Shadow Games

This installment of the Chronicles of the Black Company follows the rebuilding of the company as they head south to return the Annals to Khatovar. The tale jumps around, in typical fashion, between points of view of the antagonist and protagonist. Only in this case things are a bit more obfuscated for the big reveals later. It makes the book a little hard to follow.

The new characters comes fast and often in this book, as Croaker and the remaining “old guys” add members 2-3 at a time in each city they visit on their way south. By the time they've come to their battle at the end of the book it's hard to follow who's who. It would be great to know what skills each new character brings to the battle or where they came from or their allegiance/backstory - at least some kind of emotional investment like I had with Elmo or the Captain before their demises in previous books. People like Sindawe or Ochiba could croak tomorrow and I wouldn't blink much.

I enjoyed (not sure that's the right word - cringe-joyed?) watching the relationship between Croaker and Lady develop, although it was quite awkward. I'm still not quite buying the "love story" there - it's just not sold all that well. Not enough time spent developing it.

I just don't understand the Taken enough still. Apparently they are some sort of immortal, because they just keep popping back up. Even ones that we were sure were dead, like the Limper in the previous book. Croaker for sure killed him, but he came back. I figured the Lady reconstructed him, but it would appear that even when she has nothing to do with it the Taken can reconstruct themselves (or maybe they never were fully killed). Even in this book one is SURELY killed, but I'm only about 90% confident in that even. It makes the story a little choppy and feel a little cheap that antagonists can just POOF! reappear.

The book was still good, and a fast read (because I couldn't put it down), but suffers some of the same issues that have been plaguing the author from the beginning. Too many characters too fast with not enough backstory.

Unfortunately, after 3 books of 5/5, in this one the series has run out of steam, imagination and pace. For 35 chapters nothing happens, then, boom, in 5 chapters everything happens. The antagonists are lame and undescript, the story is slow but straightforward, lacking the great twists in the previous books, a love relationship is awkward and not believable, other interactions are not credible, some characters are completely undeveloped, there is too much useless talk, and so on. A malus for me (though a bonus for some other readers) - the Goblin - One-Eye conflict gets more stage time, though I find their endless feud unfunny, unimaginative, annoying and, in this volume, a filler in a book already mostly composed of fillers.