Hawkwood and the Kings by Paul Kearney

Hawkwood and the Kings is an omnibus of Hawkwood’s Voyage and The Heretic Kings, first released in the mid-nineties to critical acclaim but limited commercial success. Paul Kearney is, to the detriment of readers of fine fantasy, one of those authors who ran into publisher difficulties. Had the publisher actively marketed the original releases of The Monarchies of God, the books would have sold well and would unquestionably be considered classics alongside other great adult fantasies like George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Steven Erikson’s Read More

Century of the Soldier by Paul Kearney

Century of the Soldieris the omnibus edition of The Iron Wars (1999), The Second Empire (2000) and Ships from the West (2002), and is the concluding volume of Paul Kearney’s re-issued The Monarchies of God. It is as compelling and readable as Hawkwood and the Kings, and while it does not enjoy five-star status with its predecessor, it is an excellent conclusion, and I stand by my statement in my previous review: any person who loves good epic fantasy must read these books.

In many ways,Century of the Soldier is a very different book from Hawkwood and the Kings. The first two thirds continue where Hawkwood left off, dealing with the ongoing Merduk conflict in... Read More

The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney

The Ten Thousand is the first Paul Kearney book that I have read, and it is as different a fantasy as I have ever read, and in fact, it is barely a fantasy. The only fantastic elements are that it is set on a different world — Kuf — with two moons, that the “races” of humans are separated a little more by physical aspects than those in our world, and there are 5000 sets of impregnable black breastplates that were given (apparently by the goddess Antimone) to the Macht, an ancient warrior society very similar to the Greek city states that pre-dated Philip and Alexander of Macedon. Aside from that, this novel is a historical novel that borrows closely from Greek history but, by putting it in a fantasy, Kearney is able to look at the characters of this band of men without having to apologize to historians. He can tackle this story and the themes he raises with, as one of... Read More

The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney

The Ten Thousand is a historical fantasy which follows the story of two young men growing up in a very close approximation of the Greek City States known as the Macht. One has just lost his family due to war and the other has set off to find adventure as a soldier. Both of them end up enlisting in a large force of mercenaries bound for a larger empire. Their story is interesting; we follow them on their campaign through a foreign land peopled with races who aren’t human, but are close enough that they’re easily imaginable and not too fantastic.

Paul Kearney’s excellent world building is enhanced by his obvious knowledge of the historical period. The Ten Thousand seems realistic and it really draws you into the rough, violent world of a highly trained mercenary. Kearney’s writing is well-done, too, and the story moves at a nice pace. There are lots of di... Read More

Corvus by Paul Kearney

I was introduced to Paul Kearney’s writing when I read The Ten Thousand, and I instantly loved the way Kearney does his brand of historical fantasy. His focus is on a Greek-like, Bronze Age civilization peopled by the Macht, a war-like civilization of city-states very much like the Greece of ca. 400 BC. In both The Ten Thousand and Corvus, Kearney uses ancient history as a broad structure for telling a tale of war in all of its bloody horror.

In Corvus, Kearney brings back Rictus, one of the leaders of the Ten Thousand, mercenaries who fought their way out of the Asurian Empire after their employer failed to seize its throne, and who are very loosely based on this world’s Ten Thousand, Greeks who similarly fought their way out of Persia. Rictus has a legendary stature in the cities of the Macht, and is... Read More