Rating: 
Summary: A weak and disjointed "me too" Gates of Fire
Review: I am amazed by some of these reviews. Anyone comparing this with Gates of Fire must have some other motive. (A better comparison is Pressfiled's much weaker book about Alcibiades). This novel creates and abandons plot elements (the Boetian engines, for example) en masse and the ending is abrupt and highly unsatisfactory. The rest of the Anabasis may have been boring but isn't a novelization supposed to fix that? He'd made up enough silly relationship material... he could have easily had those elements be part of the last part of the book. Seems to me that Huck Finn on the river would have been described as "not worth novelizing" by some ot these reviewers. If you must by it, you can have mine as it'll be on ebay asap.
Rating: 
Summary: A good read but hardly a gem of the genre
Review: Historical fiction novels, I feel, always expose an author's ability to create a plot. The reason is that such novels always require a certain amount of fictional license in the recreation of the historical figure's early life. Particularly with ancient heroes such as Xenephon. Ford makes easy use of the 'sidekick' narrator in Themo and there seem to be a general favor amongst authors of this genre to make that narrator a slave.
So it is here. The 'early life' of Xenephon is minimal in actual record so Ford has to make something up - and fails dismally. He trots out the tired old standard vingettes: the hero's development as a warrior, his first love, the political situation of the time, and the guru mentor - in this case Socrates. It's all a bit poor.
However, once we get past the author's efforts to create a history for Xenephon and onto the areas where he is writing around actual events with the march of the 10,000 then his writing style settles down. Indeed, it actually becomes very good. The side plot with Tissaphernes' daughter as the statutory love interest and the novel does attempt to give us some insights as to the hardships. Not through Xenephon though. He is depicted as harsh and stoic, which neatly allows the author to not delve too much into his character. In fact, the character of Clearchus is brilliantly drawn, though perhaps it draws a bit too much on Spartan reputation than historical fact.
Having read a fair few ancient Roman/Greek historical fiction, this will come somewhere down on my recommendation list, but any fan of the sub-genre should read it.
Rating:
Summary: The Cup's Only Half Full!
Review: As I finished the book yesterday, I closed the cover and said to myself, "Not bad .... It's not Gates of Fire, but not bad." Because the story was intriguing, I searched the Internet for more information. I stumbled upon a synopsis of Xenophon's Anabasis prepared by a high school student. The student had done a superb job in summarizing a complex story. But as I reviewed it, I learned two things: 1) Michael Curtis Ford had done a good job recounting the facts that he chose to include in The Ten Thousand (excepting, perhaps, his revelation that Tissaphernes, the Persian General, was a woman?), but more disturbingly, 2) He stopped about halfway through this incredible story of courage and survival.When I finished Ford's book, I was overwhelmed with the accomplishments of these brave warriors. Then I learned that there were many, many more trials that they faced before they successfully reached their homeland. Frankly, I felt cheated. I've tried to figure out why Ford would end his book halfway through the story. It's almost as if he tired of writing. Reflecting on that thought, it occurred to me that the book became less and less detailed as it approached it's conclusion. With just 18 pages left, Theo (the narrator) writes, "This, of course, is the dramatic climax of my tale ...." Why 'of course?' The book is well-done to the point that Ford takes the story. Had I known, however, that he was going to stop halfway through, I would have opted to read Xenophon's Anabasis to get the entire drama.
Rating: 
Summary: A heroic read!
Review: The young philosopher-warrior Xenophon, scion of a noble Athenian family & follower of Socrates, risks all to follow the call of the young Persian prince Cyrus for an enormous mercenary army to wrest control of all Persia, the most powerful empire on earth. Along with his cousin Proxenus, the war-maddened Spartan general Clearchus, & prince Cyrus' native troops, Xenophon & ten thousand Greek mercenaries depart for the adventure of a lifetime into the heart of Asia Minor. Based on the true tale of THE TEN THOUSAND, Michael Curtis Ford has revived fifth-century B.C. Greek warfare with compelling action to give us an epic novel of struggle & savagery, adventure & glory, survival & beauty. THE TEN THOUSAND puts the dust & the blood of battle in your nostrils, the clamor & sound of engagement & life in your ears until there's no room for thoughts of our prosaic modern world. If you read only one historical fiction this year, make it THE TEN THOUSAND.
Rating: 
Summary: Good history; uninspired story-telling
Review: Not long ago, I told my 11 year old daughter my own oral, mistake-ridden version of the march of the ten thousand. A week later, we were happily surprised to find Ford's "The Ten Thousand" prominently displayed in a local bookstore. I instantly bought it both for (hopefully) a great read and so, perhaps, I could get my facts straight the next time my daughter asked to hear the story. The book faithfully recounts one of the most dramatic stories in Greek history. And this historical reconstruction is fascinating for anyone who enjoys the subject material. For any other reader, I cannot recommend the book. The characters are, for the most part, shallow and unengaging. The pacing is rather odd as well. At times, Ford dwells in ornate prose on meaningless philosophical and theological musings that set me yawning. Other times, he coldly summarizes events which certainly must have been heart-pounding adventures for the participants and deserved to be told in greater subjective detail. I give the book the four stars only because it is a well-researched rendition of a great historical epic with its own inherent drama, suspense, and adventure. Ford, thankfully, did not ruin the story with historical inaccuracies and improbabilities, or too many frivolous subplots. But neither did he ennoble or flesh-out the story with any special skill.
Rating:
Summary: Enthralling novel from a promising author
Review: The "Ten Thousand" is a fascinating story of the ill-fated campaign of a band of Greek mercenaries in the political chaos following the Peloponnesian War. After the Persian forces pillaged the Greek camp, the Greeks were stranded hundreds of miles from home without the provisions needed to return home. Xenophon, a junior officer who assumed command of the forces after most of the senior officers were betrayed and murdered, leads his army in a perilous journey through hostile enemy terrain until they reach the Black Sea. Along the way, they were forced to face hostile forces, and barely survived starvation, frostbite, and disease.
The "Ten Thousand" was very interesting and fast-paced. Ford gives you a real feel for the horrific hardships that Xenophon and his army endured, and in my view, does a fine job with his character development. Ford weaves in colorfully drawn details of ancient Greek life which enrich the novel and the characters, but never feel overtly "historical" or forced. I finished this book feeling that I had received a layman's education in an area of history that I was previously only vaguely familiar with. This is remarkable writing by any standard.
Rating:
Summary: A great new author
Review: As I made my way thru this novel, the human drama of relationships began to become as readily apparent as the bloody battles all throughout this excellent story. The tale is told by Theo in the first person, who is the squire of Xenophon. Thru Theo's eyes we see how close he is to his master, but as they go thru one struggle to the next, it is masterful storytelling to watch as things begin to fray. The romantic aspect is also done well with shocking developments as we trudge deeper thru enemy territory with the Ten Thousand. Michael Curtis Ford's use of allegory with the Greek pantheon of gods to describe certain events (one example being in how Theo compares his midnight romp w/ girlfriend with a pair of lover gods). This book was indeed a page-turner, and also easy to read and concludes at the end (unlike some other books I read that are never ending chronicles). This story is a lot more than just exhausted soldiers tramping from one battle to the next.This is an outstanding effort by a new author. I will definitely be keeping my eye out for the next book by Michael Curtis Ford.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Great Historic Adventures
Review: Xenophon's Anabais is one of the great historic adventures of the ancient world. It recounts the extraordinary epic of ten thousand Greek mercenaries abandoned around eastern Iraq who fought and marched across modern Turkey against overwhelming odds and returned to Greece by way of the Black Sea. This novel is a sound first novel, openly based on Xenophon's work, and a good introduction to the challenges faced by Xenophon both in the failing Greece in which Athens had been defeated by the Peloponnesian Wars and the economy and society were both battered and in the long ordeal of first service and then a march of extraordinary endurance. For anyone interested in thinking about the ancient world, the degree to which cultures have clashed, and the process of survival this is a thought-provoking book.
Rating: 
Summary: Clumsy First Attempt
Review: Xenophon's march? Fictionalized? Boy, as a lover of ancient history and historical fiction, I can tell you it took me less than three seconds to decide to pick this one up. But unfortunately, it was a big disappointment. The narrative is dreadfully stale, and worse, there is a surprise ending which will leave you in disbelief. The historical event that Mr. Ford chooses to weave his tale around is the famous march of the 10,000, or Xenophon's march, in 401 B. C. What happened was, a group of about 10,000 Greek mercenaries were enlisted in the army of Cyrus, the Persian prince, whose goal was to forcefully take the throne from his father in order to become king of this mighty empire. But at the great battle of Cunaxa, his army was defeated and he was killed. The Greeks suddenly found themselves surrounded by enemies, bereft of friends, and thousands of miles from home. They could not go back the way they had come--through the desert--so instead marched and fought their way north, to the Black Sea, a journey in excess of seven hundred miles. It is a fascinating story. Mr. Ford chooses to relate it through the first person narrative of Xenophon's slave, Themistogenes, who grew up with him. And therein lies the problem. We, as readers, understand that Mr. Ford is not writing a history; he is writing fiction. We are therefore disposed to let him do whatever he wants--as long as he sticks to the known facts--with his fictional characters. Indeed, we want him to do something with them; that is why we are reading this kind of fiction. Make them interesting! Fun, even! He does not. Instead, Themistogenes merely follows his master around and slavishly records events. Even with the exciting subject matter, this often becomes monotonous. Oh, the lost opportunity! How much better could this have been! For example, we know he grew up in Greece: what are his opinions about the Persians? What does he think of their military discipline? Their arms? The fact that they bring their slaves and harem girls and treasures with them on campaigns? We know from an historical standpoint that this is true, but what does our narrator, as a more disciplined Greek, think of this? He meets several Persian women and in fact falls in love with one. How are Greek and Persian women different? In fact, how are Greek and Persian women different from women of today? Of course, Themistogenes does not live in the twenty-first century, but the author does. It seems that there are many ways in which he could have brought little things like this out more. Again, Themistogenes is a fictional character. How about, in the context of what we know, a controversial or illuminating opinion? And Themistogenes' personal story--the fictional one--is so totally sublimated by that of Xenophon's--the historical one--that it is practically non-existent. Give him a life! Yes, I did mention that he falls in love, but there is so little of this, and with characters so bland, that it never even remotely catches fire. There is just not enough here of the little daily things that go on in a soldier's life--that go on in all our lives--to make for compelling fiction. How did he feel, for example, when it appeared Xenophon doubted him? When his lover apparently rejected him? When he had a headache and didn't feel like getting up one morning? We never really get much of this. Nope, like the good, little historian he is, he merely reports things, in his careful, meticulous and plodding way. Okay, he is a good reporter. The battlefield descriptions are good, and the journey is recalled in great detail. I have no doubt that all of this occurred exactly as Mr. Ford relates it, and despite himself, some of this is interesting. He also takes the risk of allowing his narrator to occasionally toss out some philosophical commentary: life, death, war, love, etc. In my opinion, this succeeds. But he drops a bombshell on us at the end--a bizarre revelation--which to me wrecked what little good feeling I had about this. It is completely out of the blue and unsupported by anything that went on before. And I know--believe me, I riffled back through dozens of chapters--that I didn't miss anything. Reading this book is like getting lulled to sleep by a hypnotist, who, without telling you beforehand, wakes you up by dropping a load of rotten tomatoes on your head. Perhaps you didn't mind the half-falling asleep--you even kind of enjoyed it--but the tomatoes will always remind you that it was, in the end, an unpleasant experience.
Rating:
Summary: A very fine rendering of a much older tale!
Review: I read the Anabasis, the narrative by the Greek historian Xenophon, upon which this book is based, many years back and, when I saw this book, I was pleasantly surprised that someone had actually taken a crack at novelizing it. The original text of the Anabasis essentially records the vicissitudes of a troop of Greek mercenaries who got stuck in the middle of the Persian empire, far from their native Hellenic hills, on the wrong side of a civil war between two Persian bluebloods. With their leader and employer taking an untimely powder in the midst of the critical battle, they are left without a patron, ten thousand against a hundred thousand or more, and no way out across a vast inhospitable desert lying between them and their Mediterranean road home, while being shadowed by a treacherous Persian general. How they pull it together in the face of incredible hardships and fight their way home again is the crux of this tale . . . and it's a rousing one. Still, having read Xenophon, I was faced with the fact that there was little suspense for me in this adventure since I already knew how the basic narrative would work itself out. Worse, the interior sub-plots were all too easy to second guess, while the characters were not as sharply drawn as I'd have liked and so not as compelling, for their part, as they might have been. More, there was a rather distant, abstractness to the writing itself that tended to leave me a trifle cold. It did not engage me as much as Pressfield's GATES OF FIRE had, the novel about the Spartan stand against Xerxes' invading Persians, roughly a generation or so before the events which Xenophon recorded. In fact, Pressfield's book's success probably inspired the decision to publish this one, though that, by itself, is not necessarily an adverse comment on this work. This tale is, in fact, nicely written and a well-wrought tribute to the Anabasis, despite my carping above. It is, despite its flaws, a vivid and convincing recreation of the ancient world in the time of the Greek Golden Age and that mighty Persian empire with which the Greeks alternately fought and dickered. Although the philosophizing built into the narrator's voice left me a trifle cold, as it seemed to be more for effect (to mimic the Greek penchant for reflecting deeply), than to really present a coherent and insightful world view . . . or to raise great questions . . . I found the narrator's "voice" reasonably convincing despite the modern tone it set. I did find a few irritating errors, however, the most annoying being the reference to the upper Euphrates River near the end when a glance at the map on the indside cover clearly shows the upper Tigris to have been meant (unless that map got it wrong -- I don't know, myself, since I didn't go back to check my atlas). Oh and one rather clever maneuver kind of stuck out for me: a quote attributed to the Gallic Yourcenar, a personage with which I am entirely unfamiliar, though I note the author thanks a colleague of the SAME last name in his afterword! A clever ploy indeed. On balance, I really did like this one since it brought Xenophon's narrative to life in a somewhat modern idiom which still manages to sucessfully evoke the ancient world from which it was sprung. And, if it was not wholly satisfying for lack of suspense and vivid characters, well, at the least, it did its job in breathing life into the ancient text. I looked for more from this book than I got. But, in truth, I got enough. If you like ancient worlds and fascinating adventure, this true life tale reported by Xenophon and novelized by Mr. Ford, is worth the money and the time! SWM
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