The third book problem: what to write as a reviewer when an author is consistent and the third installment just confirms what you have already written about book 1 and 2?
The Black Company and Shadows Linger were both great reads, and The White Rose is no exception. While retaining all the hallmarks of the quality of the first book, Shadows Linger had a smaller canvas than The Black Company, and formally it was different too: the first book were 7 subsequent short stories, while book 2 was one sole story.
It’s only fitting The White Rose, the conclusion to the first arc, reads as a breed of 1 and 2: an epic struggle, but in a limited setting with a surprisingly small finale – all told via 3 interwoven tales.
I don’t have a ton of analysis to offer this time, and the main intention of this review is to get you to start book 1 if you haven’t read this series yet. I’ll start by reiterate its selling points.
- No bloat. Lean & mean, nothing spoonfed, nothing stretched nor repeated, no world building except for what happens.
- No bullshit. No self-serious convoluted magic system, no glossary, no maps.
- No borders. Cook writes what he wants, in full freedom and with an unrestrained, original imagination.
- No brainwashing. Cook has no political agenda – except maybe showing that morals are messy, and that evil exists.
That results in a series that is fresh, snappy and fun, yet not juvenile or superficial. If that sounds like something you would like, do read my review of The Black Company – it has a bit more details on Cook’s moral outlook and the above selling points.
From what I’ve read about the rest of the series, I’m 100% convinced I will love the remainder – Cook wrote 11 novels and a bunch of short stories about his band of mercenaries.
Some have complained about a lack of character development, but that doesn’t mean there is no great character work in these books: I was truly fond of a few characters, and the ending was emotional. That doesn’t happen if a book has crappy personnel. Some people like to pretend there are universal laws for good fiction, and the necessity of character development is such a dictum. I don’t agree. Most fiction just needs the characters that suit the story, and Cook manages to do so seemingly effortless, even if detail on the matter is not his shtick. Detail simply isn’t Cook’s shtick to begin with: it’s no bloat, just momentum. And besides: there is development, and it’s even crucial to the story – it’s just not spelled out loud and clear.
A final remark. The metaphysics of the series seems to be unbound too. A nearly immortal character that seems to inhabit multiple layers of reality says it doesn’t know if there are gods, but later talks about “an adolescent god” “of sorts”. Another character doesn’t believe in ghosts, or doesn’t want to, while there clearly are immaterial souls throughout the story. If Cook had written bad books, he would have gotten a snarky review from yours truly, accusing him of inconsistency and philosophical plot holes. Cook doesn’t seem to care much, and that fits his themes and the world the story is set in. He shows that ultimately nobody knows a thing about the true fabric of reality, and his characters – in a pre-scientific setting – just undergo existence. They’re not philosophers, but soldiers, and the mind-body problem or debates about idealism vs. materialism don’t matter much in their day to day strife.
Highly recommended!
Next up in the fictional chronology: The Silver Spike.
In 2007 Tor published the first trilogy as Chronicles of the Black Company. It forms one story arc, after its 700 pages there’s an endpoint if you don’t want to commit to the full series. There are 3 further paper omnibuses collecting nearly the full series. The next installment is The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company, collecting Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel and The Silver Spike.
In 1986 both Nelson Doubleday & the Science Fiction Book Club published hardcover editions of The Books of the North as Annals of the Black Company – which confusingly is also the title of a 2018 Tor e-book omnibus that comprises almost the entire 11 book series.
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Weighing a pig doesn't fatten it. 
Your bullet points really sum up the series
~fist bump
I hope you continue to have a great time with the series. It really goes all over the place and there were times I felt like I had whiplash, but I enjoyed every bump of the ride 🙂
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Thanks – it kinda worked out well with all those Bs. I’m glad you feel the same.
Do you plan to reread the full series someday?
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Absolutely I will reread the whole thing 🙂
I’d have to check to see the date of when I read the last one was, but probably a decade after that. So it will be coming up in several years. Not far away at all…
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Glad you enjoyed it! I liked the character interactions between Croaker and the Lady towards the end, and the Raven Darling situation.
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Yes, exactly. The lady gets a surprising amount of depth, and also Raven turns out to be different than I thought he was. Maybe no big things, but very significant, and indeed great to read about.
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Very happy you loved it! I think you will love the rest of it as well, just don’t overindulge 😉 These are best savored, there is a limited number of books in this series, and not many other series can come even close.
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I normally only read maximum 2 books of the same author a year, so at this pace it will take me about 4 to 6 years to finish everything.
What would you say is this series biggest strength?
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To me, Cook’s biggest strength is that he never compromises in Black Company series. He writes what he wants, not what he thinks is going to sell. He is willing to experiment, change voices, styles, swap genres. And his portrayal of the Black Company is spot on in terms of military culture/war experience.
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Yes indeed, no compromises. That´s a good way to frame it.
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This is the second time in just a handful of days that I read a very positive review about this author and series: clearly the universe is trying to tell me something…. 😉
Thanks for sharing!
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It is, it is! Would love to read your thoughts about it.
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I’m glad you’ve got the chronology right for The Silver Spike. I read an omnibus called The Books of the South, and that had The Silver Spike stuck between Shadow Games and Dreams of Steel, where it felt out of place (it does not take place in the South) and interrupted the sequence of the story for Croaker and the Lady. There must have been some reason for its placement related to plot details, but it felt unnatural. Having it come immediately after The White Rose makes more sense (to me).
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I have the same omnibus. Coincidentally Jeroen Admiraal posted a review of Silver Spike on his blog a few days before I posted this one, and that’s where I learned about the chronology. ISFDB says that The Silver Spike was published in September 89, and Shadow Games in June 89, so I guess Tor simply used the publication order for the omnibus.
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