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The Return Of The Black Company (2009)

The Return of the Black Company (2009)

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Rating
4.24 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
0765324008 (ISBN13: 9780765324009)
Language
English
Publisher
tor books

About book The Return Of The Black Company (2009)

A part of me wanted to like Murgen. But mostly I resented him for not telling the story I wanted to read, especially after the last cliffhanger ending.This book is also a great example of why I typically don't read the sprawling multi-volume epics (and yet what are the sequels to [link: The Chronicles of the Black Company] but sprawling multi-volume epics?). A storyline that once felt tight and well-planned has mushroomed into something unwieldy. This should not have been much longer than the first omnibus, and now here we are with three omnibuses.The first book in this omnibus jumps through time quite disjointedly. One of the timelines follows alongside events in Dreams of Steel, but we now get to see those events from a character who doesn't know what's going on. We do. I (obviously, due to previous bias) found the parts where the Widowmaker and the Lifetaker show up in their various forms to be the most interesting. The second timeline is about three years in the future and therefore doesn't show events immediately following Dreams of Steel. We are left to pick up the pieces on our own. Usually I like this sort of thing, but not in the middle of a story where I care so much about the characters involved (and I wanted a different perspective for that anyway).Unfortunately, we're thrown into the middle of it with Murgen, someone who we'd met before but didn't stand out in many ways except for a few offhand commets from Croaker that made me laugh ("Murgen was just happy to outrank someone" from Shadow Games, for example, and also the whole bit in Dreams of Steel where he gets the Company standard back.) I didn't grow to like him and unfortunately I didn't care all that much about his wife - we never learn much about her anyway other than that she serves tea and is beautiful! What's interesting about that?The second book was even worse for me. Smoke and his unusual abilities were just a plot device to tell a sprawling story that could not easily be told in the first person. But yet, we're tied mainly to the first person narrative through the Annalist. Unfortunately, this frustrated me to the point of doing a lot of skimming (except for all the parts with Croaker - old affections die hard).Of course we finished with a big cliffhanger of an ending again. Shouldn't a book be good enough on its own to keep me reading without cheap tricks like that? Now it's a slog through half the next book 'til we get Croaker back as a narrator. Really, that (and inertia from the first few books of the series) are the only reasons I'm still going. I hope it's worth it.At least Croaker didn't much like Murgen's annals, either. Murgen could write a lot more sparely, and he does tend to go on a lot more than he needs to. That made me smile.

This book started off a bit oddly with Murgen (the Narrator) sliding between locations and times with little or no warning. This was obviously intentional, but was not clearly explained at first that that is what was happening. Once I realized it though it proved an interesting way of revealing back story without using a recap.There are sections that hint as to what is happening on the Glittering Plain, which while they give hints and are interesting, I found to be generally difficult and never really knew if these were from the narrator, the author, or some other speaker. Having finished the book I have a bit better idea, but still could not say for certain. Once the time/location slips were understood this volume definitely advanced the storyline, and introduced a number of interesting locations and characters. In specific the addition of the Nyueng Bao and the insight into their culture along with the events of the seige at Dejagore was a welcome addition to the narrative that I had hoped would be explored more when reading the previous volume. This volume definitely returns to a bit more of the mercenary mindset and nastiness of the Black Company, and while Murgen continues to present the company as full of generally decent guys he also makes it clear that they are not good guys and their motivations and goals are unabashedly selfish. To me this was a welcome return, as it is this outlook that differentiates this series from standard fantasy series, and makes it so notable.

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The continuation of the quest of the Black Company to find their origins as "the last of the Free Companies of Khatovar." Unfortunately, both the Company, and us readers, are stalled within sight of this goal as they must deal with a new war, the politics of both their new employers and their new/old enemies, and other complications.The conflicts presented in these stories are interesting, but maddening because it's already past time for the "Khatovar" quest to end. If these stories had been presented differently I probably would have liked them better, but I'm ready to get to the end of the "meta-plot" established for these books since the end of the original trilogy. In fact, the time shifting narrative of Murgen that comprises half of the omnibus is actually quite an interesting technique, but I would have appreciated it more had it been a stand-alone story rather than an extension of this whole Khatovar quest arc.I admit to my personal preferences shading this opinion. I can't stand overarching plots that never get resolved. A trilogy is long enough to tell a story. If you've gone into a fourth book and haven't yet resolved important issues established in the first one, then you've gone too long.Maybe you'll enjoy this more knowing that you won't get resolution, but I can't recommend it.
—John

After I had read the "Chronicles of the Black Company" I was quite sure that I'd march through all other "Black Company" books. I must say that I need a break from the Black Company for now - not a bad thing though, I'm just saving the last two novels for a special occassion. At the beginning of "Bleak Season", Cook confused me a little with going back and forth in time and place which does make sense of course if you want to communicate a story that took place in a time that is already past but nevertheless important for the overall story.I quite like Murgen's ability to drift through time and space but I have to admit that I enjoyed the previous books more than those two. Is it Murgen? His change of style in keeping the annals? Maybe. I also think that I've enjoyed the constant run the Company has been in in the first two volumes.Anyway. The story takes interesting turns and yet we have another bad ending. I'm curious how the story will continue but at the same time I know that I'll miss all the characters that have grown dear to me while I read the past eight novels. Some argue that the old characters, Croaker and Lady, are "finally" dead but if you followed the series closely you'll know that dead doesn't always mean dead for good. I wouldn't mind a reunion with Croaker or Lady. I'm definitely looking forward to what Soulcatcher is up to next. Kudos to Cook for keeping up with genuinely creative settings in a universe that keeps me amazed.
—Yvonne Jae

Quite possibly the most disappointing of the series so far. It isn't that they're bad, just that they're not nearly as compelling as the previous outings have been.That said, we do get a peek into the background of what happened at the siege of Dejagore and the Nyeung Bao are an interesting mismash of a couple recognizable cultures and are fleshed out some here. Plots come to a head and the end comes again, not quite where it would be in most stories.There are generally two types of Black Company novels. They aren't clear-cut divisions, but they are how I view the installments. First are the epic-in-scope war stories. Sure they are often fitted with a grounding in characters with myopically personal drives and views but they go batshit crazy, bringing in the fantasy equivalents of gunships and aircraft carriers, missile batteries and double-agents. The second are those that focus on the small people in small ways, and how they and their stories fit into the larger, more epic narrative.By-and-large, that second sort are the better novels. I love the titanic battles at the climaxes, the way he makes them both personally compelling for those involved as well as expansive and epic in the way they resolve things. But the truth is that the characters and situations are more immediately engaging in the second sort.That's what really makes this volume so disappointing. Bleak Seasons falls into that second category and by rights should have been the more compelling volume, but the oddity of the time travel and ghost-walking and what it did to both the pacing and accessibility of the narrative. I understand why it was done and it makes sense, but it didn't work for me.Both included books, though, have moments of almost casually impressive insight, things that take other authors pages to set up and still come off manufactured. Cook also manages to pull off some really entertaining and at times surprising plot twists.This collection ends on a big cliff-hanger, even if it's one that you may see coming. So yeah, even though this was the most disappointing run of the bunch, I'll be back.
—Marc Jentzsch

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