Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook

Chronicles of The Black Company by Glen Cook

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Well, that was . . . testicular. Military fantasy about a company of mercenaries, with one of those completely flat, non-ideological conflicts where we’re told X and Y persons are evil, but we have no context for any of it. So what you have left is a bunch of battle summaries (boring) and some local color (all men, don’t ask about the women. Just don’t’).



I think my real problem is that this is told by the company doctor writing the history. He freely admits that he is eliding and prettying things up. Fine, that’s how stories work. But what he actually does is say, “okay, yeah, all my friends are rapists and torturers and killers, but that makes me uncomfortable so we’re not going to mention those parts and instead, I’ll tell you about our cutesy little magical duels okay?” (Seriously, he has a whole page on this exact explanation). And then the book is cutesey magical duels and non-ideological battle summaries.



And I’m pretty sure if you want to swallow that down, you need to actually like the 98% elided bland military fantasy Cook wanted to write. And I didn’t.





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Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I had most of my reaction to this in another forum over a month ago, but the completism, it drives us, precious.



So, hmm, yeah. . I enjoyed this, as a reading experience. It has maybe 30% fewer gratuitous slugfests by volume, and is just that titch more contemplative than the last book. I mean, this is not a game-changer in any sense. It felt like a transitional book internally, and externally . . . yeah, not everyone can manage to like these books, and this one is not going to persuade anyone new, because it’s not doing anything new.



(By the way, someone dropped a semi-coherent comment on my review of Changes recently to inform me that by that point in the series all the sexism was gone. You guys. I died. And after I wiped the tears off my face, I deleted the comment, because seriously, what could I possibly have said to that?)



Anyway, what I actually wanted to say here is that this series is going down the path of literalized metaphysics. Angels aren’t ideas, they’re facts. Which – and I say this as a howling atheist – completely removes the . . . narrative force. The emotional umph. The psychological zing of that kind of power. Angels aren’t our personal constructs and vessels of faith and historical reimaginings and power fantasies anymore. They’re just another set of dudes on the board.



Dudes that can occasionally pull literal God mode and deus ex machina things right up my nose. I can see this one coming multiple books off – there’s going to be this big old thing about free will and humanity and whatever, and it’s going to be awkward and confused and freshman-philosophy – it’s going to be extra special written by Jim Butcher. And it’s going to give me a headache.





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