My major complaint about Glen Cook and his writing is that he has a horribel way of killing off major characters. Almost all of the major characters we have been dealing with up to this point are killed in this book. I don't know if Cook felt he had too many characters to deal with or what, but characters like Murgen, Thai Dei, Uncle Doj and Sleepy are all killed with very little description and it's always mentioned after the fact. Some skirmish or battle happens we don't really get a description of their role in said skirmish and the next thing you know it's casually mentioned that they are no more. The same thing happened with Willow Swan, Blade, Sarah and many others. It drives me nuts as they were integral parts of the books up and then all of a sudden by the way they're dead with very little explanation! Other than this I have no real complaints, however this was just a major issue for me. ( )

The final novel of the Black Company. While it doesn't really answer all the questions, it does provide a satisfying conclusion to the saga. The Company goes all the way back to its roots, in both location and time, and very interesting things happen at that point. I thought the ending was fitting, and at least a bit unexpected. ( )

4 1/2 stars, great conclusion to black company series to date: Actually cook has said there are 2 more black company stories he may write if he lives long enough, but if this is the final novel he has written a good conclusion - no dreams of steel here.

Finally Croaker is returned as narrator of most of this story, though he is written as a notably older character. The story details resolution of the outstanding conflicts between Kina, Soulcatcher, the company (with competing interests in the company), Mugaba, and the golem in the nameless fortress. This book's 550 pages read quickly. Military action does take second place to intrigue and character conflicts.

some spoilers follow, read if you want to deflate story arcs, spoil surprises, and ruin the major plot elements of the book.

SPOILERS

I did wonder if the Howler was so easily killed. Given the history of the Limper, Soulcatcher, Shapeshifter etc., it is unusual to see one of the Taken so easily killed unless they aren't really dead, cook-style.

Final resolution of the goblin and one-eye dynamic was touching. The entire part of the story dealing with that element was quite haunting.

The named-character attrition in this book is reminiscent of All Darkness Met, An Ill Fate Marshalling, or Shadowline in the all-encompassing nature of it. Once you realize that Cook has no qualms about spending a hundred or more pages developing a single character, just to kill them in the most offhand fashion (anyone remember O Shing?), you realize that anything is possible. This has been less apparent in the Black Company series overall than in some others, fwiw. That said, the attrition in this novel does take the shape of an intentional house-cleaning, something he sort-of agreed with with in an interview I recently read. (IIRC in response to a question about his motive in writing the death of virtually everyone in this book, he said it was "getting to the end.".

This is a great book, and like Water Sleeps is a vast improvement over the first two glittering stone books.

A fit ending for the series, though it leaves an opening for future books (cross your fingers.) Once again, there's a bit of a jump in time from the end of the previous book, and maybe that and the new locale made starting into the book a little rough for me, but I completely devoured the last couple hundred pages. Strongly recommended, but only if you've read the previous 9 books. ( )

There's a definite ending to this story line, though the overall plot leaves room for new Black Company novels. However, since some of the characters that made the stories so enjoyable have "retired" so to speak, I don't think I'll continue with them.

This book suffers a bit like the last one, only in reverse: last time the good guys inexplicably didn't take out the bad guy, here the conscienceless bad guy inexplicably leaves the good guys around. At least Croaker's back as narrator.

When all is said and done, I sort of wish I had just stopped reading at The White Rose as the later volumes weren't up to the same level. ( )