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A review by ruzgofdi
The Black Company by Glen Cook
3.0
A collection of stories told from the perspective of the historian for a mercenary group in service to the villains of a fantasy setting. In the end, what I find interesting is that it actually turns into a full book. There are only seven chapters in the book, and each one is more or less its own individual story. One is about how the mercenaries ended up under the current employer. Another is about how the new guy joins their organization. This one is about their experiences dealing with a specific rebel commander. But by the end of the book (I started noticing it around chapter five) it starts pulling various threads together. The final chapters interconnect with each other much more, possibly because they occur over a shorter period of time. I feel like the first chapters are spaced out over the course of months or weeks, while the final ones seem to go right from one into the next.
I have a little bit of trouble with keeping some of the characters straight. It does the fantasy thing where knowing a person or thing's true name gives one power over it, so everyone is nicknamed. You end up running through checklists to determine importance. It's not a description of a violent act, so it's not one of their big bad evil employers. It's not a military rank, so it's not one of the commanding officers for the unit. It's not one of the three magic guys, who are a little more identifiable than the rest (although keeping magic idiot 1 and magic idiot 2 straight is not entirely possible or necessary). It's not the guy that got his own chapter. It's not the guy telling the story. It must be Named Extra.
It doesn't quite end on a cliffhanger, but it does end in such a way as to suggest that there would be future installments in the series (of which Goodreads is saying there are 11 primary works). So I guess 10 to go for me.
I have a little bit of trouble with keeping some of the characters straight. It does the fantasy thing where knowing a person or thing's true name gives one power over it, so everyone is nicknamed. You end up running through checklists to determine importance. It's not a description of a violent act, so it's not one of their big bad evil employers. It's not a military rank, so it's not one of the commanding officers for the unit. It's not one of the three magic guys, who are a little more identifiable than the rest (although keeping magic idiot 1 and magic idiot 2 straight is not entirely possible or necessary). It's not the guy that got his own chapter. It's not the guy telling the story. It must be Named Extra.
It doesn't quite end on a cliffhanger, but it does end in such a way as to suggest that there would be future installments in the series (of which Goodreads is saying there are 11 primary works). So I guess 10 to go for me.