Glen Cook

Shadows Linger is the second in Glen Cook's Black Company series, and is an excellent follow-up. It jumps ahead 6 years from the events of the first novel, and we find ourselves in a far-off western city called Juniper. It's less focused on the Black Company and Croaker, and instead splits the chapters, with half following the Company's activities and the other half following a Juniper local named Shed.

I think adding in the second perspective was a good move for this book. Chapters are show more shorter and flow better, and there's less volatile jumping around in the narrative. It flows better than the first book. Shed's point of view is written in a slightly different style, and it's interesting to get a longer look at an outsider's view of the Company.

There's no shortage of fighting and darkness, being a grimdark novel, but as in the first book there are shreds of hope and goodness strewn throughout and even a really nice redemption arc culminating in the novel's climax. Cook is really good at having little bits of humor here and there as well. The characters we follow and root for might not be good dudes, but this series definitely isn't as dark and hopeless as some of the more modern stuff that gets the grimdark label.

All in all a very good sequel that continues the larger plot form the first book, and it's left me really interested in continuing on. These books are just the right length to read pretty casually over a week or so, and I really appreciate when a book can tell its story without being a gigantic doorstopper. show less

Conclusion to the adventures of benRabi and Mouse.

What I like when it comes to Glen Cook is that author gives what you might call open ending - I am yet to read one of his books that would end with a full stop. Reason is very simple (as far as I can tell) - these books are about people not about struggle for its own sake, so struggle can continue even after main characters find their closure and strength to keep on going. Author's stories are very humane in a way that people interactions are show more normal, everyday. Spies fall in love with wrong people, people die in hundreds due to misunderstandings, families are put to sword and survivors are sworn to never ending vendettas that can only result in the more cataclysmic events and destruction, aliens behave as actual aliens, even when they are biologically very similar to humans (just look at the Sangaree for this or Dragon/Fishes or even Stars' End over-mind for the other end of spectrum).

All of this takes place against the backdrop of ancient mysteries, unimaginable merciless enemies, politicking and backstabbing in human universe and epic battles ..... but again, let me repeat, people are focus. People that do heroic stuff but eventually end up pretty much damaged after years of undercover (Manchurian Candidate type) work amongst the people they finally fall in with or after years of pursuing blood vengeance and then losing the reason to continue living or having to live with the ones actions that have sentenced billions to death. Maybe most important message from the book is how fixation on only one aspect of existence can spell doom to the entire species.

When it comes to action, shadowy spy work, agents and commandos chasing one another, hijackings for information, psychological programming and various other deadly technology available to operators - all of this is something that would not be out of place in stories about Alpha Legion in W40K.

What I especially like in Glen Cook's SF is realism of space combat. Maybe only Neal Asher and Iain M. Banks come near when depicting insanely fast, combat engagements lasting seconds and spanning thousands of miles.

Book has a bitter sweet ending, but after all, when one looks at it through prism of danger lurking on the horizon, everything seems justified (even that research base destruction - although I am still divided on this one). It kinda brings back the belief that humans are not wolves to each other, which is something that last decades seem to just desire to imprint on everyone. Here we have various societies working together, interacting (again in normal way without too much drama) and coming to the solutions that will benefit everyone (again, this is fiction but again, considering the enemy not something unimaginable). Most importantly all characters are reasoning and coming to solutions, yes there are emotions and some actions do come out of them (aforementioned vendetta), but main focus is on reasoning and not allowing emotions to decide on a species wide decisions.

Only element I have a problem with is role of Sangaree - it seems like author wanted to do something with this violent offshoot of humanity but decided not to. I wonder how would the story shape itself if this approach was more developed.

In any case this is great book, great story, highly recommended to fans of SF action/adventure. show less

Beware, you are entering a dark and scary universe. (Well, of course you are, it’s a Glen Cook book ;) ) We’ve got: an empire of slave raiders, mercenary captain-kings, space warfare, planetary surface warfare, betrayals and more betrayals, lovely back-stabbing families, torture and more torture, cold-blooded murder, just plain “I hate you, you bastard” murder, cycles of vendetta that take years and years to complete. Did I get it all down? Phew.

I always like that Cook’s writing is show more so deceptively plain and simple. But it’s masterful, really – just a few strokes of a pen, and there is your character, and there is nothing simple about her or him; there is your battle, unfolding, and you can feel it all happening.

It’s been a while since I read anything by Glen Cook, so it was nice to revisit his work. I still like the Black Company books best of all, but I ended up enjoying this one a lot. I had trouble getting into the story at first and decided that it was going to be a three star read, at most – I was annoyed by Pollyanna. “Is this character misogyny personified, author, what are you doing?” As the novel progressed, it turned out that Cook was messing with the readers (of course he was). Pollyanna was frighteningly damaged, complex, and badass when it mattered. Well done, author, well done. There were a couple of instances of very weird gender stuff, and the book as a whole is very male-centric. But I am usually able to cut older sci-fi some slack.

Imagine my happiness when a lightbulb lit up in my head: OMG, Glen Cook is retelling Norse mythology as a space opera!!! Cool! Awesome! I love this kind of literary game, I was jumping for joy. It’s all there: Odin and his ravens, Thor, Loki and his many treacheries, Fenrir the wolf, Balder’s death, etc etc etc. Is there Ragnarök, too? Of course.

The ending was a bit rushed, but I am very curious about the rest of the series. I am not in a hurry, though – the story of Shadowline is complete.

I’ll end with one of the best quotes:

“How we love to play at being paladins,” he thought. “Hired killers pretending to knights of the Round Table. Dragons slain. Maidens rescued. Ogres dismantled. No, no, that’s not really innocent blood taking the shine off the old armor. Just a spot of rust.” show less

The Black Company, an ancient mercenary army fallen on hard times, find themselves reluctantly contracting for an ancient and likely evil sorceress. Considering how famously influential the series (in which this is book 1) has been on the fantasy genre (especially the subsets focusing on military and/or gritty realism), I was half-expecting this novel to suffer the fate of so many innovators -- seeming trite and tame compared to its more modern copycats. To my joy, this is not so. The first show more person narrative that unpredictably will skip an entire siege only to then spend a lot of time on a minor operation adds an erratic but distinct pace to the events, and the personality of the narrator is sufficiently interesting, likable and conflicted to carry me along as the plot unfolds. The author's also very good at making the characters spring from the page immediately recognisable and memorable, feeling fully formed. There are moments of humour, moments of horror, and even some pathos to be had, and on the day I finished the book, I went straight out and ordered the entire rest of the series. Here's hoping they'll live up to the beginning. show less