Hard fantasy- dark, vibrant and gritty. Complex universe creation ( )

En los últimos cuatro años, ningún miembro de la Compañía Negra ha muerto en batalla. Matasanos cree que esta situación no durará mucho... Y está en lo cierto.
Todavía rondan muchos de sus viejos adversarios. Narayan Singh y su hija tienen la esperanza de que llegue el apocalíptico Año de los Cráneos. Otros viejos enemigos como Sombra Larga y Aullador también están listos para atacar, pero muchos miembros de la Compañía aún se están recuperando de los quince años que han pasado en un campo de estasis.
Entonces llegan noticias que avisan de otro adversario que ha vuelto a empuñar las armas. Los ataca en la Puerta de las Sombras, iniciando así una cadena de eventos que empujará a la Compañía al borde del colapso.

A solid and emotional conclusion. There are a few purposefully unexplained minor mysteries that irk me (the graffitti in Taglios and the disappearance of a character), and the constant killing off major and secondary characters 'off screen' feels rather anticlimactic, but I get why both things are done to further the general themes of luck, sudden tragedy and survivor's guilt that are core to this novel. I just feel a couple of characters -- a long-standing wizard antagonist in particular -- would have been more satisfying for the reader to actually see the death of.

But that said, this is yet another great read, in the Black Company mould of combining big scale fantasy elements with grounded, bleakly realistic soldiering perspectives. I never quite warmed to the Books of the South as much as I liked the ones in the North, perhaps, but they were all quite different from each other, and they were all well worth my time. Two thumbs up. Here's hoping a collection of the "On the Long Run" short stories I've yet to read gets printed at some point, and that Cook writes "A Pitiless Rain" while I can still keep the continuity (in particular Lady's purposefully murky origins) more or less in memory. ( )

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Title: Soldiers Live
Series: The Chronicles of the Black Company #10
Author: Glen Cook
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 528
Format: Kindle digital edition


Synopsis:

The Final Chapter of the Black Company. The Company has made their home in the new world, but nobody wants to stay. Not the company, not the people of the world. So between Sleepy and Croaker, the Black Company once again invades their "homeworld."

But Kina, Shivetya and the Lady's Sister are still around and still plotting. Is the Black Company the people we have come to know in the last 10 books, or is the Black Company an idea that mutates and changes across time and across worlds?



My Thoughts:


What a fitting end to this series. All of the characters we have come to know meet an appropriate end for the Black Company. Which means that about 9/10th's of them die.

That brings up the first thing that I appreciated about this series. Cook walks the razor thin line of making us care for and like particular characters and still making them meet the problems that they face without the assurance that they will survive. Cook doesn't introduce characters JUST to make them die but neither is anyone a Luke, Han or Leia.


The worlds go on. I like a happily ever after, but until the End of Days and the Judgement Day, I know that just won't happen. It is good to see how humans strive and continue to fight. I wouldn't like a steady diet of this bleak outlook but I do appreciate the reminder that life is tough and people we love do die.


Cook is also very deft with his philosophizing through his characters. Instead of being beat over the head, we get quick slaps to the back of the head. A little sting just to remind us.


Finally, the story. Cook took us through a journey that spanned worlds where we were only expecting towns. Powers and Prophecies came and went, people rose and fell and through it all the Black Company existed. In different shapes, in different forms, with many purposes but always surviving. I loved reading this series and thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in this world.

( )

the best of the later books, but it introduces some very interesting characters half way through the book that I wish had arrived earlier. Essentially wraps up the major story line contained in books 4-7, but leaves a small escape for a continuation later on. ( )