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A review by peterkeep
The Many Deaths of the Black Company by Glen Cook
5.0
I'll have to add a full review a bit later, but for now I'm just extremely satisfied with the ending of the series. This omnibus probably ended up being my favorite of them all.
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Ok, so I've had some time to think about it, and also time to sit down and write my thoughts out. It's hard to judge the last book (or two books in this case) of a series without thinking about the series as a whole - a big part of endings is looking back at the whole thing, the journey that brought these characters to these ending points. It's easy to fixate on specific character growths and plot arcs as well. And in this case, it's pretty perfect. This is a really great series with great characters and a great ending.
Since this is a review of The Many Deaths of the Black Company, though, I should focus on those last two stories.
They're really close to perfect in my mind. After a bit of a rocky patch in the third omnibus, I felt like Glen Cook really brought everything back to the traditional Black Company feel. They're back to being a mercenary company trying to finish whatever jobs they're hired for, and making sure that they don't get screwed over along the way. There are tricks and turns, funny one-liners, and great new characters (or background characters turned main characters). The POVs are solid, with the Annalists of the two stories really holding their own (I won't say who they are, since it's fun to see the pen transfer to new characters as it happens). I really think they're two of my favorite Annalists. The rest of the POVs include characters that we already know and either love or hate depending on where all of the shifting allegiances lie at the moment.
There's plenty of nostalgia throughout the last story especially, which I'm totally ok with. It was done really organically and served as a nice tool to tie some of the earlier adventures of the Black Company to these final ones in specific plot points or at least thematically. This gave a bit of a melancholy tinge to the normal sarcasm and cynicism of the soldiers, but considering the events that transpire, it's totally appropriate.
I don't want to talk too much about the ending, since I don't want to spoil it, but I will say this. For the characters that I've grown to love throughout the series (Croaker, Lady, Goblin, One-Eye, etc.), I really feel like the endings are satisfying and understandable. Some more than others. The ending had me guessing until the last minute, and when I saw it all fall into place, I was really pleased.
Soldiers live. And wonder why.
It is an immortality of sorts.
---------------------------
Ok, so I've had some time to think about it, and also time to sit down and write my thoughts out. It's hard to judge the last book (or two books in this case) of a series without thinking about the series as a whole - a big part of endings is looking back at the whole thing, the journey that brought these characters to these ending points. It's easy to fixate on specific character growths and plot arcs as well. And in this case, it's pretty perfect. This is a really great series with great characters and a great ending.
Since this is a review of The Many Deaths of the Black Company, though, I should focus on those last two stories.
They're really close to perfect in my mind. After a bit of a rocky patch in the third omnibus, I felt like Glen Cook really brought everything back to the traditional Black Company feel. They're back to being a mercenary company trying to finish whatever jobs they're hired for, and making sure that they don't get screwed over along the way. There are tricks and turns, funny one-liners, and great new characters (or background characters turned main characters). The POVs are solid, with the Annalists of the two stories really holding their own (I won't say who they are, since it's fun to see the pen transfer to new characters as it happens). I really think they're two of my favorite Annalists. The rest of the POVs include characters that we already know and either love or hate depending on where all of the shifting allegiances lie at the moment.
There's plenty of nostalgia throughout the last story especially, which I'm totally ok with. It was done really organically and served as a nice tool to tie some of the earlier adventures of the Black Company to these final ones in specific plot points or at least thematically. This gave a bit of a melancholy tinge to the normal sarcasm and cynicism of the soldiers, but considering the events that transpire, it's totally appropriate.
I don't want to talk too much about the ending, since I don't want to spoil it, but I will say this. For the characters that I've grown to love throughout the series (Croaker, Lady, Goblin, One-Eye, etc.), I really feel like the endings are satisfying and understandable. Some more than others. The ending had me guessing until the last minute, and when I saw it all fall into place, I was really pleased.
Soldiers live. And wonder why.
It is an immortality of sorts.