What a find! David Ball's first novel packs the wallop of a good old-fashioned adventure movie, with historic sweep to please any James Michener fan. The action starts with a wounded wild boar's attack on two French boys (convincingly told from the points of view of the boar, the boys--Paul and Moussa--the terrified mom, and an evil bishop who watches and prevents his coachman from shooting the beast). The pace never slackens as the scenes flash past: invasion and class war in the streets and underground quarryways of Paris during the 1870 siege, moonlit sneak attacks in the desert the Arabs call "the Land of Thirst and Fear," and an epic French attempt to drive a railroad through the Sahara--a mad plan opposed by the dunes and their no less implacable inhabitants, the Tuareg.

The Tuareg are the coolest--they're known as the blue men because they wear head-to-toe wraparound indigo-dyed clothes that scarily obscure their faces and stain their skin. Their rivals call them blue devils, and they have lots of rivals. Even though their dads are brothers, the French boys are fated to fight as tribal rivals in Saharan nomad's land because Moussa has a Tuareg mother. His dad, Count Henri deVries, crash-landed his balloon at her feet, and she followed him back to Paris. Racial oppression and bad bishop behavior provoke justifiable homicide at the Paris Opera, occasioning a hairsbreadth balloon escape and southern adventures too numerous to enumerate here. The prose is purple but handsome, the plot pulpy and propulsive. Check out these sentences: "He fell to her from the sky"; "Bashaga's howl haunted them until it was swallowed by the wind"; "As Moussa's stabbing knife pushed up through to his brain, Abdul ben Henna's last thoughts were of revenge." If these make you burn to read on, read on! You won't be disappointed. --Tim Appelo


From Publishers Weekly
inspired by the true story of the 1880 French expedition that attempted to establish a railroad through the desert. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
It's 1870, and Moussa de Vries, son and heir to the explorer and adventurer Count Henri de Vries, enjoys an idyllic boyhood, hunting and building castles and forts with his cousin Paul on the grounds of the Chateau de Vries outside Paris. One year changes it all forever: schoolboy taunts teach Moussa the pain of being both African and French, the Prussians lay siege to Paris, and everyone in the de Vries household is forced to make choices that will change their lives. Moussa's uncle, the rigidly honorable soldier Jules; Jules's seductive wife, Elizabeth; the dashing Count de Vries and his fiercely protective wife, Serena, a noblewoman of the North African TuaregAall are forced to take actions that will separate the boys for a decade, until they meet again in the vast, dangerous, and beautiful Sahara. Ball's debut, intricately plotted and beautifully written, is a saga of love, betrayal, adventure, and despair that will delight all readers, especially those who thrilled to Beau Geste.ACynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
History roars to life in this vibrant tapestry of family bonds, personal honor, and duty. As Paris falls under siege of the Prussian army in 1870, young cousins Paul and Moussa DeVries realize even the Prussians aren't enough to keep them from having to go to school. Paul, the son of Jules DeVries, a French officer, and his wife, Elisabeth, plays at being a soldier like his father and fits in well with his classmates. Moussa, heir to Count Henri DeVries and his wife, Serena, a noblewoman of the Hoggar Tuareg of the Sahara, dreads school because his teacher, a nun, is determined to make him into a God-fearing Christian instead of a heathen wastrel. The cousins' parallel but very different worlds of school and play ultimately serve as microcosms that foreshadow their futures. As the story unfolds, Ball relates the terrible events that lead to the cousins being separated for more than a decade only to meet again at gunpoint in the harsh Saharan sands. In that final encounter, they stand on blood-spattered ground on opposing sides in a tangled conflict--Paul in the uniform of France and Moussa attired in the blue veil and dress of the Tuareg. As they face each other garbed as enemies but family still, conspirators plot behind their backs to ensure their deaths for the sake of the estate and title of the DeVries' holdings. Ball's magnificent historical panorama is sure to be in high demand. Melanie Duncan


From Kirkus Reviews
Debut historical novel that, Ball says, keeps close to the facts. The story begins in the Valois countryside in 1866 during a hunt when a spectacularly hideous boar is wounded by a huntsman and races off, crashing madly and zigzagging, finally killing the huntsman and charging two children, Paul deVries and his cousin Michel, also known by his Saharan name of Moussa, whose lives are the twin poles of the plot. With Paris under siege by the Prussians, Paul's father, Ugari, a world explorer and balloonist, crashes on the desert while sailing for Morocco and on the sand meets and then marries the brilliant, beautiful Tuareg noblewoman Serena, eventually returning with her to a shocked Parisian society. Their son Paul grows up to be a soldier, while a tragic turn of events forces Michel/Moussa to flee to his mother's homeland. Later, when Paul follows him there with a French expeditionary force, he and Paul become enemies. Outstanding here is a description of the stark and terrible beauty of nomadic life among the majestic Saharan Tuareg, a race of poets and romantics, which only underscores the horror of their doom as shining but feeble swords and shields meet French rifles. Altogether grand. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Impressive...an exciting, action-packed epic that will appeal to history buffs, thrill-seekers, travel enthusiasts and romance fans."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"When I was a kid I loved being swept across oceans by great spellbinding reads like Mutiny on the Bounty and Seven Pillars of Wisdom. David Ball's Empires of Sand rates a spot on that same shelf. It's old-fashioned in the best sense--literate, thematically ambitious, scholarly and swashbuckling at the same time.

"The thinking man's page-turner, Empires of Sand is simultaneously a masterful reimagining of a world most of us never knew existed and a ripsnorting E-ticket yarn. Clearly Mr. Ball is the real deal; he knows the Sahara, the Paris of the Prussian siege, the world of the nomadic Tuareg. David Ball writes with the joy of an author who loves his material and is in absolute command of it."
--Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire

"This is a sensational novel! David Ball writes with extraordinary passion, enthusiasm, and skill. The opening scene is absolutely brilliant, and it just gets better after that."
--Max Byrd, author of Jefferson


Review
"Impressive...an exciting, action-packed epic that will appeal to history buffs, thrill-seekers, travel enthusiasts and romance fans."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"When I was a kid I loved being swept across oceans by great spellbinding reads like Mutiny on the Bounty and Seven Pillars of Wisdom. David Ball's Empires of Sand rates a spot on that same shelf. It's old-fashioned in the best sense--literate, thematically ambitious, scholarly and swashbuckling at the same time.

"The thinking man's page-turner, Empires of Sand is simultaneously a masterful reimagining of a world most of us never knew existed and a ripsnorting E-ticket yarn. Clearly Mr. Ball is the real deal; he knows the Sahara, the Paris of the Prussian siege, the world of the nomadic Tuareg. David Ball writes with the joy of an author who loves his material and is in absolute command of it."
--Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire

"This is a sensational novel! David Ball writes with extraordinary passion, enthusiasm, and skill. The opening scene is absolutely brilliant, and it just gets better after that."
--Max Byrd, author of Jefferson


Book Description
From the mysteriously beautiful, richly hued landscape of the Saharan mountains to the sumptuous splendor of nineteenth-century Paris, Empires of Sand is a novel that takes us on an extraordinary, powerfully emotional journey. In a clash between two civilizations, two men of common blood discover that in war, love, and even family, they are both destined to be outsiders....

The year is 1870. The proud Republic of France is crumbling under the onslaught of the Prussian army. Paris is under siege. Too young to understand the shifting fortunes of the empire, two boys forge a bond with their breathless adventures in the tunnels beneath the threatened city. Paul deVries is the cousin and constant companion of Michel deVries--called Moussa--whose world-explorer father shocked Paris with his marriage to a noblewoman of the Sahara. Moussa will inherit the title of count; Paul is destined to be a soldier like his father. But tragic events will send Moussa fleeing to his mother's homeland, with its brooding mountains, its hidden caves and fortresses. And the two boys who have been the closest of friends are fated as men to become the bitterest of enemies--victims of history and the scheming of scoundrels.

They meet again on the Sahara's blazing sands, one as part of a foolhardy French expeditionary force, the other with the nomadic Tuareg, a majestic race of veiled warriors who live and die by flashing swords and a harsh desert code of honor. On this unforgettable, ever-shifting landscape, Paul and Moussa are swept into another war, one far more brutal than anything they have experienced.

Paul is obsessed with a quest for personal vengeance and honor. And Moussa, in love with a woman betrothed to an implacable Tuareg warrior, searches for the peace he knew as a child in France. Now they both face a challenge of sheer, harrowing survival: whether to follow the call of their shared blood...or the destiny written in the treacherous sands.

Empires of Sand is a grand novel of adventure in the best tradition of historical fiction. With its astounding scenes of the desert and its rich cast of characters--soldiers, lovers, slaves, and zealots--this is a reading experience to be treasured and remembered long after the final page is turned.


From the Inside Flap
From the mysteriously beautiful, richly hued landscape of the Saharan mountains to the sumptuous splendor of nineteenth-century Paris, Empires of Sand is a novel that takes us on an extraordinary, powerfully emotional journey. In a clash between two civilizations, two men of common blood discover that in war, love, and even family, they are both destined to be outsiders....

The year is 1870. The proud Republic of France is crumbling under the onslaught of the Prussian army. Paris is under siege. Too young to understand the shifting fortunes of the empire, two boys forge a bond with their breathless adventures in the tunnels beneath the threatened city. Paul deVries is the cousin and constant companion of Michel deVries--called Moussa--whose world-explorer father shocked Paris with his marriage to a noblewoman of the Sahara. Moussa will inherit the title of count; Paul is destined to be a soldier like his father. But tragic events will send Moussa fleeing to his mother's homeland, with its brooding mountains, its hidden caves and fortresses. And the two boys who have been the closest of friends are fated as men to become the bitterest of enemies--victims of history and the scheming of scoundrels.

They meet again on the Sahara's blazing sands, one as part of a foolhardy French expeditionary force, the other with the nomadic Tuareg, a majestic race of veiled warriors who live and die by flashing swords and a harsh desert code of honor. On this unforgettable, ever-shifting landscape, Paul and Moussa are swept into another war, one far more brutal than anything they have experienced.

Paul is obsessed with a quest for personal vengeance and honor. And Moussa, in love with a woman betrothed to an implacable Tuareg warrior, searches for the peace he knew as a child in France. Now they both face a challenge of sheer, harrowing survival: whether to follow the call of their shared blood...or the destiny written in the treacherous sands.

Empires of Sand is a grand novel of adventure in the best tradition of historical fiction. With its astounding scenes of the desert and its rich cast of characters--soldiers, lovers, slaves, and zealots--this is a reading experience to be treasured and remembered long after the final page is turned.


From the Back Cover
"When I was a kid I loved being swept across oceans by great spellbinding reads like Mutiny on the Bounty and Seven Pillars of Wisdom. David Ball's Empires of Sand rates a spot on that same shelf. It's old-fashioned in the best sense--literate, thematically ambitious, scholarly and swashbuckling at the same time.

"The thinking man's page-turner, Empires of Sand is simultaneously a masterful reimagining of a world most of us never knew existed and a ripsnorting E-ticket yarn. Clearly Mr. Ball is the real deal; he knows the Sahara, the Paris of the Prussian siege, the world of the nomadic Tuareg. David Ball writes with the joy of an author who loves his material and is in absolute command of it."
--Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire

"This is a sensational novel! David Ball writes with extraordinary passion, enthusiasm, and skill. The opening scene is absolutely brilliant, and it just gets better after that."
--Max Byrd, author of Jefferson


About the Author
David Ball lives in the Rockies with his wife, Melinda, and children, Ben and Li. Empires of Sand is his first novel.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

France, 1866

"The children! Hold fire!"

It was too late. The gun roared and kicked back against the huntsman's shoulder. It was a long shot, a hundred and fifty meters or more. He had almost not seen the boar, nearly swallowed as it was by the shadows and the sunlight dancing on the leaves of a distant thicket. Everyone else's eyes had been on the sky, on the count's hawk, but the huntsman had seen a movement, and there it was, scrounging for acorns: a huge boar, a prize boar, a malevolent devil of a boar. Rare in this forest. He decided at once to take it.

Another man would have advanced for a better shot, to avoid the possibility of missing or, worse, merely wounding the animal. The extreme distance made the difference between a good shot and a spectacular shot, a shot all the more exciting because of its uncertainty, a shot to ensure tavern bragging rights for months. He knew he could do it because he knew his weapon. It was new, a bolt-action military rifle. The long barrel gave it a degree of accuracy never before known. He'd honed the sights to perfection through a thousand rounds of practice.

He raised the weapon and found his mark. The shout from the count startled him, but only for an instant. He steadied his aim and fired. Even then, even before the bullet left the gun, he knew he'd done it. He didn't need to see or to hear the impact, he just knew. A second later his certainty was justified as he heard a smack and a mad squeal of pain. There was a flurry of motion, and the animal disappeared into the brush.

The huntsman whooped in excitement. To hell with the count! By God, he'd bagged it! A boar! He would have his trophy, and it would not be some piddling grouse. Without turning to see the others, and particularly not wanting to face the count, he raced forward through the clearing.

Count Henri deVries was hosting a group from the Societe Geographique, there to observe the ancient art of falconry. The count's family had kept hawks for generations. They were hunting on land adjoining his estate.

Henri had seen the boar even before the huntsman did. He had reacted with disbelief as he watched the man raise his rifle. Didn't the fool realize the children played nearby? When he heard the pig squeal and saw it move, his worst fears were realized.

Now there was death on the run.

Without a word he left the hunting party—and his own hawk in the air-and dashed for his horse. A wild boar was always dangerous, but a wounded one was unpredictable, lethal. No one was safe, not even an armed man on horseback. Not while a boar was alive and hurt.

He swung up onto his horse, which knew its rider and felt the danger and surged forward even before the count was fully mounted. They took off at a right angle to where the boar had disappeared and raced for a distant clearing. Rider and horse thundered through the forest, under the golden oaks and elms of the great Bois de Boulogne that had once been the hunting grounds of the Valois kings.

Henri's wife, Serena, sat in the shade of a large tree. She had been paying no attention to her surroundings, none at all. Normally she would have been hunting with Henri. But she was Tuareg, a woman of the desert, and had secretly begun learning to read French, her husband's native tongue. She had not yet told him. On her own she had found a tutor, a teacher at the Lycee in Paris, with whom she had spent long secret hours, followed by more hours of practice alone. Gradually, a newfound love had awakened inside her. Each story had increased her enchantment. The subjects didn't matter. Henri's library was rich with scientific journals. The words and meanings in most of those eluded her, but there were also novels and articles and essays. The words were music and brought her an almost mystical pleasure as new worlds opened to her.

She had an inspiration. Henri would have a birthday soon. The two of them would leave Moussa at home and together they would ride into the forest to a secluded waterfall on the edge of the estate. She would bring a picnic lunch, pick a soft sunny spot, spread a blanket on the ground—no, lots of blankets in case it was cold—and pour him a glass of wine. He would lie back on her lap and then she would read to him, treasuring the surprise and delight she knew she would find in his eyes. Later they would make love. She took great pleasure in working out the tiniest details of that day. She had redoubled her studies to be ready, and so it was that this day she had been captivated, reading Victor Hugo.

The count's abrupt approach shocked her from her reverie.

"The boys!" he shouted as he drew near. "Where are the boys?"

She had no idea what had happened, but there was no mistaking the urgency in his voice. She looked around desperately. She had last noticed them playing nearby . . . when? A quarter of an hour ago? More? She couldn't be sure. It was a quiet fall day. They'd been just there, by the fallen log, and there was no reason to have been particularly concerned for their safety. They played in the woods all the time. But in a moment of awful panic and guilt she realized that she had no idea when she'd last seen them, or where they might have gone.

The great wild pig crashed madly through a thicket of scrub oak. The bullet had broken a rib and punctured a lung. Somehow it had missed vital arteries, but the lung was filling with blood. The animal's breathing was hot and labored, and the exertions of flight would bring the end more quickly. But the end would not come now—not for a long while yet. The boar gathered itself and trotted forward, crazily forward in a zigzag, away from its pursuer.

After a few moments it came to a stop, chest heaving, heart racing. It was a massive and hideous animal. Even in its agony its senses were still alert. It listened, sniffed, and watched, its posture full of menace. Its ears lay flat against its head and its snout was down, close to the ground. Through long habit and reflex it clashed its top and bottom tusks together, to sharpen them. No man could tell what a boar in these circumstances might do. It might lay in wait for its pursuer and force a deadly duel. If there were no dogs or horses it might run. Or, badly wounded and deranged by pain, it might do the unpredictable—turn on another boar or anything else in its path.

The hunted listened, and heard the hunter. The man rushed headlong through the woods, footfalls heavy on the pad of leaves lining the forest floor in autumn. He picked up the bloody trail, his excitement high, his gun at the ready. On a dead run he broke through a low hedge. A bit of brush caught his boot and he stumbled. A tremendous effort kept him from falling, but just as he reached that critical point between fall and recovery he saw the boar. He'd known it was close, very close. And in that one instant he knew he had lost, for his gun was down and extended out from his body, where he'd swung it to recover his balance.

The boar rushed to meet him. The huntsman brought his gun up and fired without aiming. It was a fraction of a second too soon. The bullet caught the boar in the shoulder but the beast kept coming. With a single mighty stroke it ripped the man open from navel to neck. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Out of breath, the boar stopped to recover. The new wound pounded and bled. The animal panted, moving its head up and down as it sought to still the fires inside. After a few moments it began to run again, to get away, anywhere. It stepped on the steel barrel of the rifle, which bent under its weight. Favoring its wounds, the boar ran haltingly but still with power.

In a clearing it stopped again. It heard something new, something troubling. Through mad red eyes it glared in the direction of the noise. Its sight was poor, unlike its hearing or smell, but through the haze and thepain and the torment of dying the boar made out the figures of two boys, playing at the base of a tree. The animal lowered its head and charged.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An epic novel of adventure in the grandest tradition of historical fiction, Empires of Sand takes us on a thrilling, unforgettable journey. As civilizations collide around two men, a battle begins: for survival, for love, and for a destiny written in a desert's shifting sands.

Empires Of Sand

The year is 1870. Paris is under siege, and two boys, best friends and cousins, are swept from their life of privilege. A brutal killing forces Michel deVries—called Moussa—to flee to his mother's homeland in North Africa. A family disgrace forces Paul deVries to seek redemption in the French military. Ten years will pass before they come face-to- face again. Now Moussa has become a desert warrior and a beautiful woman's forbidden lover, while Paul leads an ill-fated French force into the Sahara. Against a breathtaking landscape of blazing sands and ancient mysteries, these two men face a struggle that will shatter lives across two continents—and force them to choose between separate dreams and shared blood....

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

FYI: According to the publisher, Ball has made four journeys across the Sahara, inspired by the true story of the 1880 French expedition that attempted to establish a railroad through the desert. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

It's 1870, and Moussa de Vries, son and heir to the explorer and adventurer Count Henri de Vries, enjoys an idyllic boyhood, hunting and building castles and forts with his cousin Paul on the grounds of the Chateau de Vries outside Paris. One year changes it all forever: schoolboy taunts teach Moussa the pain of being both African and French, the Prussians lay siege to Paris, and everyone in the de Vries household is forced to make choices that will change their lives. Moussa's uncle, the rigidly honorable soldier Jules; Jules's seductive wife, Elizabeth; the dashing Count de Vries and his fiercely protective wife, Serena, a noblewoman of the North African Tuareg--all are forced to take actions that will separate the boys for a decade, until they meet again in the vast, dangerous, and beautiful Sahara. Ball's debut, intricately plotted and beautifully written, is a saga of love, betrayal, adventure, and despair that will delight all readers, especially those who thrilled to Beau Geste.--Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Ron Franscell - Christian Science Monitor

Ball...writes with a traveler's sense of place and a journalist's penchant for detail....In this sweeping yet precise epic, Ball has created a swashbuckler for urbane readers....And it's not just what he says, but how he says it. His storytelling style is literate and graceful, erudite but adventurous.

Kirkus Reviews

Debut historical novel that, Ball says, keeps close to the facts. The story begins in the Valois countryside in 1866 during a hunt when a spectacularly hideous boar is wounded by a huntsman and races off, crashing madly and zigzagging, finally killing the huntsman and charging two children, Paul deVries and his cousin Michel, also known by his Saharan name of Moussa, whose lives are the twin poles of the plot. With Paris under siege by the Prussians, Paul's father, Ugari, a world explorer and balloonist, crashes on the desert while sailing for Morocco and on the sand meets and then marries the brilliant, beautiful Tuareg noblewoman Serena, eventually returning with her to a shocked Parisian society. Their son Paul grows up to be a soldier, while a tragic turn of events forces Michel/Moussa to flee to his mother's homeland. Later, when Paul follows him there with a French expeditionary force, he and Paul become enemies. Outstanding here is a description of the stark and terrible beauty of nomadic life among the majestic Saharan Tuareg, a race of poets and romantics, which only underscores the horror of their doom as shining but feeble swords and shields meet French rifles. Altogether grand.