The Black Company

The Black Company

1984 • 320 pages

Ratings25

Average rating3.7

15

This has got to have one of the worst beginnings of any book I have actually finished. I was so close to putting this down and it took me forever to finish. I get that this is narrated by someone who is the historian of his group, but there is very little context to what is going on. If he could have adding thing like, we sailed to this place and have been working for The Lady for this amount of time. Something to tell me what is going on. I kept rereading sections to see what I was missing, but it wasn't me, it was the information that was missing. Also, I thought these were Croaker's Annuls, but at the end there are things he is not going to put in the Annuls, so are these his writings or are we just in his head?

It does get better half way through, but there is a lot of casual rape going on. The main character even congratulates one of his buddies on the woman he is abusing. I get that rape and pillaging is pretty common for soldier type conquests, but still.

I did end up liking the last part of the book, and it has intrigued me enough to consider continuing on. I got the 3 book omnibus, so I already own the next 2. I will see if I feel like picking them up. Definitely taking a break from the world.

August 1, 2017