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Title: Shadow Games : The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South by Glen Cook ISBN: 0-8125-3382-8 Publisher: Tor Fantasy Pub. Date: 15 June, 1989 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Not as good...?
Comment: I too am tempted to say "this isn't up to the standards of the first 3". But I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that, when I discovered Cook, this was his most recent book. So I had to wait for each installment afterwards. I wish I had followed the rule I instituted when it became clear Robert Jordan was NEVER going to finish his series. I should have waited until Cook was done, and then read them all.
But it's a testament to my fanaticism that I just HAD to read each book as it appeared. I still give it 5 stars because I found the new storyline with the now-powerless Lady very intriguing. Cook also had my curiosity at max with "the crow" and the hints that old villains might return.
Overall, the rest of the series was ultimately excellent so this book has to get 5 stars for starting it all.
Rating: 3
Summary: Glen Goes For The Cliffhanger
Comment: And what a cliffhanger! In past books, despite being part of a series, each has had a sense of resolution, a clear delineation between episodes. Not so here, with an ending so bald and precipitous one could almost imagine The Howler wailing in his grave. If you are following this series, be prepared to buy both "Shadow Games" and the following volume "Dreams of Steel" together, otherwise you will certainly discover yourself cursing the walls sometime in the middle of the night.
As already hinted as well as revealed by an earlier reviewer, Cook again turns to blithely resurrecting previous characters. I say again, for unlike the previous reviewer's comments, as those of you who have been following the series from the beginning should recognize, raising the dead has become a common Cook convention, previously encountered in the multiple reappearances of the Limper, Raven and Bommanz. That this should occur again here with other thought to be deceased characters should by now come as no surprise. Cook has always displayed a predilection for playing fast and loose with his plots and storylines. Nor do I feel this work is a departure or decline from his earlier novels, only more of the same standard fast-paced, swiftly rendered fare we've come to expect of the author, work that can be enjoyable as long as not too closely scrutinized. Complaints here about a lack of character development seem inapt, as since when have the majority of Cook's characters been anything more than mere cartoonish cutouts?
Despite the tone of criticism evidenced here, I continue to read and largely enjoy this series, turning to it when I am seeking light diversion. For such moments Cook's writing continues to be entirely successful, providing a cast of heroes and villains in adventures that while in many ways conventional and similar, make up in action and fast-paced fun for what they lack in imagination or depth of development. Like the characters and plots of many of the spaghetti westerns or samurai movies, they hold the same attraction when recycled as Star Wars: sheer escape and better rendered than most of the other conventional fare out there. But if you're looking for original ideas or development of story, imaginative world building or depth of characterization and description, you'd be advised to look elsewhere. Cook's outings to date have not compared with other authors such as Marcos, Martin, Stover, or Erikson with whom his work has been broadly linked.
If you are a fan of traditional heroic fantasy, and looking for something to fill the void while awaiting new offerings from the authors mentioned above---looking for the American equivalent of, say, David Gemmell---this series, as long as you are not too demanding, will likely not disappoint. Uncomplicated, energetic and fun, written in a style never pretending to be what it is not.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very, very good...If not quite up to standards of first 3
Comment: The Black Company is one of the great creations of modern fantasy. In a genre in which most stories are starkly black and white--really great good guys and really bad villans--the Black Company (contra its name) lives in grey.
Shadow Games is the fourth book in a series on the the Black Company, a mercenary band in a sword and sorcery world. The first three novels told the story of how the Company came into the service of Lady, a sorceress of great power who rules a purportedly evil empire in the northern part of the Company's world. Eventually the Company rebels against the Lady and joins the White Rose, a reincarnated hero who opposes the empire. At the end of book three, the Rose, the Lady, and the Company join forces to defeat an older evil. A related book, Silver Spike, follows the subsequent adventures of the Rose. In Shadow Games, Lady and the last members of the Company travel south to the legendary city of Khatover from which the Company originated many centuries before.
I enjoyed Shadow Games and recommend it (although NOT as an initation to the series). But I didn't quite like it as much as the first three novels. There is less character development. Old villans get recycled for reasons that are not entirely clear. A cliffhanger ending forces you to buy the sequel. Shadow Games also marks the beginning of Cook's fascination with the quasi-Indian philosophy and mythology that, in my judgment, detract from the later books. If I had it to do over again, I probably would have stopped with the first three novels.
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Title: She Is The Darkness : Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company by Glen Cook ISBN: 0812555333 Publisher: Tor Fantasy Pub. Date: 15 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Water Sleeps : A Novel of the Black Company by Glen Cook ISBN: 0812555341 Publisher: Tor Fantasy Pub. Date: 15 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The White Rose : A Novel of the Black Company by Glen Cook ISBN: 0812508440 Publisher: Tor Fantasy Pub. Date: 15 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Soldiers Live by Glen Cook ISBN: 0812566556 Publisher: Tor Fantasy Pub. Date: 15 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Shadows Linger : A Novel of the Black Company by Glen Cook ISBN: 0812508424 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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