A review by zoey222
Bleak Seasons by Glen Cook
2.0
Heard a lot about the Black Company. Apparently its super popular. Saw this was "The Return" of their crew, and the start of a new Trilogy starring them, so I gave it a shot since I couldnt get ahold of the first book.
This was mediocre at best, but the more I think about it, the less I realize I enjoyed it. There are almost no characters in this book. The Black Company is just an amalgamation of various adjectives and crass jokes. They are smelly, drink lots of beer, and make poop jokes. At the same time that all of this is going on, they are "suffering through horrible conditions." But we never actually get a real taste of the horrific experiences involved with surviving a siege in this gothic, metal-esque world. Its just "They starved, and it was miserable. Anyway--"
The characterizations, especially the women, suck.
And there were dozens of spelling errors, double-words, such as "then then this happened," and an entire page got printed twice instead of the next page, so you are missing one entire page of story right in the middle.
All the awesome moments that we build up to through the plot happen off screen, and as such there was really no actual resolution. I guess the siege ended, so thats the end of the book. Time to set up for the sequel.
Glen Cook's style has some promise--at times he reminded me of a gross-out grimdark version of Pratchett, which was very enjoyable--but the bad far outweighs the good, and I wont be reading anymore Black Company. I am SO surprised at how much praise this series gets.
This was mediocre at best, but the more I think about it, the less I realize I enjoyed it. There are almost no characters in this book. The Black Company is just an amalgamation of various adjectives and crass jokes. They are smelly, drink lots of beer, and make poop jokes. At the same time that all of this is going on, they are "suffering through horrible conditions." But we never actually get a real taste of the horrific experiences involved with surviving a siege in this gothic, metal-esque world. Its just "They starved, and it was miserable. Anyway--"
The characterizations, especially the women, suck.
And there were dozens of spelling errors, double-words, such as "then then this happened," and an entire page got printed twice instead of the next page, so you are missing one entire page of story right in the middle.
All the awesome moments that we build up to through the plot happen off screen, and as such there was really no actual resolution. I guess the siege ended, so thats the end of the book. Time to set up for the sequel.
Glen Cook's style has some promise--at times he reminded me of a gross-out grimdark version of Pratchett, which was very enjoyable--but the bad far outweighs the good, and I wont be reading anymore Black Company. I am SO surprised at how much praise this series gets.