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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Omnibus Edition of the second three Black Company books
TL/DR: First two books are amazing, the third is quite bad and should be read first
Note on reading order
The third book in this edition is a spin-off and not a main entry in the series. It doesn't share any plot elements or characters with the other two and there are only passing references in the early part of Shadow Games to the action in The Silver Spike. With this in mind most people on the Internet seemed to recommend reading The Silver Spike first. Having finished all three I tend to agree. The book is simply not as good as the other two so getting it out of the way first I think is best.
Shadow Games
The first book was very,very good. The story picks up where The White Rose left off. The remnants of the Black Company, now lead by Croaker, head south to find the land from where the company originated. On the way they pick up new friends, some old rivals, they fight a bit, they sneak a bit, basically they do a bit of everything.
All this doing of stuff results in probably the best book in the series so far. There is always something going on, there is always another mistery and another intrigue in the works. The book also avoids the issues that the first book in the series, The Black Company, had, namely the fact that nothing they did in that book up until the end really mattered. Here you see a puzzle slowly revealing itself where every piece makes sense and everything works together to create one big picture.
As an added bonus this book starts to slowly uncover the roots of the Black Company and begins to hint that those roots might not be what Croaker and the guys expected. Also, the relationship between Croaker and Lady is fascinating and moves naturally alongside the rest of the story. The book ends on a huge cliffhanger but thankfully the next book continues the story.
Dreams of Steel
The true question here is whether or not this is better than Shadow Games. I don't know how I will feel after a longer period of time but right now I tend to think that it is. It focuses a lot on Lady and on her character arc with the others taking a bit of a lesser role but the story is intriguing and always keeps you guessing and even has quite a nice twist at the end paving the way for the next book (which unfortunately is not part of this omnibus). I can't say a lot without spoiling this or the book before but in short this is an amazing continuation of another amazing book.
The Silver Spike
This was such an odd read. I feels almost like it was written by a fan of the series who despised Raven. The pacing of the book is very odd and keeping track of the time elapsed is almost impossible. Sometimes characters seem to travel thousands of miles in a couple of pages and other times you have dozens of pages with only a couple of days worth of story. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the reader needs some kind of guideline or way to keep track of time or the scale and order of events becomes hard to keep track of.
The biggest problem with this book however are the characters. The books in this series live and die on the quality of their characters. And quite simply The Silver Spike lacks any kind of interesting character, maybe with the exception of Darling and Bomanz. The "Croaker" of this book is utterly cliched and unoriginal while the other POV character has a laughably unnatural growth arc. One minute he's a normal, reserved and caution man and the next he is a killing machine capable of easily dispatching armed guards, thugs or even seasoned former members of the Black Company. In this he is aided by a genius superhuman who can do no wrong and seems to have the answer to everything without any explanation and whose story arc ends in the most anticlimactic way possible. The biggest culprit however has to be Raven who is stripped of any kind of nuance or intrigue and reduced to a petty, depressed man who can't seem to do anything right. There is no growth or transition, he simply ceases to be the badass Raven, the smart, strong, resourceful and cunning Raven and becomes a burden who can't achieve anything. Compared to the way Raven was described in the first three books this is an entirely different character who just happens to have the same name. The end of his story arc reflects the end of the book itself, flat and uninspired. It's frustrating because the story had great potential but it was effectively wasted. I don't know if Raven or any other character from the book will appear in further novels but if they don't then The Silver Spike could be skipped without worry of missing anything.
TL/DR: First two books are amazing, the third is quite bad and should be read first
Note on reading order
The third book in this edition is a spin-off and not a main entry in the series. It doesn't share any plot elements or characters with the other two and there are only passing references in the early part of Shadow Games to the action in The Silver Spike. With this in mind most people on the Internet seemed to recommend reading The Silver Spike first. Having finished all three I tend to agree. The book is simply not as good as the other two so getting it out of the way first I think is best.
Shadow Games
The first book was very,very good. The story picks up where The White Rose left off. The remnants of the Black Company, now lead by Croaker, head south to find the land from where the company originated. On the way they pick up new friends, some old rivals, they fight a bit, they sneak a bit, basically they do a bit of everything.
All this doing of stuff results in probably the best book in the series so far. There is always something going on, there is always another mistery and another intrigue in the works. The book also avoids the issues that the first book in the series, The Black Company, had, namely the fact that nothing they did in that book up until the end really mattered. Here you see a puzzle slowly revealing itself where every piece makes sense and everything works together to create one big picture.
As an added bonus this book starts to slowly uncover the roots of the Black Company and begins to hint that those roots might not be what Croaker and the guys expected. Also, the relationship between Croaker and Lady is fascinating and moves naturally alongside the rest of the story. The book ends on a huge cliffhanger but thankfully the next book continues the story.
Dreams of Steel
The true question here is whether or not this is better than Shadow Games. I don't know how I will feel after a longer period of time but right now I tend to think that it is. It focuses a lot on Lady and on her character arc with the others taking a bit of a lesser role but the story is intriguing and always keeps you guessing and even has quite a nice twist at the end paving the way for the next book (which unfortunately is not part of this omnibus). I can't say a lot without spoiling this or the book before but in short this is an amazing continuation of another amazing book.
The Silver Spike
This was such an odd read. I feels almost like it was written by a fan of the series who despised Raven. The pacing of the book is very odd and keeping track of the time elapsed is almost impossible. Sometimes characters seem to travel thousands of miles in a couple of pages and other times you have dozens of pages with only a couple of days worth of story. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the reader needs some kind of guideline or way to keep track of time or the scale and order of events becomes hard to keep track of.
The biggest problem with this book however are the characters. The books in this series live and die on the quality of their characters. And quite simply The Silver Spike lacks any kind of interesting character, maybe with the exception of Darling and Bomanz. The "Croaker" of this book is utterly cliched and unoriginal while the other POV character has a laughably unnatural growth arc. One minute he's a normal, reserved and caution man and the next he is a killing machine capable of easily dispatching armed guards, thugs or even seasoned former members of the Black Company. In this he is aided by a genius superhuman who can do no wrong and seems to have the answer to everything without any explanation and whose story arc ends in the most anticlimactic way possible. The biggest culprit however has to be Raven who is stripped of any kind of nuance or intrigue and reduced to a petty, depressed man who can't seem to do anything right. There is no growth or transition, he simply ceases to be the badass Raven, the smart, strong, resourceful and cunning Raven and becomes a burden who can't achieve anything. Compared to the way Raven was described in the first three books this is an entirely different character who just happens to have the same name. The end of his story arc reflects the end of the book itself, flat and uninspired. It's frustrating because the story had great potential but it was effectively wasted. I don't know if Raven or any other character from the book will appear in further novels but if they don't then The Silver Spike could be skipped without worry of missing anything.
Shadow Games - 4
Dreams of Steel - 4.5
The Silver Spike - 3.75
Dreams of Steel - 4.5
The Silver Spike - 3.75
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Enjoyed the influence of Indian mythology, which I haven't seen before in fantasy (I'm sure it's been done, but it was new to me, here). Cook's storytelling is as high-quality as ever.