Author: Paul Kearney
Cover Artist: Chris McGrath
Publisher: Solaris
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: August 2008

While Paul Kearney’s The Ten Thousand is patently a fantasy story, it could just as easily be a historical record. This is a story of the famous warriors of Kuf called the Macht; and one of their most famous conflicts. The Macht are born and bred soldiers. Taught from birth all of the skills necessary to be the most sought after mercenaries in their world, some even possess a suit of magical armor, bestowed upon them by a goddess and handed down over the centuries by the most feared warriors. The Ten Thousand refers to a campaign of the Macht where their employer gathers ten thousand soldiers to wage a war in another land.

For anyone with an interest in military history, strategy and fiction, this is a book for you. Even those people who may scoff at the idea of reading a fantasy novel will enjoy this story. There is only the barest mention of things magical or mystical, no active magic, and only some strange creatures thrown in at the end to give it the ‘fantasy’ aspect. In all other ways this is strictly a story about soldiers.

Following the Macht through the training of recruits, handling supplies, drilling, transportation and their disciplinary practices gives you a feel for what it might have been like to be a soldier in our own history, back when Rome was the power of the world. However, other than the military angle – full scale battles described in graphic detail, strategies and their origin and uses, the effects of politics on the military and the sense of brotherhood that soldiers of all sorts share – there really is not much to the book. As I said there is only faintest blush put on this completely mundane story to make it fit as a fantasy when it would have worked just as well as a fictional historical military adventure.

Kearney’s writing is good and the story is well constructed but unless you are a fan of all things historically military, this book will probably not excite you. The plot is straightforward, full of blood and guts, swearing, battles, sweating, marching, drilling, black humor and death all with just that hint of otherness that makes it fantasy.

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Topics: Chris McGrath, Paul Kearney, Solaris, The Ten Thousand