The Black Company review

I've been loving YA books and frowning upon the more traditional "for adults" (not adult content) fantasy books for one main reason: character interest. YA is usually very good at character development. Actually, that's pretty much what it's about. Usually one or up to a few main characters are the central topic of the book. We really get to know these people.

Traditional fantasy books usually focus on "the world". Which is nice and stuff, but they always leave me feeling empty in the end. There are various interesting characters, but usually the books just make me sad thinking about the old days back when they had all this awesome technology, or when there was more order, or some special king dude was around protecting the world, or when DarkLord_37 wasn't about to dominate the world. Oh, and elves.

Enter the Black Company. The main character is Croaker, the physician. That's it. He doesn't have magic, though he has some friends who can do it. He's not a military genius, though he's decent when he has to. He's very "regular guy"ish, that regular people connect with. He lives in a very grey world (not black or white) that is also kind of a drab grey color, because it's old school and dusty and stuff. Plus, there is cool fighting! There is also some funny stuff and a bit of the romantic. So it's cool.

I recommend this book!
(You may have to get the trilogy, which would be labeled as either "The Chronicles of The Black Company" or "Annals of the Black Company" depending on edition.

Oh, it's written by Glen Cook. I'm totally going to check out some of his other books. Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Cook

But seriously, if you happen to find one of the original non-trilogy books with a really pathetic picture on the cover, don't despair. It's good.