"That is us. The Black Company. Wicked deeds done dirt cheap. But by damn! You had better pony up when payment is due. Otherwise, if we must, we will come back from the grave itself to make sure our accounts are properly balanced." ( )

I will start by stating that the Black Company series would be five star ratings across the board but for the fact that Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series one-ups Cook in this vein. Nonetheless, the Black Company started the 'hard boiled, soldier-in-the-mud' style fantasy story for me and as such it hold a dear place in my heart.

I have read the entire series multiple times; Croaker and The Lady are always close by and ready to appear on my night-stand once again.

Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates fantasy a little more 'realistic' and little less flowery.

I do think that the earlier novels in the series, specifically the first five, are more cohesive and benefit more from Cook's character development and interaction than the later novels.

After slogging around in the South for a while, many of the characters seem to idle along and stagnate somewhat in development. At the same time the story itself begins to pick up in terms of questioning who the Black Company really are politically and morally as they close in on their perceived destiny.

Cook takes some chances by dropping most of his significant main characters in stasis for Water Sleeps, and it is probably my least favorite of the series as a result. Soldiers Live is an acceptable ending to the tale, if he never gets around to writing any further in the series. ( )

The final two Black Company novels (thus far). Has the journey over the last six books really been worth it? Yeah, I'd say so.

It does seems like Cook wrote himself into a few corners here or didn't really know where he was heading in the first place. Cook rushes along at breakneck speed (especially in the final novel) but even I managed to notice some lazy writing on his part, despite how caught up I got. I don't know if Cook really needed to kill off as many characters as he did too ("Many Deaths" being an appropriate title for this omnibus). I know Cook had always skipped major events in the past and has been notably unsentimental but there are times here when you wanted him to acknowledge the passing of some characters more than he did. His lack of mourning seemed a little gratuitous at times.

I think it's fairly easy to be critical of these last six Black Company novels, if only because they can't match up to the original trilogy. But, at the end of the day, I've read them all and even these last two were still a blast. Not perfect by any means (sometimes you'll wonder why Cook writes the plot the way he does) but if - like me - you've enjoyed the ride thus far then you'll definitely enjoy this finale too. ( )