A review by aoc
The Swordbearer by Glen Cook

2.0

In all honesty you could call this a precursor to The Black Company before author actually fleshed out some of the ideas and, probably more importantly, spread them out a bit considering he eventually had more space to work with. There's also some Elric of Melnibone in there as well considering we follow a weakling youth who finds himself a magical, soul devouring sword seemingly blessed by a hungry goddess with a lot more in store than he suspects at first. It all definitely falls on the curse side of things despite the benefits, doubly so when you consider Suchara is not the only divine pretender with a champion... and said other champion happens to be the emperor in a war currently underway. Politicking and army maneuvers strongly featured in the first half of the book tend to be left by the wayside as Gathrid realizes more of his would-be heroic fate accompanying the mythical blade and immortal servant with a tendency to kill previous wielders at some point. Problem with The Swordbearer seems to be there's a whole lot to it that either had to be trimmed down in order to get a manageable final word count or just lack of coherent vision of Cook's part. When you add that initial onslaught of names it spews at you to get the idea this is epic fantasy after all it just comes off as glorified basic, I guess?