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mc_j_ho's review against another edition
5.0
This book is extremely excellent. Possibly the finest conclusion to a trilogy in fantasy to date. And that is off the back of two very excellent books that set a high bar for the third. It is hard to put into words just exactly how great this book is but it has just the right balance of darkness, romance, action and weird. 5 stars!
wannabekingpin's review against another edition
4.0
all reviews in one place:
night mode reading ;
skaitom nakties rezimu
About the Book: The ancient evil is no longer asleep. Maybe he never even was. Dominator’s powers grow and his tricks from beyond the grave are becoming ever more deadly. It seems that the only way to overcome the new nightmare is for enemies to unite. For the White Rose to strike an alliance with The Lady.
My Opinion: In some aspects it got real interesting. The digging in history, research for the old, buried names that might sway power. Old and young gods clashing. All of that was brilliant. But the whole Raven ordeal was awful.
night mode reading ;
skaitom nakties rezimu
About the Book: The ancient evil is no longer asleep. Maybe he never even was. Dominator’s powers grow and his tricks from beyond the grave are becoming ever more deadly. It seems that the only way to overcome the new nightmare is for enemies to unite. For the White Rose to strike an alliance with The Lady.
My Opinion: In some aspects it got real interesting. The digging in history, research for the old, buried names that might sway power. Old and young gods clashing. All of that was brilliant. But the whole Raven ordeal was awful.
braedonrosso's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
blairconrad's review against another edition
4.0
Better than the first one, but not as strong as Shadows Linger. The story-through-letters was kind of interesting, but not as good as the Shed/Croaker tag team we had last time. I did enjoy the interaction between two of the characters, as well as the descriptions of the Plain of Fear - there are some very cool ideas there.
I felt like this would've been a stronger story had one of the "mysteries" presented at the beginning not been quite so transparent. Heck, the characters berated themselves for not figuring it out sooner, so how hard could it have been?
I felt like this would've been a stronger story had one of the "mysteries" presented at the beginning not been quite so transparent. Heck, the characters berated themselves for not figuring it out sooner, so how hard could it have been?
clarks_dad's review against another edition
2.0
An underwhelming and inelegant conclusion to the series. Fair warning: spoilers lie ahead. I can't think of a way to give my opinion without them. Several of my main complaints are intimately tied to the plot.
So in this novel, Croaker and company have been exiled to the Plain of Fear, hiding out with the latest incarnation of the White Rose as the lady closes in after the events in Juniper in the previous novel. The Black Company resistance is searching the cache of documents seized in the first novel for any strategic advantage (namely the given name of the Lady or the Dominator and their Taken) without much luck. Raven, it seems, has failed to pass on most of the files. In the middle of the desert, Croaker begins to receive messages from a mysterious source telling the tale of Bomanz, the wizard who awakened the Lady and the Taken and we get another split narrative, telling us of contemporaneous events in the Barrowlands while the struggle between the Lady and the Rebel continues.
The biggest stylistic problem I have with the novel is the narrative structure. We get three separate narratives: Croaker's first person memoir style continues from the first, we get a third person omniscient narrative of some new individual named Crowbie, and then we have the third person limited narrative events of Bomanz. All three narratives are not contemporaneous, but span multiple times. The pov change is clunky and I have the same problem with it as I did in the second novel. Here it's complicated even further. I get the feeling that Cook wanted to tell the story of Bomanz but really couldn't figure out a way to do it in the existing structure, so he clumsily adds a mysterious plot point: historical updates via letter that Croaker reads into the record. It's unsatisfying and really breaks up the pacing in ways that don't really serve to engage the reader seamlessly.
The resolution seems a bit rose-tinted considering how the novel and Cook seem to set this up as a gritty, realistic fantasy epic. Death stalks these pages, but only seems to capture relatively inconsequential characters with the exception of Elmo, whose death would probably be felt more profoundly by the reader if he hadn't been virtually absent from the entirety of this last book. The right bad guys are redeemed, the notion of all-powerful Lady, Rose, and Dominator is conveniently dispensed with and everything is tied up neatly together in the conclusion that was inevitable from the first. So, why do I still feel like the ending came out of left field?
There's entirely too much convenient coincidence. The Black Company hideout in the Plain of Fear just happens to be a stone's throw from an ancient tree god who just so happens to be constraining another evil entity even more ancient than the Dominator and just so happens to present a solution for containing the Dominator himself in his sapling. The fauna of the Plain are sentient enough to provide an army for the White Rose capable of keeping the Lady at bay. There's a false sense of hopelessness that ruins any real feeling of peril. The miraculous reappearance of Raven and his equally miraculous rescue all stretch the bounds of credulity. I mean, it's fantasy...there's magic, but still...
While The White Rose has it's merits and Croaker and the Lady become far more interesting characters, the rest of the novel pretty much grasps at every tired trope in the genre to wrap itself up. As usual with trilogies, the story peaks way too early and the middle installment remains the best in this collection as well.
So in this novel, Croaker and company have been exiled to the Plain of Fear, hiding out with the latest incarnation of the White Rose as the lady closes in after the events in Juniper in the previous novel. The Black Company resistance is searching the cache of documents seized in the first novel for any strategic advantage (namely the given name of the Lady or the Dominator and their Taken) without much luck. Raven, it seems, has failed to pass on most of the files. In the middle of the desert, Croaker begins to receive messages from a mysterious source telling the tale of Bomanz, the wizard who awakened the Lady and the Taken and we get another split narrative, telling us of contemporaneous events in the Barrowlands while the struggle between the Lady and the Rebel continues.
The biggest stylistic problem I have with the novel is the narrative structure. We get three separate narratives: Croaker's first person memoir style continues from the first, we get a third person omniscient narrative of some new individual named Crowbie, and then we have the third person limited narrative events of Bomanz. All three narratives are not contemporaneous, but span multiple times. The pov change is clunky and I have the same problem with it as I did in the second novel. Here it's complicated even further. I get the feeling that Cook wanted to tell the story of Bomanz but really couldn't figure out a way to do it in the existing structure, so he clumsily adds a mysterious plot point: historical updates via letter that Croaker reads into the record. It's unsatisfying and really breaks up the pacing in ways that don't really serve to engage the reader seamlessly.
The resolution seems a bit rose-tinted considering how the novel and Cook seem to set this up as a gritty, realistic fantasy epic. Death stalks these pages, but only seems to capture relatively inconsequential characters with the exception of Elmo, whose death would probably be felt more profoundly by the reader if he hadn't been virtually absent from the entirety of this last book. The right bad guys are redeemed, the notion of all-powerful Lady, Rose, and Dominator is conveniently dispensed with and everything is tied up neatly together in the conclusion that was inevitable from the first. So, why do I still feel like the ending came out of left field?
There's entirely too much convenient coincidence. The Black Company hideout in the Plain of Fear just happens to be a stone's throw from an ancient tree god who just so happens to be constraining another evil entity even more ancient than the Dominator and just so happens to present a solution for containing the Dominator himself in his sapling. The fauna of the Plain are sentient enough to provide an army for the White Rose capable of keeping the Lady at bay. There's a false sense of hopelessness that ruins any real feeling of peril. The miraculous reappearance of Raven and his equally miraculous rescue all stretch the bounds of credulity. I mean, it's fantasy...there's magic, but still...
While The White Rose has it's merits and Croaker and the Lady become far more interesting characters, the rest of the novel pretty much grasps at every tired trope in the genre to wrap itself up. As usual with trilogies, the story peaks way too early and the middle installment remains the best in this collection as well.
pika_berry's review against another edition
4.0
I have no idea how the author pulls this off, but these books are interesting to read even when I don't understand what is going on. No doubt a lot of writerly black magic has went into this. The Hemingway-esque prose, male comradery and gritty ambience make me very happy.
shalewind's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic conclusion to this story arc. I seldom like when a hard fantasy introduces lots of high fantasy elements near the end but this one pulled it off very well. Great Anti-Hero tale.