Way back at the beginning of this year, I wrote a post on the first chapter of the Wheel of Time series that was handed off to Brandon Sanderson. Now as 2011 draws to a close, it’s time to do the same for the penultimate chapter of a saga that first started over twenty years ago. As usual for the series, this is a massive tome, with my paperback version clocking in at an incredible 1,200+ pages. I like to think that it’s so massive that even the printers have a hard time with these books, as a good portion of the pages from my copy have faded ink. Be warned that spoiler abound, in case you’re the type to get squeamish about such things.

As with The Gathering Storm, old plotlines are resolved at a furious pace. One of the main ones in particular dates all the way back to the very first book in the series, The Eye of the World, where Perrin Aybara killed two Children of the Light in a frenzy of bloodlust. Another deals with the nigh invulnerable gholam which has been hunting Mat Cauthon since book seven. For the fans, I believe this book also ends all of the will they or won’t they romantic threads left dangling. Just about every major character gets a romantic partner. This includes not just the long expected pairing of Egwene al’Vere and Gawyn Trakand, but also such characters as Morgase Trakand, Thom Merrilin and even Berelain of Mayene!

Continue reading Towers of Midnight →

Most fantasy series take place in an imagined world filled with powerful magic and fantastic creatures. As a matter of course, the stories tend to focus on the lives and doings of the most powerful and influential beings of their age, the better for readers to a get a proper sense of the epic scale of events as they unfold as well as to be sure of having a front row seat to the most spectacular battles. Glen Cook’s The Black Company series is set in a unnamed world that is no less wondrous than that of his fellow fantasy writers. Here there are the usual ancient evils and prophecies; sleeping gods and sorcerors potent enough to create storms or turn large companies of soldiers to ash; monsters such as were-panthers, talking stones and flying mantas.

What sets this series apart is its focus not on the generals and nobility, the most puissant mages and most renowned generals, but on the lowly common foot soldiers that make up the bulk of every army. In this case, the spotlight is on the Black Company, a band of mercenaries who peddle their services to the highest bidder. Chronicles of the Black Company is an omnibus volume that brings together the first three novels of the series, The Black Company, Shadows Linger and The White Rose. The first of these books were published  in 1984 but I only heard about this series several years ago from QT3.

Continue reading Chronicles of the Black Company →