Black Company: I CAN'T STOP READING...

[Teflon Billy]

Seriously, This book is what I've been waiting for.

I spent the first day skimming it, the second and third reading it through, and today I started over.

This book rocks. Review to follow (quickly for a change)

 

[Starman]

And here I just asked you in another thread if you were going to write a review up for this. I'm looking forward to it (the book and the review). I've heard nothing but good stuff, so far.

Starman

 

[Vigilance]

Seriously, This book is what I've been waiting for.

I spent the first day skimming it, the second and third reading it through, and today I started over.

This book rocks. Review to follow (quickly for a change)

Man- I hope to someday write a book that incites a quick review... that might be the highest compliment that can be paid a book these days.

Ah well.

Chuck

 

[Yuan-Ti]

It's good stuff!

 

[hellbender]

The Black Company books are as dark and gritty as fantasy fiction gets. The five or six books are the strongest and then they get a little more diluted (and I am including Shadow Games and the Silver Spike). The depth and character development sometimes catch you off guard. I have been reading and re-reading these books for nineteen years and this is as good as fantasy gets without being Tolkien derivative. So much happens in the first book, plots and schemes laid out that will span several more books that follow and open you up to a diverse group of personalities.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

That is what happens when you get a good book. You can't get enough of it. My current addiction is The Complete Book of Eldritch Might - review coming soon.

 

[Emiricol]

The Black Company books are as dark and gritty as fantasy fiction gets. The five or six books are the strongest and then they get a little more diluted (and I am including Shadow Games and the Silver Spike). The depth and character development sometimes catch you off guard. I have been reading and re-reading these books for nineteen years and this is as good as fantasy gets without being Tolkien derivative. So much happens in the first book, plots and schemes laid out that will span several more books that follow and open you up to a diverse group of personalities.

Sounds like my kind of fiction. After all this time, I can't believe I've never read the books

 

[drothgery]

Of course, the best thing about the Black Company is that though it's a gritty world, it's still fantasy (meaning that yes, there is Magic; this isn't just a quasi-meival alternate world historical with a touch of the supernatural), still fun, and has characters worth caring about.

 

[hellbender]

Of course, the best thing about the Black Company is that though it's a gritty world, it's still fantasy (meaning that yes, there is Magic; this isn't just a quasi-meival alternate world historical with a touch of the supernatural), still fun, and has characters worth caring about.

Yes, there is a lot of magic and many potent wizards, some of demigod status, and then some even higher than that. And the humanocentric world becomes all the more creepy with supernatural creatures. Sometimes people don't even believe in these nonhuman intelligences until their throats are torn out. This adds an element (just a faint hint) similar to Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft. Not on the grand scale, but on the "maybe we better make a run for it and not tangle with this thing" scale. And yes, the characters are very much worth caring about. They might appear to be cold mercenaries, but sometimes they show that they weaknesses and the same human frailties as anyone else.

 

[Karl Green]

OK I resist two whole days after seeing this in the FLGS but broken down and got it today... arg ANOTHER game I want to run looking it over so far so good.

On a side note I saw Hero 5th revised... OMG is that book friggin huge... I use to love that game a lot but... well 600 pg of just rules seems a bit odd as a selling point to me these days.