Previous SFF Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
(1967- )
Paul Kearney was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. He read Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Middle English at Oxford and was a keen member of the Mountaineering Society and the Officer Training Corps. He was also an enthusiastic and very bad rower. Kearney has lived in Copenhagen, New Jersey, and Cambridgeshire, but at present he makes his home a stone’s throw from the sea in County Down, with his wife, two dogs, a beat-up old boat, and far too many books. Read excerpts of his novels at Paul Kearney’s website.
A Different Kingdom by Paul Kearney
A Different Kingdom is a reprint of one of Paul Kearney’s first novels, first published in 1993. The good news is that this doesn’t read like an early novel in an illustrious career: it actually reads like something a well-practiced author would produce after a lot of hard work.
A Different Kingdom is set in the picturesque countryside of Ireland and the farm where Michael lives. Alongside this, perhaps on top of it or layered throughout it,
Sarah Chorn´s rating: 5 | Paul Kearney | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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.
Guest´s rating: 5 | Paul Kearney | SFF Reviews | no comments |
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.
Guest´s rating: 4.5 | Paul Kearney | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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,
John Hulet and Guest | Paul Kearney | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
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.
Guest´s rating: 4 | Paul Kearney | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney
Reading The Wolf in the Attic, by Paul Kearney, was like reading two different books. One of these books was a solid three-star read. The other was very familiar and ultimately unsatisfying, and would probably get a 2.5 star rating from me. I’ll explain at the end of the review how I came to the overall rating I chose.
Kearney’s other work is described as second-world epic fantasy and he is compared to David Gemell.
Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Paul Kearney | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one