definitely did a great job of making his world interesting and complete--in terms of providing sufficient historical, geographical, cultural, and climatological variety--and started to explore dynamics like the image vs. realty dynamic described above, he didn't explore them as much as he might have. The result is that while the novel has elements of all the right "stuff" in it, that sense of atmosphere that ultimately "sells" a fantasy world to the reader wasn't really there consistently. I apologize if that sounds vague but I'm not really sure how else to put it. Part of it may be attributable to the fact that I felt like the mini stories within stories that can often flesh out a fantasy world were lacking: we only really hear about the main characters throughout the book.

My final issue with the book is that I simply could not believe in the completeness of each of the Akaran children's transformations. Each of them becomes a completely different person from the child he or she was and I just found it hard to believe that these royal children could show such a remarkable ability to completely transform themselves. Because of this, I couldn't really sympathize with who they had become by the end of the book (except for Mena, who is easily the most easy to sympathize with). In fact, I found myself wishing to know more about the dark underbelly of the Known World and less about the adult Akaran children.

Acacia is a very good book and I am really looking forward to reading the remaining books in the trilogy because Mr. Durham has laid a good foundation for a great story. However, I'm not sure that I can be made to care enough about the Akaran children again as characters. By the end of Acacia they seemed to have become less human and more archetypes. I really hope their adult personalities are fleshed out in the next book.

Rating: 7/10

The True First

Acacia was first published in New York by Doubleday in 2007. For some reason I'm having a difficult time acquiring a copy.

[This review was not based on a review copy]