Shadow Games
I mostly read this book becuase I realized I’ve fulfilled my desires to reread the Black Company. The problem with the Black Company as a series is that the series has a great first arc, a very middling second arc, the third arc is basically weird and boring, and the last arc is just plain weird. As a series, its not great even if it does start off with a bang.
Well, I’m done with the first 3 books, so why did I start with the second arc? Its mostly because as great as the first arc was, it didn’t finish off a thread, which was the romance between Lady and Croaker. THAT thread is tied up in this book, which actually starts off quite nicely. The Black Company accompanies the Lady back to her capital city and the Lady of Charm and putzes around for a while to wait for her to finish tying up her own threads before she absconds with the Black Company to return the annals back to their place of origin.
She realizes she’d never leave if she had to tie up everything, so she just leaves once Croaker makes clear to her that he’s not waiting for her and then the journey to the south begins for real. They make really good time across the remaining of the Empire’s domain, and then once they cross the equator (as marked by how the days and night are of equal length), the book becomes a bit of an adventure again. They meet up with new and interesting people, and also the book starts to give you the POV of another group of people that you don’t know of.
Ultimately, the Black Company ends up at almost company strength again because they keep recruiting in each of the places they stay at, and the book culminates in once again, some really fancy military action that’s as exciting as any of the battles in the first 3 books.
Add to that the whole “will they or won’t they” dynamics between Lady and Croaker, and you have a book that is actually as good as any of the first 3. The cliff hanger is also quite epic and writing this review almost makes me want to pick up the other series.
I’ll probably do that next year, because I think i’ve had my fill of Glen Cook for the remaining of the year.
Highly recommended as a night cap to the first 3 books of the Black Company.