Acacia by David Anthony Durham

David Anthony Durham's Acacia has some of elements of epic fantasy we’ve all seen before: a large empire, a resentful race, a king’s children scattered and forced to grow into previously hidden strengths, a near-ritualized style of sword fighting, political intrigue, large battle scenes, and a few others. But anyone thinking to write off Acacia as simply another cookie-cutter fantasy would be missing a highly rewarding read — for Durham gives us these familiar set-ups only to repeatedly yank them out from under our feet.

The title of the book is also the name of the empire we meet at the start, an empire that has ruled the “known world” for generations and whose symbol is the acacia tree that adorns its home island. But Acacia is built on a deeply immoral foundation. Long ago, it agreed to a Faustian bargain with th... Read More

The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham

PLOT SUMMARY: Several years have passed since the demise of Hanish Mein. Corinn Akaran rules with an iron grip on the Known World's many races. She hones her skills in sorcery by studying The Book of Elenet and dotes on her young son, Aaden — Hanish's child — raising him to be her successor. Mena Akaran, still the warrior princess she became fighting the eagle god Maeben, has been battling the monsters released by the Santoth's corrupted magic. In her hunt she discovers a creature wholly unexpected, one that awakens long suppressed emotions in her. And Dariel Akaran, once a brigand of the Outer Isles, has devoted his labors to rebuilding the ravaged empire brick by brick. Each of the Akaran royals is finding their way in the post-war world, but the queen's peace is difficult to maintain, and things are about to change.

When the League brings news of upheavals in the Othe... Read More

The Sacred Band by David Anthony Durham

ABOUT THE SACRED BAND: With Acacia: The War with the Mein and The Other Lands, the first two books in the Acacia trilogy, David Anthony Durham created a vast and engrossing canvas where the surviving children of a royal dynasty are struggling to find their place in a world full of turmoil.

As The Sacred Band begins, Queen Corinn Akaran looms over the Known World because of her mastery of spells found in the ancient Book of Elenet. Meanwhile, her younger brother Dariel has been sent on a perilous mis­sion to the Other Lands, as her sister Mena travels to the far north to confront an invasion from the feared Auldek. Their separate trajectories will converge in a series of world-shaping, earth-shattering battles that will realize the Akarans’ fates — and perhaps righ... Read More

The Sacred Band by David Anthony Durham

The most pleasant surprise about The Other Lands, the previous book in the ACACIA trilogy by David Anthony Durham, was that it broadened the scope of the series tremendously. Ushen Brae, the setting for a large part of the action in that book, proved to be a complex and interesting place, with its non-human Auldek tribes, several strata of human Quota slaves (from a warrior caste to an organized “Free People” resistance movement), the mostly extinct Lothan Aklun race, and a rich and fascinating history. The Sacred Band doesn’t expand the series’ fantasy world to the same extent as The Other Lands did, although it does reveal some inland areas of Ushen Brae that were previously unseen. Rather than expanding the world, The Sacred Band instead build... Read More