Empires of Sand

Rating:
Summary: Beau Geste meets the Hardy Boys
Review: A good book. Not a great book. In dangerous need of an editor. 700 pages is just too long to get to the ending we all knew was coming; reunion, boy meets girl, messes up big time, gets her back, bad guys get serious medieval retribution for their treachery, redemption and family values. But where was that red pencil and a pair of scissors? What happened to the "cut and paste" icon?

Here's the important thing. I would buy Mr. Ball and read him again. I would just do it when I was facing a long train ride.

Rating:
Summary: A Fantastic Adventure
Review: After reading Ironfire, I searched this book out and certainly was not disappointed. Great characters, interesting plot, and fascinating settings. I've never been to the Sahara (or Paris for that matter); however, I could almost feel the sand blow. Ball is a great storyteller. The only fault I can find is the ending is just a bit too easily tied up; however, I would have been so disappointed in anything less because it seems I invested so much in all the characters. Check out the website: http://www.empiresofsand.com/emp_book_origin.htm

Rating:
Summary: Whoo-hoo! What an adventure!
Review: Boy - I'm almost embarrassed to say that I liked this novel after reading some of the reviews! I didn't think it was hoaky and trite - I thought it was quite fun. Admittedly there were a few odd lines (such as "Gosh, Colonel!") but in general this book was a great adventure. I initially thought I wouldn't find much interest in the second half of the book which takes place in the Sahara, but it was fascinating and obviously written by someone who had spent some time in the desert. I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to escape for a while.

Rating:
Summary: A spectacular read.
Review: David Ball's book Empires of Sand was a great read. I picked it up one day and read it straight through to the next because I couldn't put it down. It's extremely descriptive, and I've felt like I myself have journeyed to the Sahara Desert because of Ball's extraordinary description. The book starts out with two couts Moussa and Paul DeVries. The time is the early 1870's, and the French and Prussians are in war. The boy Moussa is both French and African, and gets taunted by many during the book. Moussa's uncle, Jules and his wife Elizabeth, and his other wife Serena are all forced to take actions that will separate the boys for 10 years, until they meet again in the dangerous and yet beautiful Sahara Desert. This book is about love, adventure, despair, and betrayal and I would recommend it to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Desert Adventure
Review: Here is the skinny on this one: it is a novel about a couple of Parisian lads who have adventures in war-torn 1870's Paris, then grow up and meet each other as enemies in the Sahara desert. It's a lengthy, epic, page-turning adventure tale which ultimately overcomes some early clumsy writing and ends up being very enjoyable.

The book is almost evenly divided into two halves, the first taking place in Paris. The two lads in question--Paul and Moussa--are cousins, with one of them the son of a Saharan Tuareg woman. (Moussa's father, a count, met her while exploring North Africa.) They live together on the count's estate and get into some interesting adventures, particularly after the advent of the Franco-Prussian war. The author is terrific at creating scenarios and maintaining dramatic tension. For example, there are the boys spying from the attic on an elegant party; there are the boys hunting rats in the tunnels underneath Paris; there is Paul's father, a colonel, leading a cavalry charge against brigand French.

Good stuff, but the first half, at least, is marred by some absolutely horrible, out-of-place, modern-day colloquialisms. The author describes Bismarck's boldness by saying he had, well, a common English epithet for male genitalia. A wounded French soldier speaking to the colonel says, "Gosh, Colonel, sir, I've never been this close to a real officer before," and, "we whomped them," in speaking of a meeting with the Prussians. Since when does a bumpkin from Huckleberry Finn show up in the French army? And sure enough--you can see it coming--one of the French officers insults another by resorting to the standard ignorant comment: "... you." Come on, we're reading about the French in 1870: can't the author at least try to create a little verisimilitude? These are good examples of sloppy writing, and are very off-putting. Several times, and despite the compelling plot, I was on the verge of giving this book the old heave-ho.

But oddly, after a couple of hundred pages or so, these jarring anachronisms pretty much disappear. And the second half of the novel, the part which takes place in the Sahara, becomes even more exciting than the already-interesting Parisian adventures. Moussa, you see, has to flee there with his mother after some difficulties with the French authorities, and becomes a leader of the desert-warrior Tuareg tribe. Paul becomes an officer in the French Army, and sure enough, is sent to the Sahara with the historical ill-fated mission to seek a railroad route to central Africa. As with the first half, exciting and numerous adventures abound. Most exciting to me were the descriptions of a desert ostrich hunt; and also the slave camp, in which the slaves are forced to dig long tunnels and work underground to get at what little water there is in the scorching desert. There are also some terrific battle scenes between the French and the Tuareg, and of course, the tale culminates in the inevitable meeting between the two long-lost cousins under very trying circumstances. It's very exciting.

There do continue to be a few minor problems, however. Some of the characters--most notably the nun, the bishop, and Mahdi--are a little too one-dimensionally evil, and the ending fits together just a little too neatly. But I can forgive it these faults. It is a romantic adventure after all, in the style of Dumas or Robert Louis Stevenson, and one must expect at least a little of this sort of thing. It ends up being a very satisfying read. Too bad there wasn't an editor around to clean up the earlier parts a little bit.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good Desert Adventure
Review: Here is the skinny on this one: it is a novel about a couple of Parisian lads who have adventures in war-torn 1870's Paris, then grow up and meet each other as enemies in the Sahara desert. It's a lengthy, epic, page-turning adventure tale which ultimately overcomes some early clumsy writing and ends up being very enjoyable.

The book is almost evenly divided into two halves, the first taking place in Paris. The two lads in question--Paul and Moussa--are cousins, with one of them the son of a Saharan Tuareg woman. (Moussa's father, a count, met her while exploring North Africa.) They live together on the count's estate and get into some interesting adventures, particularly after the advent of the Franco-Prussian war. The author is terrific at creating scenarios and maintaining dramatic tension. For example, there are the boys spying from the attic on an elegant party; there are the boys hunting rats in the tunnels underneath Paris; there is Paul's father, a colonel, leading a cavalry charge against brigand French.

Good stuff, but the first half, at least, is marred by some absolutely horrible, out-of-place, modern-day colloquialisms. The author describes Bismarck's boldness by saying he had, well, a common English epithet for male genitalia. A wounded French soldier speaking to the colonel says, "Gosh, Colonel, sir, I've never been this close to a real officer before," and, "we whomped them," in speaking of a meeting with the Prussians. Since when does a bumpkin from Huckleberry Finn show up in the French army? And sure enough--you can see it coming--one of the French officers insults another by resorting to the standard ignorant comment: "... you." Come on, we're reading about the French in 1870: can't the author at least try to create a little verisimilitude? These are good examples of sloppy writing, and are very off-putting. Several times, and despite the compelling plot, I was on the verge of giving this book the old heave-ho.

But oddly, after a couple of hundred pages or so, these jarring anachronisms pretty much disappear. And the second half of the novel, the part which takes place in the Sahara, becomes even more exciting than the already-interesting Parisian adventures. Moussa, you see, has to flee there with his mother after some difficulties with the French authorities, and becomes a leader of the desert-warrior Tuareg tribe. Paul becomes an officer in the French Army, and sure enough, is sent to the Sahara with the historical ill-fated mission to seek a railroad route to central Africa. As with the first half, exciting and numerous adventures abound. Most exciting to me were the descriptions of a desert ostrich hunt; and also the slave camp, in which the slaves are forced to dig long tunnels and work underground to get at what little water there is in the scorching desert. There are also some terrific battle scenes between the French and the Tuareg, and of course, the tale culminates in the inevitable meeting between the two long-lost cousins under very trying circumstances. It's very exciting.

There do continue to be a few minor problems, however. Some of the characters--most notably the nun, the bishop, and Mahdi--are a little too one-dimensionally evil, and the ending fits together just a little too neatly. But I can forgive it these faults. It is a romantic adventure after all, in the style of Dumas or Robert Louis Stevenson, and one must expect at least a little of this sort of thing. It ends up being a very satisfying read. Too bad there wasn't an editor around to clean up the earlier parts a little bit.

Rating:
Summary: From Paris to the Sahara
Review: I loved this book of great adventure! The story begins with the escapades of two young cousins in France, in the tunnels under Paris, which is besieged by the Prussians. When Paul's father is imprisoned, the boys make a daring attempt to rescue him, floating on a raft between high guarded walls around the city. In their Catholic school, Moussa, who is half Arabic, experiences racism, which gets him into fights. Sister Godrick persecutes him for the amulet he wears, a symbol of his heritage. When other injustices and danger befall Moussa, in particular at the hands of a lascivious bishop, their lives take different paths. Moussa flees to join his nomadic Tuareg relatives in the Sahara, and Paul joins a French expedition to the Sahara. Unknowingly, they end up on opposing sides.

The story has great scenes of narrow escapes, including one from Paris in a hot air balloon, from underground tunnels in the desert, and from battles with Arabic warriors. There is the suspense of wondering if and when the cousins will ever meet up safely and in friendship again. This is an adventurous historical fiction that is on my all-times favorites list!

Rating:
Summary: Nothing short of outstanding..........
Review: Okay, so there's some predictability, but David Ball has written a novel so completely fun and absorbing that one simply doesn't care. From 1870's Paris to the limitless expanse of the Sahara, Ball takes the reader on a remarkable journey that is truly extraordinary.

The novels main characters, cousins Moussa and Paul DeVries, battle invading Prussians, corrupt clergy, treacherous relatives, and merciless bedouins in an attempt to establish lives separate from the tragedy of their youth within the French nobility. Moussa, his father a French count and his mother a Taureg noblewoman of the Sahara, is forced to flee Paris for Africa with his family. His cousin Paul is left behind with his own ghosts to exorcise. The two find each other again years later caught in the confrontations endemic to the European colonization of Africa. What ensues is a purely spellbinding tale of love and hate, life and death, beauty and utter ugliness.

Empire of Sands is an excellent novel. I thought of it often between the times I was forced set it down until my next opportunity to continue. For anyone who enjoys a captivating historically-based tale they will find few books far better than this. As a huge fan of historical fiction, I give it my highest recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: A great adventure
Review: Other reviewers have covered the territory, so I'll just add my two cents worth. I was surprised at how good a read this was. Reminded me in some ways of Dune - a far-reaching adventure that made the lives of desert peoples come alive. And while it was fiction, I was pleased to find that much of the plot was based on historical events. A great first novel, well worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: A great adventure
Review: Other reviewers have covered the territory, so I'll just add my two cents worth. I was surprised at how good a read this was. Reminded me in some ways of Dune - a far-reaching adventure that made the lives of desert peoples come alive. And while it was fiction, I was pleased to find that much of the plot was based on historical events. A great first novel, well worth the time.