Title: Acadia book 1: The Lost
King and the Goddess of Time
Author: Ali Naqvi
Series: Acadia #1
Published: 30 March 2011
Length: 376 pages
Warnings: death, arson, semi-graphic gore, semi-nudity, something like a vampire, something ghosts,
Source: Author
Summary : It was only a nightmare at first, but Damont soon realizes that he can see into the future-a curse he has to live with for being the only son of a king dead for a thousand years, with a mother who is the goddess of time.
A man in black armor with a face as obscure as the shadows mantling him laughs wickedly. Who is he and why does he continue to haunt me, Damont wonders. Appearing only in his dreams, the man in the black armor stands alone and laughs high as if to mock him while the world around him burns to cinder. "They are not dreams, my son," a voice calls out to him in a vision after the many nightmares-claiming to be his mother whom abandoned him when he was but a child. "They are shards of a broken world to come if you so take the path of your father." If such a path does lie ahead beyond a throne that sits vacant for centuries, with an empire in the east growling for war, then Damont Langörn realizes he has but one choice: follow the visions and seek out the truth lost to both him and the world behind his lineage-but will he be strong enough to face such a malevolent foe of his nightmares?
With a vampire and a sorceress at his side, Damont begins his journey, but such a road is not an easy one to take if the gods themselves do not wish for his return as the king who would unite the world against their existence and bring demise to their very doorstep.
Review: Damont is a young man who is told at some point along the line that he is a descendent of the lost King Larius Langorn, the one who united Acadia. He travels to the nearby country for advice, where the local Seer and Queen tells him to go into the Forests to prove he is worthy to be king. He is also sent with a sorceress, Amber, and Virden, a strange man who seems to drink blood. From there, there’s people out to kill him, life in a forest with two not completely normal people, run-ins with gods and the heir to the neighbouring enemy country already planning Damont’s downfall.
The prologue was terrible. I get now that it’s some kind of foreshadowing, but I read it about five times to try and understand what was happening. In the end I just gave up, hoping it wouldn’t be too important to the story. It wasn’t. However, from there, it picks up. The first chapter seems to be world building, character introductions and the like. In the second one Damont finds out the truth about his bloodline, and in soon he’s off. And encountering the things I mentioned above.
Damont was an interesting character. He starts off as a fairly nice young man, sleeping through lectures, talking back and such. He’s a good friend to Caleb, and a good horseman too. And he happens to be the son of a king and a goddess. I think I may have connected to him as a young adult hero if he was slightly younger-most main characters in young adult are in between 15 and 17. At some point Damont turns 25. A bit too old for my liking.
The rest of the characters really only support him. While I got a good idea of them, their appearances and such, I found that half of them were introduced at the start, brought in again through the middle, and never came back at the end, leaving you wondering what on earth had happened to them.
I like the way we get a lot of backstory for most characters and things. people’s backstories are revealed when they talk, the backstory of the land is revealed during a lesson. This really adds intrest to the world, and helps it to seem a little more real. I also like the way that quite a lot of actual things got tied up well, such as the white wolf that kept coming up.
The writing style kept you interested, but didn’t move the story along quite enough for my liking. The really good bit starts about halfway through, which for some may be too far on in a book to be interesting. You got a real sense of Acadia from the writing-there was a lot of description in the book to bring it fully alive. However at times it got a little too much, a little too long winded that slowed the story down. The third person perspective was good though, as it meant that we could have some things that don’t focus entirely on Damont, which you couldn’t get from a first person novel.
Overall: Strength 3 tea to a fantasy adventure novel that picks up a lot after a slow start, and is definitely one for the boys
