Silk Road Centurion by Scott Forbes Crawford, a review

I am not a historian of ancient Chinese history nor the legendary Silk Road that served as crucial trade route, but author Scott Forbes Crawford seems (at least to this layman) to be, and to have done his research. His debut novel Silk Road Centurion feels historic while maintaining a page turning sense of adventure. And so is a successful book I enjoyed reading.

Overall it’s a fine read for fans of historical fiction, of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, or a gripping story well-told.

In 53 B.C. Roman soldier Manius Titinius is taken captive by a nomadic group of bow-wielding horsemen called the Xiongnu. Manius is led on a forced march across a thousand miles or more with a handful of other survivors and placed in a slave camp, exposed to the elements. Hobbled physically though never broken mentally, he swears an oath of vengeance. Ultimately his goal is to return to Rome, but over time he learns the language and culture of the locals, enters platonic and romantic relationships with some of them, and ultimately recommits to helping others from a culture very removed from his own.

This is a story of big stakes for the characters but small stakes when compared against the broader panorama of history. There are no big pivotal historical battles like you’ll find in Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt for example; Silk Road Centurion is small scale and personal and so in this respect will likely appeal to fans of sword-and-sorcery.

What I appreciated most were not the battles (of which there are several, violent and well depicted) but the quiet moments. Meditations on healing and what it means to be healthy in body in mind; of differing belief systems and how they help us navigate the world; of family and legacy and how they give life meaning; and of the importance of codes of honor as an operating system for how we should behave. Manius is a man of his word and when he makes a promise he keeps it. He also comes to appreciate the people of the far east and their quiet endurance as farmers loyal to the earth and to each other.

I liked this book for the same reasons I enjoy some historical fiction more than other; when an author gets too bogged down in place and time details and loses the thread of a rousing story, I’m out. Silk Road Centurion did not suffer from this flaw, and keeps you turning the pages. Crawford focuses more on plot and action than place or setting, which I appreciated. 

While I would not say this book is much like Gladiator save for the period, Manius’ fixation on a figurine of the goddess Fortuna, or fortune, is an echo. The way he holds it and reflects on the nature of fortune in critical life and death situations or when hope is at its lowest ebb reminded me of the way Russell Crowe's Maximus Decimus Meridius would rub sand into his palms and let it fall through his hands, or feeling the wheat fields of his distant home—a ritual, pregnant with meaning, grounding him to something larger. There is much going on in these pages of the interplay of fortune and fate, and the one we make through our actions.

Silk Road Centurion is not without some first novel issues. In places the pacing sags; in other places it feels like there is too much going on; a scene near the end of Manius and his friend (endearingly named Ox) crossing an ice-cold river and suffering yet another near-death mishap feels like a bridge too far. How much suffering can a man endure before it stretches him to break, or breaks the reader? Finally, I think some of the revelatory character payoff, while powerful on the page, perhaps did not quite feel earned to me. 

So what. 

This is an impressive start for a new author. Anyone who not only writes but pushes a work of this length and scope and ambition through to completion deserves our praise. It gets mine (and the likes of Howard Andrew Jones, who is blurbed on the interior). Silk Road Centurion is a good book. Read it.