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patrick6367's review against another edition
4.0
Liked it! It was an obvious, loving homage to Joe Abecrombie, but since I love Joe's fiction better, and this novel was well-done, I was very happy with it.
lefonix's review against another edition
3.0
Honestly closer to a 4 than a 3, but it had some real weird attitudes that didn't sit right with me.
otherwyrld's review against another edition
3.0
This was an exhilarating, enthralling and above all entertaining book, and I read it pretty much in one go. So why did I only give it three stars?
The problem started early on, when I started comparing it to the go-to book for all modern fantasy, Game of Thrones. It was as I started reading through the book that I started noticing more and more similarities, not so much in the plot but in the characters. Once I did that it became a bit too obvious - how else am I to explain the surly warrior with a badly burnt face and with a canine sounding nickname, or the female queen of a foreign land with long platinum blonde hair and purple eyes. In fact it got so bad that I started imagining one character speaking with Peter Dinklage's voice - after all, what else would a half-mage sound like (admittedly he was half a man because he had had his legs cut off).
And then there were the names - Brienna, Sasha, Yllandris, Bran, Tyro (OK that's one's a bit of a stretch because its a dog, but still), once you see one you keep seeing more. They sound just a little bit too much like GOT character names, even when they don't play the same roles. I may be overstating this a little bit, but each time it happened it pulled me out of the story a bit, and it's a pity the editor of this book didn't get the author to change the details just a little bit more.
All this is a real shame, because I really enjoyed the book itself. As I said, it was a thrilling non-stop story. I liked the idea of the background, where a group of wizards grouping together to kill the gods, only to effectively find themselves replacing them. The gods bodies, having fell to earth from heaven, are now the only source of magic, but it's a dangerous job to mine them, as the wild magic spawns all kinds of nasty mutated creatures. The world is dying, destroyed by the battle five centuries before this book is set, but people still have to live in this dying world.
The characters were mostly well drawn and interesting to read, though the so-called main character Davarus Cole suffered from being an idiot with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. I almost felt sorry for him at the end though, and he found out some hard truths about his past. Highland warriors Kayne and Jerek reminded me of Terry Pratchetts's Cohen the barbarian (though 30 years less decrepit), as they fought and complained about how they were too old for this shit. There's a lot of other good characters here, and again like GOT we get to hear the story from their point of view.
The end ties up well with a few revelations, and I am looking forward to reading the next part of this trilogy. 3 1/2 stars
The problem started early on, when I started comparing it to the go-to book for all modern fantasy, Game of Thrones. It was as I started reading through the book that I started noticing more and more similarities, not so much in the plot but in the characters. Once I did that it became a bit too obvious - how else am I to explain the surly warrior with a badly burnt face and with a canine sounding nickname, or the female queen of a foreign land with long platinum blonde hair and purple eyes. In fact it got so bad that I started imagining one character speaking with Peter Dinklage's voice - after all, what else would a half-mage sound like (admittedly he was half a man because he had had his legs cut off).
And then there were the names - Brienna, Sasha, Yllandris, Bran, Tyro (OK that's one's a bit of a stretch because its a dog, but still), once you see one you keep seeing more. They sound just a little bit too much like GOT character names, even when they don't play the same roles. I may be overstating this a little bit, but each time it happened it pulled me out of the story a bit, and it's a pity the editor of this book didn't get the author to change the details just a little bit more.
All this is a real shame, because I really enjoyed the book itself. As I said, it was a thrilling non-stop story. I liked the idea of the background, where a group of wizards grouping together to kill the gods, only to effectively find themselves replacing them. The gods bodies, having fell to earth from heaven, are now the only source of magic, but it's a dangerous job to mine them, as the wild magic spawns all kinds of nasty mutated creatures. The world is dying, destroyed by the battle five centuries before this book is set, but people still have to live in this dying world.
The characters were mostly well drawn and interesting to read, though the so-called main character Davarus Cole suffered from being an idiot with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. I almost felt sorry for him at the end though, and he found out some hard truths about his past. Highland warriors Kayne and Jerek reminded me of Terry Pratchetts's Cohen the barbarian (though 30 years less decrepit), as they fought and complained about how they were too old for this shit. There's a lot of other good characters here, and again like GOT we get to hear the story from their point of view.
The end ties up well with a few revelations, and I am looking forward to reading the next part of this trilogy. 3 1/2 stars
mel_d's review against another edition
3.0
really limed it. I can see the similarities with Joe Abercrombie, but Luke Skull still maintained his own style. overall, really good and entertaining read.
etoiline's review against another edition
3.0
THE GRIM COMPANY certainly lives up to its name. There are moments of levity, but the brutality and depression in this medieval second world fantasy can be crushing. It's very realistic, though, and the characters have reason for being as cynical as they are. They live and love and survive in this world, and some of them have to do very nasty things to continue. The author does not shy away from the reality of war and poverty. Cole is a character you love to hate. It seems like the author set out to deliberately make Cole laughable at the beginning, setting him up for a transformation, and indeed, he does grow as a person. Most of the characters shade toward the anti-hero mode, with nearly every one having some secret or idiosyncrasy that keeps them from being completely likable. The magic system in this book is interesting; magic is fading from most places, carefully guarded where it is available, and everyone on the (usually dangerous) search for more. There is a sense of history here; the author did a good job of worldbuilding. All characters have understandable ambition, if sometimes misdirected. The action moves somewhat slowly in the beginning but really ramps up for the climax; the last few chapters are one giant battle. No happy endings here, and there is more to be told. Despite the grimness of this title, I'd be interested in seeing more of this world.
Received as a digital ARC via the First to Read program.
Received as a digital ARC via the First to Read program.
markyon's review against another edition
4.0
In my summary of Fantasy reads of 2012 , I made the point that I was rather disappointed that I hadn’t found a new Epic Fantasy that had really engaged me, despite many being heralded as such. (Of those, The Red Knight by Miles Cameron came closest.)
Being honest, it has made me a little wary of any ‘new’ Epic Fantasy. And I must admit I did approach this one with a little trepidation.
In summary, it’s not perfect. But it is the best Fantasy debut I’ve read lately, and I think many will like it.
Cue cover blurb:
“The grey granite walls of Dorminia rise to three times the height of a man, surrounding the city on all sides save for the south, where the Broken Sea begins. The stone is three-foot thick at its weakest point and can withstand all but the heaviest assault. The Crimson Watch patrol the streets even as Salazar's Mindhawks patrol the skies. The Grey City was not always so. But something has changed. Something has broken at its heart. Perhaps the wild magic of the dead Gods has corrupted Dorminia's Magelord, as it has the earth itself. Or perhaps this iron-fisted tyranny is the consequence of a lifetime of dark deeds... Still, pockets of resistance remain. When two formidable Highlanders save the life of a young rebel, it proves the foundation for an unlikely fellowship. A fellowship united against tyranny, but composed of self-righteous outlaws, crippled turncoats and amoral mercenaries. A grim company. But with the world entering an Age of Ruin, this is not a time of heroes...”
OK: got your attention?
I suspect that that description is all that many would wish for. The book echoes many of the popular Fantasy authors, with the gritty nihilism of Joe Abercrombie and the characterisation of David Gemmell, whilst tapping into the world-spanning breadth of GRRM and the irreverence of Glen Cook’s Black Company. There’s a touch of Steven Erikson’s Malazan in there, too, in its back-story, its gods and magelords. Dealing with many of the Fantasy tropes is not always a bad thing, as it gives us common ground on which to work, and as I’ve said often enough before, sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts on these things.
And yes, that journey does sound quite exciting. However, my initial reading of the first few pages were, it must be said, rather disappointing. The first few pages were a worrying misstep. A man, having left bruises on his wife previously, returns to his house to be rewarded with a hot cooking pan in the face, before being swept away in a city-swallowing deluge of water.
Oh dear. My initial enthusiasm was rather subdued.
As I kept reading there were other issues for me. Some of the dialogue used was rather unconvincing, as it tried too hard to sound tough:
“What he said was, ‘Now get the fuck out of my sight before I shove this dagger so far up your dick eye it tickles the back of your throat with your balls!’ ” (page 14)
From this example (and many others), it’s clear that this is not family-friendly Fantasy, nor does it try to be. Here Luke is clearly going for an Abercrombie vibe rather than, let’s say, a David Eddings. Some readers will welcome this and be unperturbed about the plethora of sexual and genitalia references, volatile swearing and bodily function references throughout. I can handle that as much as the next man (or woman), but for me, it was so often used that it began to feel unnecessarily obtrusive. The copious references to arses and what could be/would be/ should be done to them, for example, would make a proctologist proud, but ‘in the end’ became irritating (see what I did there?) Whilst it could be said that such matters are rather typical in today’s gritty novels, here at times it detracted from the rather important point of showing and telling me what important is going on.
And what is going on in The Grim Company (as the title might suggest!) is at times rather depressing. There’s a lot of nasty stuff here, horrible characters doing atrocious things, in ways that have become rather common in Fantasy at the moment. The ‘New Gritty’, so to speak.
Such unremitting bleakness can be quite wearing for the reader, although it can be done well. Again, in that tone there is perhaps a similarity between this book and Joe Abercrombie’s novels. Where it works for Joe and not here, however, is that there isn’t so much of the deadpan gallows humour we get with the Nine to counterbalance the darkness, that knowing tone that the reader accepts as understandable. There is humour herein, but it is dark.
All of the above does make the book sound terrible. Or at the very least, not a book for me. And there was a point at about fifty pages in where I nearly, nearly gave up, for those reasons.
But wait. After this rather impressive wobble at the beginning, when we get to the meat of the tale (as it were), things improve rather. After about one hundred pages, things get really quite interesting. And halfway through, at about 250 pages, I was hooked.
It is perhaps the range of characters and what they have to do that propel this multi-threaded epic tale. There is a lot going on. It is a world where magic is in decline. Wild Magic can be mined in this world because it exists as crystalline residue left by dying Gods at the time of the Godswar. It is used by the Magelords as a resource that is used to create Augmentors, their elite bodyguards, whose numbers are in decline. The magic is also wanted by a group of Dorminian rebels, known as the Shard, who hope that their procurement will enable them to strike back at Dorminia’s oppressive Magelord, Salazar. The task is taken on by a motley crew.
One of the rebels, Davarus Cole, is a young, naive, self-obsessed character destined for greatness – at least in his own head. The Shard also enlist weary Highlander mercenary Brodar Kayne (rather reminiscent to me of David Gemmell’s Druss) and his foul-mouthed and eternally grumpy sidekick, Jerek the Wolf, to go at great risk to the Wailing Rift, where the magic can be found.
Elsewhere, Salazar is not only under threat from the rebels but also a competing Magelord, The White Lady, Magelord of Thelassa. Barandas is the Supreme Augmentor, leader of the Crimson Watch, sworn to protect Salazar from his many enemies who ends up defending Dorminia against a major attack.
Legless Mage Eremul (cruelly nicknamed the Half Mage) is perhaps this book’s Glokta. He treads a fine line between fulfilling the needs of the Magelord and assisting the White Lady in his downfall.
Half a world away, the sorceress Yllandris is a scheming social climber, who as concubine to Magnar, King of the High Fangs, clearly has designs on power. Magnar, a young and intelligent leader, finds himself dealing with local skirmishes whilst at the same time seeing his lands being attacked by Abominations, mutated magical creatures from The Devil’s Spine.
All of the above might suggest that we’ve been here before, but what Luke has done is take a bunch of rather tired tropes and even unpleasant people, but then managed to do interesting things with them. Not all is what we think it will be and Luke does a sterling job of subverting some of the reader’s expectations, especially at the end.
The fight at the end is particularly worth applause, as Luke’s fight scenes are really very good for a debut writer: exciting, gory, not too many nor too repetitive, a fault many new writers make. What wins most at the conclusion is that, despite my concerns and niggles, in the end I cared about the characters and wanted to know more.
In summary: a book that conforms to “the New Gritty” and ticks all the right boxes for those demanding more of the same. After some initial wobbles, once the book settles in it becomes a real page-turner.
My initial impression was that it was a brave effort and a pretty good debut, though little more than that. At the end, I felt that it was one of the best recent debuts of Epic Fantasy, which, whilst not being perfect, is certainly much better than the other new Epic Fantasy novels I’ve read recently. One of those books that I’m pleased to say won me over, to the point where I think I can say that Luke has a bright future in Fantasy. I’m looking forward to the next book, with interest.
Being honest, it has made me a little wary of any ‘new’ Epic Fantasy. And I must admit I did approach this one with a little trepidation.
In summary, it’s not perfect. But it is the best Fantasy debut I’ve read lately, and I think many will like it.
Cue cover blurb:
“The grey granite walls of Dorminia rise to three times the height of a man, surrounding the city on all sides save for the south, where the Broken Sea begins. The stone is three-foot thick at its weakest point and can withstand all but the heaviest assault. The Crimson Watch patrol the streets even as Salazar's Mindhawks patrol the skies. The Grey City was not always so. But something has changed. Something has broken at its heart. Perhaps the wild magic of the dead Gods has corrupted Dorminia's Magelord, as it has the earth itself. Or perhaps this iron-fisted tyranny is the consequence of a lifetime of dark deeds... Still, pockets of resistance remain. When two formidable Highlanders save the life of a young rebel, it proves the foundation for an unlikely fellowship. A fellowship united against tyranny, but composed of self-righteous outlaws, crippled turncoats and amoral mercenaries. A grim company. But with the world entering an Age of Ruin, this is not a time of heroes...”
OK: got your attention?
I suspect that that description is all that many would wish for. The book echoes many of the popular Fantasy authors, with the gritty nihilism of Joe Abercrombie and the characterisation of David Gemmell, whilst tapping into the world-spanning breadth of GRRM and the irreverence of Glen Cook’s Black Company. There’s a touch of Steven Erikson’s Malazan in there, too, in its back-story, its gods and magelords. Dealing with many of the Fantasy tropes is not always a bad thing, as it gives us common ground on which to work, and as I’ve said often enough before, sometimes it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts on these things.
And yes, that journey does sound quite exciting. However, my initial reading of the first few pages were, it must be said, rather disappointing. The first few pages were a worrying misstep. A man, having left bruises on his wife previously, returns to his house to be rewarded with a hot cooking pan in the face, before being swept away in a city-swallowing deluge of water.
Oh dear. My initial enthusiasm was rather subdued.
As I kept reading there were other issues for me. Some of the dialogue used was rather unconvincing, as it tried too hard to sound tough:
“What he said was, ‘Now get the fuck out of my sight before I shove this dagger so far up your dick eye it tickles the back of your throat with your balls!’ ” (page 14)
From this example (and many others), it’s clear that this is not family-friendly Fantasy, nor does it try to be. Here Luke is clearly going for an Abercrombie vibe rather than, let’s say, a David Eddings. Some readers will welcome this and be unperturbed about the plethora of sexual and genitalia references, volatile swearing and bodily function references throughout. I can handle that as much as the next man (or woman), but for me, it was so often used that it began to feel unnecessarily obtrusive. The copious references to arses and what could be/would be/ should be done to them, for example, would make a proctologist proud, but ‘in the end’ became irritating (see what I did there?) Whilst it could be said that such matters are rather typical in today’s gritty novels, here at times it detracted from the rather important point of showing and telling me what important is going on.
And what is going on in The Grim Company (as the title might suggest!) is at times rather depressing. There’s a lot of nasty stuff here, horrible characters doing atrocious things, in ways that have become rather common in Fantasy at the moment. The ‘New Gritty’, so to speak.
Such unremitting bleakness can be quite wearing for the reader, although it can be done well. Again, in that tone there is perhaps a similarity between this book and Joe Abercrombie’s novels. Where it works for Joe and not here, however, is that there isn’t so much of the deadpan gallows humour we get with the Nine to counterbalance the darkness, that knowing tone that the reader accepts as understandable. There is humour herein, but it is dark.
All of the above does make the book sound terrible. Or at the very least, not a book for me. And there was a point at about fifty pages in where I nearly, nearly gave up, for those reasons.
But wait. After this rather impressive wobble at the beginning, when we get to the meat of the tale (as it were), things improve rather. After about one hundred pages, things get really quite interesting. And halfway through, at about 250 pages, I was hooked.
It is perhaps the range of characters and what they have to do that propel this multi-threaded epic tale. There is a lot going on. It is a world where magic is in decline. Wild Magic can be mined in this world because it exists as crystalline residue left by dying Gods at the time of the Godswar. It is used by the Magelords as a resource that is used to create Augmentors, their elite bodyguards, whose numbers are in decline. The magic is also wanted by a group of Dorminian rebels, known as the Shard, who hope that their procurement will enable them to strike back at Dorminia’s oppressive Magelord, Salazar. The task is taken on by a motley crew.
One of the rebels, Davarus Cole, is a young, naive, self-obsessed character destined for greatness – at least in his own head. The Shard also enlist weary Highlander mercenary Brodar Kayne (rather reminiscent to me of David Gemmell’s Druss) and his foul-mouthed and eternally grumpy sidekick, Jerek the Wolf, to go at great risk to the Wailing Rift, where the magic can be found.
Elsewhere, Salazar is not only under threat from the rebels but also a competing Magelord, The White Lady, Magelord of Thelassa. Barandas is the Supreme Augmentor, leader of the Crimson Watch, sworn to protect Salazar from his many enemies who ends up defending Dorminia against a major attack.
Legless Mage Eremul (cruelly nicknamed the Half Mage) is perhaps this book’s Glokta. He treads a fine line between fulfilling the needs of the Magelord and assisting the White Lady in his downfall.
Half a world away, the sorceress Yllandris is a scheming social climber, who as concubine to Magnar, King of the High Fangs, clearly has designs on power. Magnar, a young and intelligent leader, finds himself dealing with local skirmishes whilst at the same time seeing his lands being attacked by Abominations, mutated magical creatures from The Devil’s Spine.
All of the above might suggest that we’ve been here before, but what Luke has done is take a bunch of rather tired tropes and even unpleasant people, but then managed to do interesting things with them. Not all is what we think it will be and Luke does a sterling job of subverting some of the reader’s expectations, especially at the end.
The fight at the end is particularly worth applause, as Luke’s fight scenes are really very good for a debut writer: exciting, gory, not too many nor too repetitive, a fault many new writers make. What wins most at the conclusion is that, despite my concerns and niggles, in the end I cared about the characters and wanted to know more.
In summary: a book that conforms to “the New Gritty” and ticks all the right boxes for those demanding more of the same. After some initial wobbles, once the book settles in it becomes a real page-turner.
My initial impression was that it was a brave effort and a pretty good debut, though little more than that. At the end, I felt that it was one of the best recent debuts of Epic Fantasy, which, whilst not being perfect, is certainly much better than the other new Epic Fantasy novels I’ve read recently. One of those books that I’m pleased to say won me over, to the point where I think I can say that Luke has a bright future in Fantasy. I’m looking forward to the next book, with interest.
inkylibrarian's review against another edition
2.0
The Grim Company has many of my favorite things in a book: fantasy, fighting, dysfunctional characters, and a fair bit of hilarity. And I did enjoy the book for the most part. Brodar Kayne was definitely my favorite part of the book. The Highlander is well advanced in age, has had a really shit time for the last few years, but just keeps on trekking. The rest of the pack have their ups and downs. Sasha was an enjoyable character but her last minute drug habit was oddly placed and then sort of overlooked. The Half-Mage is a great anti-hero. He supposedly acts for the betterment of all and yet, his weak willed nature always seems to get the better of him. Cole’s massive ego makes him ridiculous but since everyone else is aware of this it makes it a little easier to swallow. Jerek, the other Highlander, was part of where the book took an unfortunate turn for me. But I’ll discuss that more in a bit.
Plotwise, the book moves at a good pace. The evil overlord and the megalomaniacal nature of many of the so-called leaders of other lands, all of whom were responsible for killing the gods, serve as a good focal point for dislike. Every book needs someone you can really hate, and these jerks are definitely it. Our intrepid band of heroes end up in some sticky situations and Scull does an excellent job of questioning what really makes a hero. Our group sometimes behaves in a manner not consistent with heroic behavior but often aren’t given much of a choice. In a land that is ruled by the morally bankrupt, how do we determine who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? The head Augmentor falls into a similar category. Not a bad man in and of himself but forced to do distasteful things. Loyalty to the state or to a cause and an “ends justify the means” type of mentality make it impossible to peg many of the characters are truly good or truly bad. Since this tends to mirror real life, I find it an interesting concept in fantasy novels. Michael Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations series tackles some of the same issues in a fantasy setting, though his “heroes” aren’t quite as off the beaten path as some of Scull’s. So, overall, I enjoyed the plot and most of the characters.
Which leads me back to Jerek, who is quite the sticking point for me in this book. Jerek is an unapologetically awful person. Yes, he displays extremely commendable loyalty to Kayne, but he is a really awful person. Which I am actually okay with. I have no problem with awful characters. Books need awful characters. Awful characters do a lot to help drive a book or to address issues that should be talked about. That being said, there is, in my opinion, a way to make characters awful and still sympathetic. Make him an outspoken and crass jackass. Make him violent with a vocabulary worse than every sailor and pirate who has ever lived. You can do all those things and I can still find him sympathetic. Jerek, however, comes across as a misogynistic rapist or at least a would-be rapist. There are repeated implications that he’d as soon rape Sasha as he would look at her. He repeatedly refers to her as “bitch”, among other things, and views her with an anger and vitriol that we don’t see towards other characters. Does he like or respect the other characters? By and large, no. But they never seem to incur the same hatred that Sasha does solely because she is a woman. And that is where my issue is. I cannot find a character like that sympathetic. His behavior and language throughout the book took me out of the story every single time and that was enough to significantly decrease how much I enjoyed the book. I was constantly distracted by how uncomfortable I was by the author’s desire for me to somehow find this character sympathetic. So yes, while I enjoyed much of the book, it is highly unlikely that I’ll pick up the sequel.
Plotwise, the book moves at a good pace. The evil overlord and the megalomaniacal nature of many of the so-called leaders of other lands, all of whom were responsible for killing the gods, serve as a good focal point for dislike. Every book needs someone you can really hate, and these jerks are definitely it. Our intrepid band of heroes end up in some sticky situations and Scull does an excellent job of questioning what really makes a hero. Our group sometimes behaves in a manner not consistent with heroic behavior but often aren’t given much of a choice. In a land that is ruled by the morally bankrupt, how do we determine who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? The head Augmentor falls into a similar category. Not a bad man in and of himself but forced to do distasteful things. Loyalty to the state or to a cause and an “ends justify the means” type of mentality make it impossible to peg many of the characters are truly good or truly bad. Since this tends to mirror real life, I find it an interesting concept in fantasy novels. Michael Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations series tackles some of the same issues in a fantasy setting, though his “heroes” aren’t quite as off the beaten path as some of Scull’s. So, overall, I enjoyed the plot and most of the characters.
Which leads me back to Jerek, who is quite the sticking point for me in this book. Jerek is an unapologetically awful person. Yes, he displays extremely commendable loyalty to Kayne, but he is a really awful person. Which I am actually okay with. I have no problem with awful characters. Books need awful characters. Awful characters do a lot to help drive a book or to address issues that should be talked about. That being said, there is, in my opinion, a way to make characters awful and still sympathetic. Make him an outspoken and crass jackass. Make him violent with a vocabulary worse than every sailor and pirate who has ever lived. You can do all those things and I can still find him sympathetic. Jerek, however, comes across as a misogynistic rapist or at least a would-be rapist. There are repeated implications that he’d as soon rape Sasha as he would look at her. He repeatedly refers to her as “bitch”, among other things, and views her with an anger and vitriol that we don’t see towards other characters. Does he like or respect the other characters? By and large, no. But they never seem to incur the same hatred that Sasha does solely because she is a woman. And that is where my issue is. I cannot find a character like that sympathetic. His behavior and language throughout the book took me out of the story every single time and that was enough to significantly decrease how much I enjoyed the book. I was constantly distracted by how uncomfortable I was by the author’s desire for me to somehow find this character sympathetic. So yes, while I enjoyed much of the book, it is highly unlikely that I’ll pick up the sequel.
beau_kemp's review against another edition
4.0
While it was not without flaws, this was a damn good story. Some fantastic characters and scenes! Good grimdark. Look forward to the next in the series.