Glen Cook

In a second omnibus of tales featuring the Black Company, the survivors of the devastating battle at the Tower of Charm are hounded by the predatory Shadowmasters throughout a risky march to the south. Original.15,000 first printing.

The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company

Sade A

Book 4: Shadow Games

3.5 Stars

Well well well. Who would have thought my feelings towards the black company would be overwhelmingly positive. Not me that's for sure. Books 1-3 left me kind of having a love hate relationship with the series, mainly because i felt the characters were less than developed, Croaker was very sparse with information and the timeline was all wonky. 

Black Company series kinda has a bad rep with most of my friends' on GR but i'm here to tell you if you can make it out of the mess that was book 1, it actually is quite good. Notice i didn't say Epic (I still don't know why it's referred to as an Epic fantasy literature but i digress)
Shadow Games opens up after the fallout of the battle at Barrowland, the company is broken and they've decided to retrace their roots and find out their history. 
What was overwhelmingly positive for me in book 4 was that the plot was easier to follow, Croaker really stepped up his PoV game and while it wasn't perfect it was infinitely better than previous ones. There's more background on the characters, it's not just names for the most part. 
That been said Croaker still sucks at getting your heart rate pumping during battle scenes and i couldn't help but compare him to Duiker (if you know, you know) at such times. 

 All in all even with some confusing parts in the plot, i still enjoyed this a lot and let me tell you Book 5 is shaping up even better. 

BOOK 5 REVIEW:
Gather round fellow fantasy readers and let me tell you how an author finally wrote about a bad ass female protagonist, that was smart because she was smart.. and guess what? could also fall in love and still be smart. By god!!! 
This book is basically about one person: LADY and how bad ass she is. Seriously though if the Black Company was left in Lady's hands she would rule the freaking planet. Totally not to be effed with. Gosh i love that woman. Wait where was i? oh yes.. You know what, all i can say is i'm totally a fan of black company right now. 
con: i still can't totally picture the whole battle thing. Cook really uses military speak when describing battles so it's more of an analytical thing than feelings. Don't think i'll ever get used to that.
4stars

Sheila

Loved the first two books!! The third and final book left a lot to be desired though. Maybe that's just because I'm biased & am not a fan of Raven, but I just wasn't as interested in the storyline or POVs in that book.

Still a strong omnibus volume! Will grab the third omnibus after I've caught up on some other reading.

The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company

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