Acacia: The War with the Mein

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Acacia: The War with the Mein is a 2007 novel by American author David Anthony Durham. It marks his first foray into epic fantasy, although the novel shares some characteristics of his other works such as the historical novel, Pride of Carthage.

1 Publication details
2 Plot summary
3 Awards and honors
4 External links

[edit] Publication details

Written by David Anthony Durham
First published: Doubleday, United States, 2007.
Acacia: The War with the Mein has been translated into French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Swedish and will be published in the United Kingdom.

[edit] Plot summary

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, he presides over an empire called Acacia, after the idyllic island from which he rules. He dotes on his four children and hides from them the dark realities of traffic in drugs and human lives on which their prosperity depends. He hopes that he might change this, but powerful forces stand in his way. A deadly assassin sent from a race called the Mein, exiled long ago to an ice-locked stronghold in the frozen north, strikes at Leodan in the heart of Acacia while other enemies unleash surprise attacks across the empire. On his deathbed, Leodan puts into play a plan to allow his children to escape, each to their separate destiny. His children begin a quest to avenge their father's death and restore the Acacian empire–this time on the basis of universal freedom.

The novel is notable for the complexity of Durham's imagined world, one in which political, economic, mythological and morally ambiguous forces all influence the fates of the ethnically and culturally diverse population. In some ways the novel uses familiar fantasy frameworks, but over the course of the novel many fantasy tropes are overturned or skewed in surprising ways. It is a fairly self-contained tale, but the author is at work on more volumes set in this world.