Empires of Sand

by David Ball

Bantam Books, 608 pp., $23.95

I suspect the alternate title for Empires of Sand would have been Blood and Sand. The characters in this melange of French and Near Eastern history are either despicably evil or unrealistically good. The evil characters are sexually voracious, treacherous, and materialistic. The good characters are brave, truthful, and ideologically flexible. In Ball’s ponderous but intriguing tale, French aristocrat Paul deVries, separated from his half-Arab cousin Michel Moussa at a young age, meets him again during an ill-fated military expedition in the Algerian desert. National and tribal loyalties threaten their fragile familial bond. Before the two cousins can reconcile, they must endure hardship, carnage, and lots of sand.

This article appears in November 19 • 1999.

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