Rating: 
Summary: Still enthralling!
Review: This book totally knocked me flat. But then again, all the books in this series have, over and over again. I don't believe that I've ever been so engrossed in a fantasy or sci-fi book as I have been in any of this series. They're totally amazing to me. The battle-field perspectives that they're told from and and all the characters I've grown to care about always have me eagerly awaiting the next book in the Black Company series.I stumbled across the Black Company books a few years ago, and since then I have devoured every book in the series along with all of Mr. Cook's Garrett series as well. Mr. Cook, you totally blow me away with these books and the incredible characters you've created. Thank you so very much. Please keep cranking them out and I'm sure all of us will keep snapping them up. Now, what I don't understand is why Mr. Cook dosen't have more promotion and why isn't this series more well-known? It a shame that so many people simply are missing out on this series of books (and the Garrett books are just as good). I "accidentally" discovered the Black Company, and boy am I oh so glad I did! :P
Rating: 
Summary: Good and engrossing
Review: Sometimes you just wish your favorite characters would run off somewhere nice and safe. After following travails of the Black Company and rereading books time and again I have to applaud the author for the ability to create complex plots without losing too much cohesion. Part of the tension for me is seeing how my favorites meet their end, hoping that it'll be good but finding in many cases a sorrowful and painful one. This book ties up many of the loose ends, perhaps too tightly and overzealously. Occasionally a Valentine's day massacre occurs for many characters, some major, in a literary spring cleaning of sorts. I wasn't disappointed in the end. It was karmic or at least fitting, although sad nevertheless. I miss all the old characters, Raven, Elmo, the "real" Captain and that is in my opinion the biggest fault and one that's impossible to avoid. The original three books were the best and one of my favorite trilogies I've ever read. How can you top that? Still I enjoyed this book immensely, although anyone who thinks about reading it should also be given the original trilogy and left in a deep hole until they've finished it (preferably with a flashlight).
Rating: 
Summary: Soldiers Live
Review: The last (at least, I don't see how there could be more) book in the Black Company series. I believe that authors make implicit deals with their readers. They don't promise that long-term POV characters, ones readers will presumably have been attached to, won't die. They don't promise that climaxes will occur as expected, won't have any strange twists, or won't involve mistakes of cosmic proportions. But they do, implicitly, promise that deaths (and other ways of ending up) and the resolutions of plots and themes will be developed. This is the "contract" that I feel was broken in this book. It's not that lots of characters die or that the end was other than expected -- both of those things would normally be good. It's that the author doesn't seem to care, to spend more than a line or two on the (often off-stage) demise of major characters, or to develop a resolution in a way that will be artistically or emotionally satisfying for readers. The book turns into a drinking game: Who will go next and how, and how few words will Cook spend on the event? Add continuity errors, a weird head-hopping POV (there's a structural reason for this but it still annoyed me) and increasingly weird characterization (they've never been good guys but now they're outright villians in some inexplicably stupid ways), and this book just didn't work for me. I can only conclude that the author was totally sick of the series and the characters and decided to perpetrate a nearly 600-page joke on his readers. I'm glad I got it from the library rather than deciding to pay money for this thing. The actual final conclusion is sort of cool and offers a bit of hope, and as always there are some neat scenes and twists on fantasy tropes. I really like the fact of the casualties, though not the way they were handled, and also the suggestion that the Year of the Skulls wasn't what everyone thought (oops), but overall the book is soulless, least developed where it needs to be most.
Rating:
Summary: BRAVO! Please tell me this is not truly the end...
Review: In typical fashion, Glen Cook takes his readers on a thrill-packed excursion of plot twists which leaves them never able to guess what will happen next. Cook masterfully wraps up a fabulous fantasy series with an ending that is so perfectly fitting, and yet so completely unexpected until the hints begin to drop in the closing pages. It is a hard thing for me, like many other readers of the "Black Company" series, to walk away from the characters we've grown to know and love over the years. Admittedly, not many of them are left alive by the time Cook wraps up this book (but I won't say who). The author ties off pretty much all of the loose ends, but nevertheless leaves just enough room to permit a great follow-up series if the mood ever takes him. I cannot find enough superlatives to express how much I have enjoyed this series, and "Soldiers Live" in particular. The series combines the best in high fantasy, with plenty of powerful wizardry, with the gritty, mundane perspective of the "grunt" soldier on the ground. If you've never tried any these books, I recommend you begin all the way at the beginning with "The Black Company." You'll soon be addicted and reading "Soldiers Live" before you realize how quickly you've devoured all the intervening books. Mr. Cook, please give us more!
Rating:
Summary: A Fitting End(?)
Review: About 12 years and countless engaging hours since I first picked up the original Black Company novel, it seems this great series has come to a close (of sorts). Though Cook may write other books about one or more of the (incredibly few) remaining characters, the Black Company as we know it has made its last march. This installment of the series was largely a very satisfying, albeit bittersweet read. Unlike many other authors in this genre, Mr Cook has never been afraid to kill off his characters in sudden and unexpected ways. "Soldier's Live" is no exception. As the Company makes its way back to Taglios to thwart the plans of the Death Goddess(and not to mention rid themselves of a few extremely pesky recurring adversaries), Cook pares his cast down almost obsessively. The end result is that no one is safe. The danger the Company faces in every circumstance is real and immediate, regardless of which characters are involved. This approach would be lethal to a less imaginative author, but Cook's strength is a seemingly endless supply of colorful, entertaining, and well-developed characters. As this is the last book in the series (or at least in this incarnation of the series), Cook does more paring than planting. Loose ends stretching back almost to the beginning of the original series are tied off with mostly satisfying results. Like a previous reviewer speculated, Cook has left the door open for possibly one or more prequels (oh please oh please) involving the Company in the early years...until then, Soldiers Live is a fitting epilogue to a superb series.
Rating:
Summary: A moving finish to a great series
Review: I couldn't have asked for more. While a couple of the Glittering Stone books left me a little disappointed, this more than made up for them. Overall this has been the finest series that I have ever read. The end was typical for Cook, meaning that he surprised me completely. Such a touching, sad, and yet fitting end to the series!
Rating:
Summary: Great Series Finisher
Review: With Croaker back as annalist for one last wild ride, I couldn't ask for more. The book is a treat for long time Black Company fans. But once its over I didn't know where to look because this series raised the fantasy book standard by so much that its hard to find books of this caliber. The end is painful to read if you've been a long time fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Glen doesn't know when to quit
Review: I don't know what book the other reviewers read but mine
stunk. In fact the whole glittering stone series stunk.
By the end of this thing I didn't care about ANY of the
damn characters at all. I was only interested in the
world/universe mechanics. The best thing to say about this book is that it is
marginaly better than water sleeps. If Conan Doyle had only had Glens book to use as an
example he wouldn't have needed Ricanback
Falls to try to kill off a series.
Rating:
Summary: I WANT ANOTHER BLACK COMPANY BOOK!
Review: I just finished Soldiers Live....and just the thought that this could be the end of a marvelous series made the last few pages painful. I feel as if there has been a Black Company novel with me for a very long time. Being an author of business books does not always provide me with the time to read fiction. Besides, the Black Company books have an uncanny ability to "hide" in my house, leading to endless "before bed time" searches and days of wanting to read without being able to.
And then I found out about The Silver Spike....and got happy again....this book is on its way to me now, priority mail.
One of my favorite things about the Black Company series is that everything is not explained to the reader. One is left wondering, these are definitely "imagination" books. Still, there are so many threads left lose in the series that there is much room to go on. I would like to encourage Mr. Cook to continue adding to this series. He could start from the beginning with a book titled something like Khatovar. It would be nice to know what happened there....after all, I just spent 8 or 9 books with Croaker traveling back to the spot....and not getting there....
I know that this is more of a "pleading with the author to continue" than a review....but trust me, these books are great!
Rating:
Summary: ARTFULLY ALLOWS FRIENDS TO FADE INTO BACKGROUND
Review: AH...I WAS RELIEVED TO DITCH SARAH, SUCH AN UNDEVELOPED CHARACTER, AND SLEEPY, SUCH A LAME CAPTAIN. IF THERE IS ANOTHER BOOK AND GLEN COOK DECIDES TO BRING SARAH BACK, I HOPE SHE PUTS A LITTLE INDEPENDENCE IN SARAH, ALONG WITH ACTUALLY BRINGING HER INTO THE TALENTS SHE MAY HAVE INHERITED FROM GRANDMA. IN THIS BOOK, SHE SEEMED LIKE A GHOST MOSTLY.I DIDN'T CARE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF GOBLIN. I LIKE IT THAT SOUL CATCHER IS STILL A POSSIBILITY. BUT WHAT I LIKE MOST ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THAT EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE TO SAY GOODBYE TO THE CROAKER WE KNEW, WE MAY, JUST MAY GET TO SPEND TIME WITH HIM IN AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY IN FUTURE BOOKS. IT WAS A RELIEF NOT TO LOSE HIM ENTIRELY AND TO SEE LADY PROFIT FROM HIS NEW STATUS. I HAVE GROWN VERY ATTACHED TO THEM. I HOPE THERE WILL BE OTHER BOOKS.
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