Rate this book

Los Diez Mil (2013)

by Paul Kearney(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 2

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Alamut

series

The Macht

review 1: What this book does well, it does very well. The battle scenes are well-rendered and the world is sketched believably. A fairly linear plot - and an ending with the death of one of the main characters is a bit predictable - and the characters are generally largely lightly sketched and a bit interchangeable. However, if you want straightforward military fantasy which rattles along and generally entertains as it does so, then this is well worth a read.
review 2: Kearney can certainly write. His descriptions are rich and fluid, and he creates a strong sense of another time and place (which is a common failure of some Fantasy writers). Readers should go into this book prepared for a non-Fantasy tale, regardless of the marketing label. We could spend hours arguing... more about what is (and isn't) a "real Fantasy" story, but the common expectations of the genre will not be met for most. For me, this is only a 'Fantasy' novel in that it's not taken from some direct historical setting. Aside from the invented place and race names, this doesn't feel anything like a Fantasy tale. That's not necessarily bad in my case, because I love historical fiction, and that is what this book feel like to me. Go back to the era of Ancient Sumeria, add some races, and that's the extent of the 'Fantasy' elements. Many other readers will be bothered at just how 'Macro' this story is. Authors commonly write along a spectrum with the emphasis being on characters on one end and the plot on the other end (with exceptions, of course). The Ten Thousand is extremely far on the plot end of that line. While there are characters who are important (and who feel real), each of them ultimately feel minor. In fact, you could see this book as actually lacking in a protagonist. This is a detriment to the novel, I think. I think it's so far to the edge of that scale, that readers lose interest in the fate of the Macht (the army at the center of the story). Lastly, readers should go into this knowing that this almost exclusively an Ancient World war-story. If you dislike that sub-genre, avoid it. I think that this mixture of his talent as a great writer but let-down due to the type of tale he has written leaves me too conflicted to give a Star-Rating, so I am leaving it blank. less

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