The Rats of Acomar

Tales Of The Mornmist #1

by Paul Kidd

The first book by Paul Kidd in the exciting new shared-world series, "Tales of the Mornmist", created by Lynn Abbey (creator of "Thieves' World") and Ed Greenwood (creator of TSR's "Forgotten Realms" series), "The Rats of Acomar" tells of the bleak, broken wasteland of Acomar, where corrosive metal salts have poisoned the ground, and starvation keeps constant company with death. There, the Rats live... live and die. The bones of their bodies litter the waste, victims, devoured by their brethren, fallen in the endless battles fought over territory and food. The survivors are only the strongest, honed to a razor's edge by the constant struggle to survive... to live, to grow... to breed. In terror of the Rats, after a bloody war, the other races built the great wall, holding them back, keeping them imprisoned in the hellish waste that is Acomar. But with the rising of the Overlord, G'kaa, everything is changing. The clans are uniting, joining together under one massed banner, drenched in the

Genres: Fantasy

Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[Lemurkat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful offering from the master of Furry fiction, Paul Kidd brings the two contrasting worlds of Acomar and the Mornmist to life. His stories are filled with personable characters, humour, excitement and also sorrow. Although not so much of the latter in this one as his excellent "Whisper of Wings". "Rats..." is a somewhat lighter read, and very entertaining.

In the desolate plains of Acomar we have the Itheem; rats - breeding, fighting, scavenging and living a brutal and cruel, and short, existence. Amongst these is warrior rat Ra'hish, a dedicated lone-rat, who suddenly finds himself having to look after a dozen youngsters. We also have the albino Oosha and her sister Teela, two young female rats determined to find a beauty in their desolate life. And G'Kaa, warlord, who dreams of leaving the wretched plains of Acomarand invading the beautiful valleys. Acomar is a wasteland, and my first reaction upon reading it was "oh drat, the ideas are the same as my Furritasia ones, now I'm going to look like I'm copying this", but luckily the similarities end there.

On the other side of the border wall we have the Uruth, the canines, keeping their land safe from the "goblin hoards" beyond the wall. One such character is Tupan, a lively and impulsive coyote that has left her wanderer roots and sought out civilisation. Her unwilling companions in her undying endeavours to "fix things" are the grim greyhound, Surolf, and his rather friendlier pony, Hern.

Together these two very different groups will be brought together in alliance, and find out that despite outward appearances, they are not really all that different.

All in all, another grand offering from Paul Kidd. Alas, the other "Mornmist" books appear to not exist (despite having titles and ISBN numbers), so it seems Vision books have evaporated. This is a pity, because I rather liked the world. The "Mornmist" was intended to be one of those "Shared worlds" with books by Elaine Cunningham (who wrote "Daughter of the Drow") amongst others. Alas. But at least they got the first one out.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those lighthearted fantasy adventures that seems to be Paul's bread and butter (and oh what wonderful bread and butter it is). It features anthropomorphic characters from several species (primarily a coyote, horse, greyhound, and rat). It is fantasy setting in which the continent has been divided into 2 areas with the "good and law abiding" races on one side of the wall and the "evil cannibalistic savages" (i.e. the rats), on the other. It involves overcoming things like stereotypes and language barriers; trying to make a divided world whole again while not loosing their fur in the process. A very fun read with fantastic characters.

[Ben Goodridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably should have read this one a long time ago.