If you like high fantasy or involved plots with lots of palace intrigue, then David Anthony Durham’s Acacia is for you. At best I’m ambivalent about such books, and so I can’t ignore the flaws.
Acacia is the empire ruling over the known world. Leodan Akaran is the emperor, but he’s a weak emperor. The kings and governors of the various provinces hold much sway. As does the League, which controls the seas, trade, and the mist. Twenty-two generations ago, Leodan’s ancestor Tinhadin conquered the Mein a violent tribe, and exiled them to a cold northern plateau. They haven’t forgotten this, and their dead are denied release. They wait in sarcophagi to be released to their revenge against the Akaran line and Acacia. A release which requires the death of an Akaran heir.
Hanish Mein and his brother Maeander Mein have a secret army, secret allies, and secret weapons. Also lots and lots of treachery. After 22 generations, they are ready to strike back. King Leodan is murdered, and in the ensuing chaos Hanish’ army sweeps through Acacia with hardly any resistance. As his last directive before the poison that kills him takes effect, Leodan has his children taken to far-flung parts of the empire, hidden from the Meinish retribution, and denying Hanish the ability to return his ancestors to life.
What kind of children will the Akarans grow up to be? Will they remember who they are? Will Hanish Mein get his revenge? Will he be assimilated to the ease of holding power? You have to read to the end of this episode to find out.
The first part of the book describes the Meinish takeover. It’s supposed to introduce us to the characters, but it comes off as very perfunctory. Even the history comes across as paper-thin. The characters even more so. Because when next we see them it’s 9 years later and they are in hiding. Durham doesn’t seem to do growth and change in his characters all that well. So the 9 year absence has most of the Akarans forgetting who they are and spending chapters recovering their birthright selves.
Durham doesn’t really have any bad guys. By the end of the book, everyone will be found to have been driven to their positions by the currents of history. This is sort of a problem. If you have an epic battle between opposing views of history, while it’s realistic to have little difference between them, it also gives little reason to invest yourself with either of them, and hence little reason to care about the outcome. It’s like watching a presidential election in Spain. I don’t care who wins their elections! I need a reason to care. If the news media doesn’t tell me a difference between the two sides, enough to allow me to identify with one or the other, it’s just finding out what happens that has the only chance of interesting me. And in the case of Acacia, about the only two things that even have a chance of interesting me by the end are whether the Mein’s will succeed with releasing the Tunishnevre (the Meinish ancestors) and whether the Akarans will succeed in releasing the Santoth (Akaran ancestors banished as well). Frankly, I just didn’t care all that much, since Durham made such an effort to make all of them prisoners of history. He gave me no reason to root for one side or the other, and reading the unfolding history wasn’t exciting either.
One last nit. Having a character ask another character does anyone else know the information you just told me?
means that character 1 is going to murder character 2 and use the information for himself. This happens three freaking times in the book. It’s a death sentence! Gee, if no one else knows this supervaluable information, then I can be killed to prevent anyone else from getting the supervaluable information. You would think character 2 would know this. Especially since character 2 in a later scene is character 1 in an earlier repetition of the scene.
Author: David Anthony Durham
Title: Acacia
Publisher: Doubleday
Format: Advance readers copy
Publication date: 12 Jun 2007
Length: 593 p.
ISBN-10: 0-385-50606-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-385-50606-9
LC classification: PS3554.U677 A33 2007
