Customer Reviews

The Ten Thousand

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A few months back I noted The Ten Thousand as being one of my hot tips for 2008. Reading a lengthy preview that the author sent me a while back reinforced this feeling, and now reading the complete novel has confirmed my initial guess. Probably the most underread author in epic fantasy has delivered his strongest novel to date.

The Ten Thousand is based on The Anabasis, the best-known work of the Greek writer Xenophon. In that book Xenohpon relates how a Greek mercenary force of ten thousand warriors was hired by Cyrus the Younger, a Persian prince seeking to supplant his brother. When Cyrus was killed, the Greek army had to fight its way out of the now-hostile empire and find its way home.

In this novel the setting is the world of Kuf, which is divided between two humanoid species: the Macht and the Kufr. The Macht live in a mountainous peninsula made up of feuding city-states (reminsicent of Greece), whilst the Kufr inhabit the vast Assurian Empire to the south-east which dominates a huge continent. Many of the most famous mercenary companies of the Macht are summoned to the capital where a vast host is being assembled to sail across the sea and join the armies of the Assurian pretender Arkamenes, who seeks to usurp his brother, Ashurnan. Amongst these are Gasca and Rictus, two young warriors who join up for very different reasons, the former to see the world and fight, the latter to forget the horrors of the destruction of his city and family. As the story proceeds we meet other characters: Jason, the young and charasmatic commander of one of the mercenary companies; Vorus, a Macht living amongst the Kufr who is an advisor to Ashurnan; and Tiryn, Arkamenes' consort.

The story unfolds similar to the events of history, with the Macht fighting their way into the very heart of the Empire where Ashurnan awaits them with a vast host. There, at the Battle of Kunaksa, the hinge of the world will turn, with dire consequences for everyone involved.

As normal, Kearney anchors the story on his characters: Rictus, the young warrior lost in his grief and rage who finds opportunity and responsibility thrust upon him; Jason, the popular commander who doesn't know what he wants from life until, amidst the blood and mud, he finds it; Vorus, the exiled warrior who finds his loyalties and admiralties torn; Ashurnan, a ruler desperately trying to be a great king but not knowing how, whilst his brother believes he is great and worthy and doesn't realise the truth; and Tiryn, whose own preconceptions and believes are put to the ultimate challenge. They are flawed people, but the reader cannot help empaphising with them and the increasingly harsh challenges they face.

Kearney has previously attracted the reputation of doing battle sequences better than almost any other writer in the genre, better than Bakker, Martin or Erikson, with perhaps only Gemmell and Cornwell at the very height of their powers challenging him. The battles here are hard, brutal affairs but they are also used to make the characters change and grow, with every engagement also reflecting some revelation or advancement in the characters. It is an excellent device, perhaps not a conscious one, but handled superbly.

In this one novel (The Ten Thousand is a stand-alone, although Kearney does not rule out other works set in the same world) Kearney successfully encapsulates all of his strengths as a writer, making for his tighest, most satisfying novel to date, and may possibly have just given us the best epic fantasy of 2008.

The Ten Thousand (*****) is an engrossing, superb novel of war and its impact on humanity with a fitting ending.

With its graphic combat and mad-dash pace, Paul Kearney's The Ten Thousand is a grim, brisk novel; it's just not a necessary one.

The Ten Thousand is about Rictus, a young warrior who must lead ten thousand Macht mercenaries through the hostile Kufr Empire. If the premise sounds familiar, you may have read Michael Curtis Ford's ponderous The Ten Thousand or Xenophon's Anabasis, which is the origin material for both books. Kearney's novel is better than Ford's, featuring lean and mean prose that revels in the muck and stink of warfare. His descriptions of the Macht battle tactics bring to mind Stephen Pressfield's awesome The Gates of Fire, which Kearney obviously read, since he borrows at least one line of dialogue ("You were the best of us"). These two novels are separated by tone: The Gates of Fire is rousing and inspirational, whereas The Ten Thousand is gloomy and fatalist. To be honest, I prefer an uplifting story to a depressing one.

Although Kearney transplants Xenophon's story to a fantasy setting, I do not consider this novel to be a complete fantasy. The fantasy elements are not integral. If you replace Macht with Greeks and Kuf with Persia, you have the same exact story as historical fiction. To be fair, the author does inject a few interesting fantasy details. First, I like how men are a minority race in this world. In Kuf, they are treated as exotic and alien. It is the reverse in most novels, and I wish Kearney had explored this idea further. Second, the cursebearers are intriguing. These warriors wear unique black armor, which, in a way, symbolizes the Macht as a whole: Their most important artifacts are armor because war is their way of life, and the armor's darkness represents the futility of such an existence. Again, I think that Kearney could have done more with this idea.

Overall, The Ten Thousand suffers from a dearth of complexity. The story is a retelling of a classic premise with few detours. The characters have no depth beyond simple archetypes: the eager youngster, the grizzled veteran, the selfish miscreant, the noble leader, etc. They are faceless warriors who never lift their helmets long enough for us to know them as individuals.

Kearney proved his talent in the Monarchies of God series. He should use his talent to craft an original story rather than rehash an old one.

There is nothing I love as much as buying a book on a whim from an unknown author...and having it turn out to be incredible. "The Ten Thousand" was such a book for me.

Transposing actual historical events into a parabolic fantasy world results in a uniquely engrossing historical novel/fantasy hybrid. The prose is terse and wonderfully appropriate for the subject matter, and the characters are sparsely but masterfully sketched, developed just enough to give the book (which tends to focus on events on the grand rather than personal scale) just the right amount of "character driven narrative".

The battle scenes are incredible. I am not a fan of war scenes, am usually bored to tears by them, yet literally felt my heart beat faster and experienced occasional adrenaline rushes reading the battle scenes in this book. It was enough to make want to pump my fist in the air while gruffly shouting "yeah!" in a soldierly voice.

Take the movie "300" and give it a fantasy makeover, actually interesting characters, a more meandering plot, talented writing and you would end up with something similar to "The Ten Thousand." Completely worth every cent, it really makes me wish that Kearney was more widely read and appreciated

A grim recounting of a harsh and unforgiving military campaign set in the Bronze Age.

Story:
Ten Thousand is based on The Anabasis, an ancient Greek story about 10,000 mercenaries hired by one prince to overthrow his brother. Paul Kearney basically swaps out Greek Soldiers with Romans and calls them Macht. And he keeps the Persians but calls them Kufr, which looks like a typo. Then he tells the same story. There are a few other fantasy races in the book that act like normal people, but there is really nothing special about them.

World Building: FAIL
There is almost no fantasy world building in this book, other than changing the names and skin color of historic races. No magic, No amazing settings, no beasts other than a Yeti cameo.
Romans = Macht
Persians = Kufr
Grey Skinned, Yellow Eyed, Stocky Slaves = Juthan
Qaf = Yeti
The ruling elite are gold skinned, violet eyed, horse faced humanoids.

Characters:
There are a few main characters, and they are developed early on. But as the book progresses, many more less developed characters join the story and they become a bit muddled.
Rictus is a young, poor, warrior who joins the mercenary company after his village is destroyed.
Gasca is a young warrior who leaves home with his fathers spear and shield to join the mercenary company.
Jason is one of the leaders of the mercenaries, who must make difficult decisions throughout the campaign.

Writing Style:
The writing style is very gritty and the action is intense, but there is one major flaw. The goals of the characters are not set from the beginning and conflicts are not foreshadowed, so it is hard to root for the characters. As a reader, you just sort of go along with the journey and hope they make it. There are a few plot twists to keep things interesting, but the lack of "reader participation" makes the book feel flat. The book is full of details about harsh life in the legion and many characters die from "realistic deaths" like frostbite, infection, etc... But it really doesn't feel like heroic fantasy like the Robert E. Howard Books (Conan) or the David Gemmell Books (Druss the Legend). The human element becomes lost in the shuffle. The dialogue is also very matter of fact and to the point, which dilutes the characters' personalities.

Action:
The action scenes and battle strategies are very detailed. You do feel the impact of spears, the clash of armies, and the agony of defeat. You will also suffer the wounds, bitter cold, and agonizing hunger of the mercenaries. This book is full of fights, cavalry, skirmishes, and all out wars similar to the movie 300.

Maturity: M
There's swearing, rape, horrific deaths, gore, etc... It's not for young readers.

Overall:
This isn't a bad book. It's just a retelling of The Anabasis. You might as well just read the Anabasis. But if you want a fast paced historical drama full of action and grit, this will hit the spot.

Read it if you love battle stories set in Ancient Rome.
Read it if you love gritty battles.
Avoid it if you like high fantasy, dragons, or magic.
Avoid it if you really want to get attached to characters.

If you enjoyed this book, you should read the Drenai and Rigante Books from David Gemmell, the Robert E. Howard Conan Stories, the mercenary books by Joe Abercrombie, or the Books set in the Warhammer universe. They all have better battles, better settings, and better characters.

Note: The sequel to this book, Corvis has better characters, better writing, and the same type of gritty battles. It's 1 cent, and you can enjoy it without reading this one.

The storyline is somewhat too straightforward for my taste. The 'heroes' go in and out as expected from the onset and characters with some exceptions, lack some depth.

World characterization is very good, allthough the two moons is not an original concept (Guy Gavriel Kay''s world has allways had two moons ).

I give it a 4 stars rating because the story unfolds easily, things happen at a very reasonable pace and you end up with an enjoyable, entertaining read, which, in my case, was what I paid for.

It's a good story, but the story is lifted directly from Xenophon. It's a good alternate world, but the world is lifted from real world classical Greece and Persia.

This is a decent book and fairly well written. But it's a lazy book. The author borrowed a world instead of building a world. And then he borrowed a story to place in that world rather than inventing his own.

And why dance around with fantasy elements without ever making them a real part of the story? We have fantasy armor that plays no role at all. We have fantasy creatures that really play no role at all. I kept asking myself why this book acts like it wants to be fantasy, dips it's toes in fantasy elements, but then stays in lazy mode and kicks back to pseudo-classical Greece.

In the end it's a somewhat enjoyable read but a highly unsatisfying one.

I was quickly spellbound by the author's battles. This guy knows war and brings you right there. This book has the best hoplite combat anywhere. If you love ancient history or a gritty fantasy, I recommend The Ten Thousand.

Paul Kearney is probably my favorite fantasy author writing today. I just wish more people were buying his books so he would write more of them. I have been remiss in not posting a review of this great book soon after I read it last year.

This book is action-packed with intense, gritty battle scenes and well-drawn characters. The other positive reviews have already given a good synopsis of the story so I won't repeat it. I frankly don't understand the criticism in some of the reviews, but I realize that the enjoyment of any story is very subjective.

One reviewer notes the dearth of complexity of the novel and lack of depth of characters, which I simply do not think is true. There are plenty of interesting characters to follow in this story, though many do not survive until the end. The main character of this story, however, is the Macht, the people as a whole. Kearney richly developed the Macht's way of life, spirit, and will to survive. The individual characters were developed well-enough to tell the story that the author was trying to tell. Several characters (Rictus, Tiryn, Jason) were well-developed by the end of the story. Further development of them or other characters might have detracted from the story's focus. Further character development just was not necessary.

I do not have any complaints regarding the fantasy elements in this story or the perceived lack thereof. There were plenty of fantasy elements in this story: the black armor of the Macht, the non-human empire of the Khufr, the attack by the monstrous Qaf in the mountains. They don't detract from the story being told, but instead make it unique and intriguing. Kearney has created an interesting world where humans are a minority and left to themselves in a rugged and remote corner of the world. He has created a world and added enough fantasy elements to tell his story. He can explore this fantasy world in more detail in later books, which I certainly hope that he does in the near future.

Based on the Anabasis and reminiscent of Gates of Fire? So what? Buy them both, read them both, and enjoy them both. I did. By the way, I consider Kearney's Monarchies of God series to be the best fantasy series I have read in a long, long time.

The quote on the cover reads, "One of the very best writers of fantasy around" - Steven Erikson. A lot of people really love Erikson's writing and with intriguing cover art I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, Kearney's retelling and spin on a classic Greek tale failed to resonate with me. This book would be better classified as military fiction than fantasy. The Ten Thousand takes place in the world of Kuf, which is inhabited by two main groups of people. These are the Macht (a mountain dwelling race of warriors unparalleled in battle) and the Kufr (a vast land empire comprised of conquered and more civilized peoples). When Arkamenes, the younger brother of King Ashurnan (current ruler of the Kufr Empire) secretly recruits ten thousand Macht mercenaries and combines them with his own army, he attempts to march straight into the heart of the Empire and overthrow his brother. As you can well imagine, King Ashurnan doesn't take kindly to this treachery and of course war ensues resulting in unpleasant consequences on both sides.

Note: I have not read Xenophon's "Anabasis" nor have I read Frank Miller's "300" so this review has no bias in those regards. However, I can easily see how this story is an almost exact retelling of these tales.

Here are my thoughts on Paul Kearney's The Ten Thousand;


Pros

+ A glossary was included at the end of the book detailing gods, weapons and relevant cultural terminology.

+ Decent amount of combat and battles.

+ Had a world map.


Cons

- Majority of the characters are underdeveloped, faceless and ultimately forgettable. While the characters of Rictus, Gasca and Jason could be considered the main characters of the story, there are other characters who receive about just as much attention as they do and are less important.

- Fantasy elements are virtually non-existent. I can only recall two fantasy related references within the story. <Spoiler> One, being the black Cursebearer armour the Macht elite wore and two, the Macht's encounter with the yeti-like Qaf creatures while passing through a mountainous area <Spoiler>.

- Some places mentioned at the beginning of the book are not detailed on the world map.

- Bland and predictable story.

- Cliché ending.


Unfortunately, after about the first 100 pages I found the Ten Thousand becoming a struggle to read. The story didn't captivate me and none of the characters drew me into the book. Even the somewhat eccentric usurper brother Arkamenes didn't pique my interest. In the end, I began to contemplate that perhaps non-fantastical military fantasy is just not something I enjoy. By no means do I need every fantasy I read to be "high fantasy." This book just seemed to fall short on every level. Other reviewers appear to have really loved this book. I started reading another book half way through this one, always a bad sign. For me it was a real struggle to want to continue reading it and I ended up having to force myself to finish it.

2.5 stars. Haven't read anything by Kearney before, took a chance and it's doubtful that I'll explore any of his other works after this one. Ties to real historical facts or not, this rather tepid tale with few, if any fantasy trappings, never really got off the ground for me. None of the main characters are developed to such an extent that you really feel that you know or care about them, the action is pedestrian at best and the ending was almost insulting in it's predictability. Some of the reviewers here seem to adore Mr. Kearney and I don't mean to imply that he's not a decent enough writer. I just could not help but feel that in the hands of Joe Abercrombie this might have been a terrific adventure story with some incredibly visual scenes and memorable characters. The authors take on the real-life events that it was apparently based on probably would have been far more interesting than this nice little story with it's rather lame ending seemingly crafted to create the excuse for what I assume will be a sequel featuring the rather unintersting main character, Rictus. The story moved well and was not awful by any means but if you're looking for a classic fantasized sword, blood and tortured anti-hero story I suggest you start with Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" trilogy. There's no one better out there and he may be the best in the genre since Robert E. Howard. IMHO.