Croaker: soldier, physician, historian, and inventor of self-insert FanFic. And just like all practitioners of the art, boy did he come to regret it later.

One of the best things about The Black Company is the magic. Magic that has to be explained and pigeonholed into a system feels a lot less magical. Cook nails that very important part of his stories.

I LOVE the Black Company and no one ever talks about it on booktube. Hearing you talk so passionately about it makes me want to reread the series, though I don't think I ever finished it - I'd definitely have to reread before finishing it up. I feel like I heard Elliot Brooks talking about possibly reading it in the future, I feel like you must have been the one to introduce it to her.

The prose may not be flowery, but it's extremely poetic. I love this book, and will read all the others in this series. Thanks for this impassioned presentation.

I've read this series a few times, myself, and it's one of my favorites. I had no problem with the lack of detail about the battles, or the lack of insight into the magic systems, because those aren't what the book is about. This is not really a military fantasy -- it's a noir detective story about a mercenary company that slowly discovers the truth behind the situation in which they find themselves. It's also the story of a worms-eye view of war, in which the troops on the front line know no more about the big picture than any other line-trooper in any war has ever had. So, grand strategy isn't presented, because it's not the point and it's not something the troops would know. They just go where they're sent and do what they're told. Also, Croaker doesn't understand magic any more than any other trooper, so he doesn't explain how it works, because he can't. The thing to accept is that the Company is Truly Badass, with an elite crew that can mostly handle whatever gets thrown at them -- until the slow realization of the exact nature of the conflict begins to make them a danger to those who employ them. The war against the rebellion is just the backdrop, a sideshow. The conflict that actually *matters* is the skullduggery that takes place within the forces of The Lady. It's the company's involvement in that intrigue, and what they learn along the way, that poses the *real* danger to them. That's what the story is actually about.

To me, from a literary perspective, I like the way Cook described the capture of the fortress at Deal. It really made plain how capable and efficient the Company can be - no dwelling on the difficulty of capturing the fort, they just went, and they did it. I'm not sure describing it in detail would have added anything other than maybe an interesting action set piece.

I love the Black Company cause the heroes are ordinary, they do bad things, they do noble things and they find redemption. All while being terribly human.

I for one always liked the mysterious/straight in the middle of things beginnings of Gardens, The Gunslinger and this one. And I feel it's ok that the magic system isn't explained. Croacker doesn't know much about magic.

I began reading the series recently. Went completely blind into it too. It's pretty amazing how much does Cook achieve with so little, this dry, biting style of his was a breath of fresh air. Heck, even trying to make heads or tails out of sparse descriptions was fun, it really gets your imagination going. Though I'm the type of guy who skips tutorials in games just so I can figure them out by myself, so I suppose your mileage may vary.

I for one kind of enjoy the vagueness around the magic. To Croaker's eyes, a wizard can just sort of do whatever they set their mind to. I like that Goblin's and Old One Eye's hijinks are treated as a matter of course, since Croaker's lived with them long enough to treat it as mundane, even if he himself rarely understands what's actually happening. Compare that to "actually powerful" spellcraft, like that of the Ten. *That* appears to an untrained observer to just be an indomitable force of nature, or some insidious, alien *thing* best left well alone. But I particularly love Croaker's response to his time with the Lady, which amounts to "I can't even trust myself to remember correctly, it was that insane." It feels like we're getting an account of the magic in this world from a man who doesn't know (because he can't) and really doesn't care (because he has other priorities.).

I'm thankful to Black Company for putting grimdark in the spotlight. Before we mostly only had older dark fantasy like Conan, Eternal Champion, Kane and other sword and sorcery fantasy. Black Company redefined dark fantasy and paved the way for many similar authors that contributed to my favorite subgenre.

I discovered these books when I started LARPing & the group I joined was based on the black company. Many of the groups traditions came from the books, the group even has its own annals & has readings to remember those who have fallen & the groups history.

The Black Company was the series that got me back into reading fantasy...just reading in general, really. It holds a special place in my heart and really just just a classic story that deserve to be read. Read it! All of the other works from Glen Cook like The Dread Empire and starfishers are also worth checking out, Cook is an amazing author!

So, I'm randomly watching this. And many things in this review made me laugh. Especially the description of capturing the fort. Because in Soldiers Live there is an intermediate objective Croaker describes in detail. And he notes he feels he is being indulgent, and that these details don't matter, and he should have just written that they did the intermediate mission

Interestingly enough "So and do died" was always one of the parts that sold the world of Black Company to me. It's swift, vicious and fleeting. People don't get dramatic final moments there often. They just die, you - the reader - are sitting there surprised and buffled, and the Company moves on, because that's just life.

I recently listened to the audiobook of this whilst playing world of warcraft and it was perfect for that.

“No long flowery pros”... sigh me up! This is on my hopeful to get to list this year. It doesn’t get much attention on booktube so I wanna add to it.

The initial city where the Company was stationed at is a nod to Constantinople near the time of the Nika Riots circa 532 AD. The brief mention of the color of the factions allude to that. Glen Cook wrote this while working in a GM plant that requires his attention once every couple of minutes.

Any and all coverage of this series is beyond well-deserved. It is my sincere hope that more people would read this series and enjoy it as I and many others have. Glen Cook is so underrated among fantasy greats and should be elevated for his works.

I like the Black Company because it reads as a journal, you read ww2 and civil war journals, it's not always poetic. A lot of times they're "We did xyz, John Johnson got obliterated by cannon ball. May god help us." Also he captures the feel of these aren't poets, they're soldiers, Croaker only got the job cause he could write, not because he does it well, but because he can.

Talking to some buddies this book has been laying around Marine and Army barracks since the mid eighties

Most of my current TBR is rereads of books I loved when I read them years ago. Damn you, Allen, for adding another weight stack. But seriously, great review that made me want to spend time with the company again. 🙂👌🏻

Excellent review. I like that you describe the terse prose. For me, it kind of paradoxically opens the story up for imagination, which then makes it more vivid.

I know where Khatovar is... But I've read all but the newest book that takes place in the past. Ha, Lady described Croaker in her book. He's 6'4, a large man who at one time was moderately handsome but a hard life did it's number, and he wasn't comfortable with his looks. He didn't look like a medic and annalist. He looked like more suited to the title he inherited, Captain.

thanks for this, looking for more content about this book!

Okay, I'm watching this whole thing, and I find it wildly entertaining, despite the fact that I've never even heard of this book. Also, dibs on the name Moonbiter.

Pretty crunk review, thank you. This is one of my alltime faves.

Pretty cool review 👍🏻 Into the first book of the series myself now

it`s an excellent starting point ! I had no trouble figuring out what was going on ! and I`ve read all of them multiple times over the last several years including the latest , port of shadows , they are as good the fourth time as they were the first !

I might have to dig these out and reread them. Up to Hounds on a read so need to decide on Company or the other 27 books referred on other channels. The Ten are awesome villains. The exchanges between fiddler and Ben reminded me a lot of goblin and one eye. Cant wait for Sunday.

The first trilogy of The Black Company + The Silver Spike are my all time favorite fantasy books. I first heard about The Black Company novel when the holy Gary Gygax himself recommended it in Dragon magazine. That first book revolutionized fantasy. Before it was high fantasy with elves and magical rings and swords ala The Lord Of The Rings and Sword Of Shannara, and the protagonists were clearly good, fighting the ultimate evil . The Black Company was filled with gritty and grey characters, and the Rebel was just as bad as the Lady's Empire. The soldiers of the Company were really like the soldiers in real life, and they were the focus, not some chosen one who would set the world to right. The Black Company survivors went on, and the world was uncertain, like real life. As to the magic system being fluffy, I would not expect Croaker, an army medic/surgeon(ish), to understand how high level magic worked...he was interested in surviving as the Taken and the Rebel generals flung terrible sorceries at one another and didn't care who was caught in the crossfire. The Black Company was the first time that I learned the saying "Victors write the histories", and that thought has informed my view of life. Excellent review. I look forward to seeing your thoughts on all the Black Company books as well as your recommendations on books that I have not yet read. Also: the balls that were dropped from the flying carpets, on the rebel soldiers at the battle at Charm, were filled with disease pathogens. No sorcery was involved, at least as stated in the novel. The disease killed the rebel soldiers, but also partially infected the Empire's soldiers as well. God, that's the geekiest paragraph that I have ever written.

Completely accidentally found your channel. Absolutely adore The Black Company books. The review is also surprisingly spot on. Hope you do more on this series.

Appreciated this a lot more on the re-read

This is the first series of fantasy book I’ve ever read ❤️❤️

It has been 25+ years since I read in this series, so bear with me. I remember how different this series was in tone to any other fantasy I had read and how much I enjoyed that... for awhile. I love Croaker and he is actually the only character I remembered after all this time. I feel like this was the first thing I read that really felt true to how mercenary bands would sometimes really work, the focus being on the band"s wellbeing and not necessarily on the bigger picture of who the good guys/bad guys are in the war. And also, how sometimes there are no good choices, just the choice that will (hopefully) keep more of you alive. I read several in this series, but petered out at some point because the inevitable depressing tone got to be too much. I've been considering a reread, so hearing that you love the end of the series moves it up my Reread TBR. I had a similar experience with Realm of the Elderlings. I really enjoyed it, but got to the point that I dreaded seeing what new hell Fitz would have to go through - also I read those a million years ago and they're on my Reread TBR.

19:04 thank you for clarifying, can't mix up your fish shootin' barrel with your gem beryl!

I got about 150 pages into Chronicles of the Black Company before it got destroyed by water. I was eating it all up, I was really enjoying it. Soulcatcher made me beg for more detail. I've since got another copy but am stuck in the First Law and Malazan series! :( I always love your energy though, thanks for the review. I am so excited now to go back to it!

pretty good accurate review :) good job :) i'm a great fan of the series :)

great review mate !

Great review, and I can see your enthusiasm for this series. Will have to start buying a few and reading. This could be expensive.... 😂

Great review! I never finished the series but I’m going to now, hope the last 6 are as good as the first three

I actually really like what Cook did with the character of Raven in the later books. He ends up as a deconstruction of the dark brooding assassin character. His refusal to work with others just ends uo making things a lot worse for a lot of people, and his emotional immaturity is highlighted and condemned by the person who knew him best. He's pretty competent, but not as competent as he believes himself to be and he coukd have been a lot happier and more successful if he were not so petrified of being interdependent with other people or having a relationship that wasnt entirely on his own terms. Granted you don't get a lot of it in thebfirst book, but some ofnit is there. Whole Raven left for a good reason that some people understood, his friends resented him for it and he might have had an easier time in the later books had he asked for some amount of help.

Great review! I'm halfway through the second book now and I'm enjoying much more than the first book.

I definitely want to read this. It seems an important piece of fantasy literature history if nothing else.

Have only read the first book after I got the first omnibus - and ye pretty much nailed in your 'negatives' section. Nothing about the book pulled me in, nothing made me want to read on. I had heard the series gets better, so was planning to finish the omnibus at least. Hearing your enthusiasm for the series gives me hope.. but there will have to be a near 180 shift, and it better grab me by the gonads and drag me into full immersion.

I like the mysterious nature of the magic in this book. I will admit Croaker does embellish his own martial prowess 😂

No past, no real names, very French Foreign Legion like- and you aren't fighting for The Lady or Soulcatcher...you're fighting for The Company.

I can’t wait to start this series. I’m sure I’m going to love Croaker too.

That magic description 🤣🤣

I didn't mind at all that the reader is just plonked down into the middle of things when The Black Company opened. It drew me in, made me wonder what had gone on before. I liked the feeling of disorientation, because you had to find your own footing rather than have it fed to you via exposition. As for the brevity with which Croaker addressed the dispatching of certain characters, that's just the way it goes sometimes. Same with entire battles being summed up in a few sentences. Sometimes a story can be advanced with broad brush strokes. Magic. Again, I wasn't terribly bothered by the lack of clarity regarding how it works. Croaker himself likely didn't know, so there was no way he could have explained it. Goblin and his cohorts were described as minor magicians, so, again, their abilities being used primarily to harangue one another fits what we know about them. Great series. Not every book is a gem, but the overall tapestry is one of the best ever woven.

Cook does describe Soulcatcher fairly closely, as shortish and seemed to have slight femine curves somewhat.

the black company was published in 1984 , so why is it constantly referred too as a 90`s book ?

I'm finally gonna finish Wheel of Time this week!!! I think I'll try this one next, sounds really interesting

I can understand and sympathise with the difficulty of picking up the book, especially the first chapter, but I would also argue that it could not have been otherwise except to its detriment. The reason for starting the Legate chapter hitting the ground running is to establish the vital piece of information for the reader: these are not HEROES, men of conviction. We enter into the mundane, banal daily routine of mercenaries trying to balance the unreasonable demands of their tyrant sponsor against the certainty that if the powder keg the city has become should explode, they will go right along with it - they are punch clock villains. Not EVIL, but hardened and callous soldiers who do not consider themselves locals. The specifics of the political situation the company finds themselves in do not MATTER to Croaker except where it dictates the Company's objectives, so he wastes no time on it, and that relative unimportance is IN ITSELF important. Croaker doesn't care WHY the fight is going on. The fight IS going on, the sides are clear, and the Company has its orders, so they fight, kill, infiltrate, spy and wreak havoc, but it is neither personal nor ideological. By not going into the specifics, they are also dismissed as unimportant. The magic/fantasy elements presented could do with some more clarity, maybe, but One-Eye does give a very salient description of it: a were-leopard/vampire thing that drinks blood and eats organs, is pretty much unkillable and very dangerous, and he doesn't want to have to deal with it in any way. This, too, is salient as to how the Company treats stuff like that - where some might start with myths, legends, speculation and stuff like that, the Company, including its wizards, concern themselves primarily with "will it die if we stab it" and "how many of us would likely die if we had to fight it", to reach a conclusion of the immediately important point for them - should we hunt this thing, prepare to receive it, or avoid it entirely? How does it affect THE MISSION? Individual members of the Company may be interested in what it is, where it came from, how it works, and such, but Croaker himself sees it as "a threat, so I talked to the wizards and I now know as much about it as there's a point to knowing, so I write that down in these annals and then I move on". Other members of the Company probably do not care much about the Lady, either. Croaker DOES care, and wonder, and so therefore she features prominently in the annals (as well as other reasons for later). If he had been fascinated by the Forvalaka, the annals would have gone into great detail. Another thing Cook does well is emulate that Croaker is not narrating events as they happen. He experiences them, or does his best to find out how they happened, THEN he writes them down. He admits to dramatizing parts he wasn't there for, adding details he merely imagines must have been present, and some of the other annalists criticise him for it in later books, in fact. Additionally, therefore, even later he may learn facts that illuminate events he wrote down earlier, so his narrator's perspective is unique - he knows more than is present in the moment, but is not omniscient and may well be flat WRONG in places. The difficulty in figuring out where they are and where everything is is also congruent with the foot soldier's perspective. The average brother soldier of the Company does not know where they are in terms of a map. They know where they are, where they have been, they have memories of how long and through what hellish terrain they marched to get there. Croaker neither gives nor receives orders as to where the company is to go. He doesn't LOOK at maps. He is told by the Captain and the Lieutenant that they are going to this or that place, how long it will take to get there ideally, and to keep the Company alive and their feet un-rotted on the way there. I seem to recall Lady later criticises the distances he gives in the annals after reading them, noting that he is either sorely mistaken or the Company must have taken severe detours, but it is not IMPORTANT to Croaker. Travel, to him, consists of "we travelled from X, to Y, it took Z days, and we fought or didn't fight en-route". Every place is its own place, yet simultaneously every place is just like all other places - a place where the Company are outsiders, there to do a job, and trying to make sure any woe that befalls anyone, falls squarely on people outside their ranks. If it had "helped" you with these things, it would undermine the core of the story - that these are the organizational memoirs of the Black Company as penned by Croaker, and this is how he saw what happened, what he deemed important, and whatever he did NOT deem important is not there. It is also why the combat descriptions are so much like the Norse sagas... no intense, move-for-move exchanges of blows, parries and counters, but rather "they exchanged blows for a few moments before X was cut down and the rest fled". For all combat is a core competency of the company, their stock in trade, Croaker isn't fascinated by it. Croaker is fascinated by magic, legend, history, and people. That one cuts another down is notable only in the confirmation of that person's fate. The flourishes and moves used are of no consequence to him. That's the thing - the Black Company books are uncompromising in the density and loyalty to the concept, for the most part. How Croaker tells the story is how we, the reader, get to know what kind of man Croaker is. If he wrote it differently, that would mean he was a very different person. Raven is a caricature, and the butt of the joke - the entire point of him is that he does not fit in the story, or with the Company, and his inclusion mostly serves to demonstrate what the Black Company is NOT. You're not SUPPOSED to like him, you're supposed to despise him. He's the "protagonist" that fails to be the centre of the story, and it shows how insufferable the "protagonist"-schtick becomes when he isn't the main driver of the story. I don't agree with your assessment of the magic system. I agree it's soft, but there are several very clear rules that are interesting and keep the magic interesting. It's by far the best magic system I know of in any fiction. "The Silver Spike" is the bad one, yes? It is a great story that just... isn't the interesting part of what is happening at that time, sadly :/

The Black Company is my favorite series of all time, probably owed in part to the fact that it was the first big fantasy series I ever read. Cook's writing style is certainly sparse but even nowadays rereading the series I find myself enchanted by what little descriptions we do get. It's also gotta be said that all of Cook's writing (Black Company & Garrett, at least) is inherently funny. I love his dry sarcasm mixed in with gritty realism. Anyway, thanks for this review! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the rest of the series because as we both know there are some WILD things that happen in later books.

Sorry for the textwall. Great review, your enthusiasm and energy are contagious. Im going to make a wild guess: your less favourite book is The Silver Spike or Bleak Seasons. This whole saga changed/defined my overall perspective in the fantasy genre back in 1998 when I discovered it, aswell as my way of thinking. Back until then I had read Tolkien, some D&D garbage, GoT, Conan and some random stuff... but Glen Cook was like a revelation on how wrong I was with my preferences and tastes. It offered all I wanted in a fantasy story and removed all the unnecesary additives and clichés. The villains are so fascinating, (ive named my rpg videogame characters after them for years) and I think they are so interesting because the info we get about them is scarce, as opposed to the expanded and tedious lore many writers tend to include in their stories. In an interview Cook stated that he did not wanted to add maps because it limited his freedom as a narrator, I think that interview must be somewhere in youtube btw. As for the writing style... for me it was love at first sight precisely because it is the opposite of Tolkien, D&D or any other series. It is dry, direct and goes tot he point like a impartial chronicle. The magic system... I like it precisely because it does not explain (just like the villains adn the lack of maps) much about it and yet it sounds like a scary thing normal people dont want to mess around (in this series magic seems something similar to what bio weapons were in ww1: nasty stuff everyone was scared of... and in fact its used similarily during the siege) and therefore it forces the reader to use his imagination. The Mary Sue thing... I dont find Darling a Mary Sue at all (her char is developed in later books)... as for Raven... yea hes a badass but his weakness is precisely Darling. Much of his character is explained better in The Silver Spike where we can find out all his weaknesses as a person. This will be forever my favourite fantasy book series (sorry Conan :< you are second) . And despite all... my favourite characters of the whole books are Old Man Fish and Smeds Stahl... yeah I love The Silver Spike, the book ive re-read and re-listened the most times.

I enjoyed it. Might use this series as palate cleansers.

When I ran into the first “Morion” description I took a moment to google it, and none of the photos I found showed a helmet that would have covered the face. One of the definitions of it is “open-faced helmet”. I wonder why Cook didn’t go with a bascinet or burgonet instead. I guess I missed the mask reference as well.

The "Ten Who Were Taken" spend as much time taking down or kneecapping each other and plotting against the Lady as they do fighting the "Rebel."

I too am having a hard time with this book. Parts I really enjoy and a lot of catching up. Watching other people talk about it helps me wrap my head around it though.

Very well articulated and thought out critque of the first book. I am also a fan of the series and if I am to be honest to myself and others and give my impartial grade of the first book, it aligns with what you gave it. The issues you point out I believe will dismay many readers of current popular fantasy series as Cook is very, very minimalistic in world design and even more so on the magic "system" as you pointed out. But, I think the setting and the cast of characters, to me, makes up for that. I"ll put it to you like I told my friends. If you think of The Black Company as a DnD campaign, Cook is the that DM who throws you into the campaign setting and moves you along. I like that. I like that the book is only 300ish pages long and isn't padded out to a 1,000 page tome because every rock has to be described. Some people like that as they really want to dive into the lore of the authors world, and I can understand that. Anyways, great review and I really hope to see you continue to review the rest of the books in the series as there is a real lack of Black Company content on KZfaq. Hopefully, that TV series will get picked up and bring more of the mainstream audience to this series. Thanks!

Reading the first one right now. Yeah, because of Erikson. And reading all those names or handles makes me believe that the Malazan drill instructor who names everyone (his name escapes me, ironically) is a way to insert Cook himself into their world.

The first time I read the book it blew my mind and I went out the next day and bought every book in the series. However, the second reading if the Black Company (just the first book); I hated it! I had such a good memory of loving that first book, that a second reading about 6-7 years later I was totally astonished as to why I liked this series at all. But! I re-re-read the first book a few years ago and really enjoyed it for the spareness. It felt like such a throwback to older writing styles & tropes 3rd time around. I found it charming in a sense. Similar to watching Terminator, a film I loved as a kid but now seems quaint. Not unpleasantly so, but I am aware of it.

This book got me back into reading after 10+ years out of the game. All your criticisms are fair, for me none of them prevented me from enjoying the book. Other than book 2, any other recommendations on where to go next? I picked up Poppy War because I did a search for military fantasy like Black Company & it was on a list, but it really just feels like reading a YA novel (not that it's sanitized, but structurally, characters, dialogue, conflict, all feel like every YA story ever) so it's not my bag.

If it written from croaker point of view maybe the stuff missed out or passed over is because he dont know. With magic with the battles. I not read them yet but on my tbr this year

I bought the first 3 of these recently and not sure when I will get to them, but it sounds pretty interesting.

Really want to find more books like this series, discovered it a few years back but can't find anything to match this dark fantasy.

I personally can't stand lame exposition or info dumps so I just loved Cook's writing style. I had no problems at all with him not explaining basically anything and expecting the reader to be intelligent enough to get it from the context. When it comes to Raven first he does have at least one friend and that's The Captain, then yes he does not talk about his past but neither does anybody else, there was an unwritten rule in the Company what you were before does not matter, dont ask dont tell or something along these lines. And he did have weaknesses. Plural. Yes he was a bit stereotypical but not even close to parody you described him as :) When it comes to magic we do know at least one rule that plays huge part in the storyline so it's very weird you forgot it ;) One thing I really agree with you is it's not a good starting point. I happened to read Shadows Linger first without even knowing it's part of the series, and then came back and read The Black Company as a prequel, and then moved on to The White Rose. Shadows Linger is definitely so much better and it did hook me.

Another example of a first-book-of-the-series by Cook that is nearly impossible to get through on the first read is The Tyranny of the Night, which I had to stop reading at page 80 and start over. I would not have done that for any other writer.

Just awsome

Croaker is a good shot because he was given an 3nchanted bow by the lady

You hit the nail on the head for all the reasons I had trouble liking this book: bare-bones descriptions, soupy soft magic, off camera events a plenty, and Mary Sue characters. BUT, I’m glad I’ve started the series and look forward to the sequels. Shoutout to MCDM’s The Chain which brought me to the black company

"This was kinda new back in the '90s" You mean back in the extremely early '80s? And Dred Empire goes even further back.

A read and reread this in Iraq and Afghanistan…it was like He wrote it for soldiers in combat

Oh man, should I read the first book now? 😂

Loved the first book, actually enjoyed the series less as it went on. I liked very human characters, normal in their own world, even their wizards aren't very good. Then you have the taken, who at times seemed overpowered, which in my opinion was a deliberate and good thing.

Just finished the book and immediately came here to hear why I’m wrong 😂 I suspect (if you get that far) that The Heroes will be your favorite First Law book - it’s my least favorite 😂

is the Limper a prelude to the Cripple God

Reading the series now. Really liked black company and shadows linger. Did not like port of shadows. Thought silver spike and the white rose were just okay.

The "Rebel" is pretty bad...historically whoever wins will decide who the "good guy" was.

The Captain is probably the most intriguing character to me. Such a strong military leader and at the same time a politician and intelligence officer while coming across as a bumbling oaf to everyone trying to use The Company and getting played in the end. And your opinion of Raven is (I believe) mistaken. The man is dangerous. He's been trained in the arts, politics, intrigue and martial arts (not karate, but strategy, tactics and arms) since birth. Then he was betrayed by the "government " he was bred to protect over some petty power struggle and was forced to run for his life. He decided to do everything he could to take that "government" down. I think he was insane at the very beginning of his character arc but he mostly accomplished his mission. Raven is one of my favorite literary characters. I'm just sad he didn't develop more and instead regressed.

The way cook writes pisses me off. It comes off at being lazy. It is very convoluted trying to figure out whats going on and I wanted more description . Im going to try to listen to the audiobook series.

raven is very interesting , but you wont realize that until you`ve read a few more books ! reread the book , you obviously just dont get it !

I have three disagreements in a row from when you started talking about croaker being too good as an archer. To me the solutions, that I implied for myself: 1. Croaker is an mediocre archer, but the black bow from the lady makes him awesome. 2. Raven is suposed to be an emo git, see later books how his whole thing is that he is an immature manchild. 3. The soft magic is fine, since croaker is a no-talent. The book where L writes, its an actual problem. I totally agree that series 1 read of book is lame, series read 2 is amazing all the way through.

i personally thought the first book was not as good as the following books but i tend to think this about almost every series i read. i think as the author gets more comfortable with his tone and characters the books really improve. after the first black company book i was almost ready to put the series down but i gave the second book a try and i got hooked

I think Ravens character gets much better by silver spike, he becomes kinda pathetic and his whole edgy attitude feels more like a shield

Hey, that was actually a pretty spot on review. And it made me respect the book a little bit more. I personally did not like the series all that much. It had some good elements, but it was not worth it going through 9+ books to get there. Writing is bad all around and does not get much better later on, specifically the vagueness of what happens continues to be a problem in all books of the series. Story development is so random I'm pretty sure that Cook is making everything up as he goes and only have the vaguest idea where he'd like to take the story by the last books (It does get there, to that interesting place, but this could've been a 5 books series and it would've been better for it). While reading, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a cliffnote of a D&D campaign, not an actual event that could've happened (even in a fantasy world). The black company itself was soo "plot armored" that it was almost funny the series is considered grimdark. They always had a trick up their sleeve to help them defeat a more powerful foe. Other funny plot device was the way Cook always gave the Black company some unfair advantage that essentially gave them a "see the whole map" cheat, so that the reader can follow what's happening to characters that are not near the analist.

Had a dream last night that chunks of pages had fallen out of my Chronicles of the Black Company omnibus, which I've had for 12 years. Was so sad I'd have to buy a new one with that terrible red sticker on the front 😢 lol. But great review! Agree with everything, except I think some of the criticisms you have were about things that were done on purpose by Cook, so they should (in my opinion) be appreciated for what they're trying to achieve i.e. not much is explained to begin with (feels like a real annal). Regarding Raven being a marry sue - that's so funny, I'd never thought of it that way, but as soon as you said you thought someone was a marry sue, I did guess Raven. Personally, as not much was explained about Raven, and since he wasn't a main character, I just saw him as an exceptionally dangerous mercenary. Like in my own line of work, some people are just exceptional. Definitely liked shadows linger more than the first book, but they're so different, so I think different targets were being aimed at. Thanks for the video - great analysis, I didn't even notice it was 30 minutes, and the Black Company certainly deserves a bigger presence on booktube

Reading The Black Company for the first time and highly enjoying it. It really doesn't feel like a book written in the 1980s, although I enjoyed many of those fantasies then too. It might be the grim dark aspect that makes it feel current. Regardless, this is one of those series that is extremely hard to put down. Reading it at night, when I wake up, while I eat, brush my teeth. LOL. So glad I bought the trilogy so I can easily go to the next book.

The opening trilogy is good but it gets worse the further along you read. Making smart characters stupid just to make their adversary seem crafty is bad writing and there's a lot of it.