"The Ten Thousand" by Paul Kearney

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The Ten Thousand
Paul Kearney
480 pp. Solaris. $7.99
Pub. Date: 8/26/2008
ISBN-13: 978-1844165735

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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They raised a dustcloud behind and around them, a tawny, leaning giant, a toiling yellow storm bent on blotting out the western sky. It seemed a nation on the march, a whole people set on migrating to a better place. The sparse inhabitants of the Gadinai drew together, old feuds forgotten, and watched in wonder as the great column poured steadily onward, as unstoppable as the course of the sun. It was as grand as some harbinger of the world’s end, a spectacle even the gods must see from their places amid the stars. So this, then, was the passage of an army. – “The Ten Thousand”

Paul Kearney’s latest novel “The Ten Thousand” is what epic fantasy should be, epic in scope, epic in its gruesome and harrowing battles, and most important, epic in its execution. Kearney has created a gem of a standalone novel here, a fantastic military tour-de-force that will pillage your imagination and conquer your soul. It’s the literary embodiment of all things badass, a hairy-chested, testosterone-fueled action extravaganza that struts around like the biggest boy in school. It knows it can beat you up, and revels in that fact!

At the beginning of the novel, Rictus is preparing to make his final stand, the last surviving remnant of the army of the city of Isca. The Iscans are renowned for their military prowess among the Macht, and Rictus demonstrates his impressive fighting skills early on. Instead of being killed however, Rictus is captured and eventually freed though only after the complete decimation of hometown. To aggravate matters, he discovers that his family who lived outside of town had also been killed in the slaughter, truly leaving him as a man without a home or people.

While escaping the aftermath of the battle, Rictus happens upon a group of people traveling to Machran. One of members of the group is Gasca, a naïve young man with only rudimentary military skills, but a full complement of weapons and armor. Despite his inexperience, Gasca has been protecting the group mainly because he’s the only one armed. Rictus eventually befriends Gasca who’s traveling to Machran in order to become a mercenary. On reaching Machran, Rictus and Gasca both take the scarlet, agreeing to become mercenaries in an army lead by the Macht general Phiron.

Phiron’s army of ten thousand Macht warriors has been hired by Arkamenes, the brother of the Great King of the Asurian Empire. Arakamenes wishes to take his brother’s throne by force and is betting on the legendary military reputation of the Macht to get the job done. It isn’t long before the Macht have marched their way into the heart of the Asurian Empire only to see everything fall apart.

Much like the quasi-historical Spartans in the movie “300”, the mercenary Macht army in “The Ten Thousand” makes normal armies look like a pack of sissies. The Macht’s hard and unbreakable phalanxes are held together by their strong bonds of brotherhood and teamwork, functioning like a singular organism intent only on killing. Overwhelming odds against them, they spit at those; elite shock troops lined up in front of them, oh please. Their military prowess is legendary, and like all legends there’s a story behind the hype. “The Ten Thousand” is that story; it’s a Greek or Roman myth writ large. It’s poignant, bloody and awe-inspiring all at the same time; it will march you hard and in the end leave you gasping for breath.

As with all myths, a legendary reputation requires legendary deeds, and Kearney makes the Macht earn their mythological status by sending them through a gauntlet of increasingly harrowing and deadly battles. As unbeatable as the Macht seem, Kearney wisely places them into a seemingly “no-win” situation in the middle of the book, one that tests the army to its very core. He continuously challenges them, placing an ever greater array of obstacles in the way of their salvation, ceaselessly punishing them beyond the point of breaking. It’s this approach by Kearney that makes the novel so utterly enjoyable. If he had left the Macht unchallenged, the story would have suffered greatly for the lack of drama. To make the legendary and unbeatable seemed flawed is a difficult task, but Kearney accomplishes it beautifully. As big and frightful as the Macht army is, it can still be undone. Whether it will be undone is the question that pulls the reader through the novel.

The pace of “The Ten Thousand” is as relentless as the Macht’s campaign. The action is riveting, brutal and ugly, a dirt-eye view straight from the frontlines. Kearney excels in graphically describing the battles, immersing the reader into the cramped confines of the centon to wade through the blood and sweat. The prose stands above most epic fantasy, waxing poetical at points yet never losing its machismo. As Kearney writes:

“They were soldiers, creatures of appetite and routine with a core of indefinable restlessness at their heart. They were callous, brutal, sentimental, sardonic. They were selfish and selfless. They would knife a man over a copper obol, and would share with him the last of their water. They would trample a masterpiece of art in the dirt and be brought to tears by a veteran’s voice raised in song. They were the dregs of the earth. They were Macht.”

The characterizations are all wonderfully composed. Jason and Rictus particularly stand out due to the greater emotional depth Kearney gives to them. Rictus’s rage, and subsequent aloofness, about surviving the slaughter of Isca rings chilling and true, and one deeply empathizes with Jason and his star-crossed relationship with Tiryn. Kearney even succeeds in conveying the personalities of the minor characters through small passages because of his masterful descriptions and tight dialogue. Make no mistake though, the Macht are lean, hard men, stoic in their disposition, and Kearney is able to nail this aspect of them without letting them devolve into a flat caricature.

Last Word:
Simply stated, “The Ten Thousand” is a likely candidate for “Best of the Year” lists. Focusing on the birth of the Macht legend, the novel is myth-making at its finest, a thrilling and addictive tale of the Macht’s struggle to overcome incredible adversity. Paul Kearney beautifully fuels the narrative with an undeniable hipness, the lyrical prose dripping with heavy heapings of masculinity. This is skull-smashing, blood-drenching goodness. In the end, “The Ten Thousand” kicked my ass!

Final Grade: 89 out of 100