Rating: 
Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: Glen Cook at his best. 4 years later, things bound to change. Goblin, is he really dead? Tobo, strong enough to take One-Eyes place? I think this book offers closure to the whole glittering stone saga. Familiar faces still around, i.e. Croaker (the narrator again THANK YOU), Tobo has grown into a fine young man. Murgen, the standard-bearer, as well as others, such as willow Swan and the traitor Mogaba. Many questions were answered and all in all Cook did another great job. Highly Recomended!
Rating: 
Summary: An ending meet and right
Review: Another reviewer said that authors "...implicitly, promise that deaths (and other ways of ending up) and the resolutions of plots and themes will be developed". I have to disagree. It's true that one main character in particular succumbs to an unexpected death that is not developed in any detail, but perhaps the author is simply attempting to reflect reality. One minute an old comrade is there, next he's gone. Isn't that the way it really happens, without fanfare and sometimes without witnesses or mourners? I'm reminded of a scene in the Naked and the Dead where the main character and narrator is suddenly killed, with no warning and next to no reflection after the fact either. That abruptness really hammers home what war might be like, what characters like the long suffering Croaker might have had to endure over the decades. Important, human, thinking moving pieces of your world suddenly excised, very finally, and without warning. As a device, the apparently arbitrary removal of characters from the stage is legitimate; the style of the removal itself tells a story.
For both this and for the rest of it, I enjoyed the novel. It was thoughtful, introspective to a certain degree and it tied up all but one loose end. After all, Croaker, the narrator, was where our shared journey began back in Beryl all those tens of years ago. Do you remember Curly, Merry, Elmo, the original Lieutenant and Captain? All of them long gone together with so many others, great and small. All that remains is Croaker. He is the thread that ties the whole thing together, with - to a lesser extent - Lady. All but one loose end.
In a way, I thought the ending was triumphant. Yes, triumphant. For a profane, hard-bitten and deeply cynical series of books written by somebody who gives an excellent impression of a solider who's lived a life too seedy and too close to the bone for too long, "triumphant" isn't a bad way to close, is it?
But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. That one last loose end is still loose...
Rating:
Summary: A Excellent Ending to an Excellent Series
Review: While some people may feel that Soldiers Live was anticlimatical I felt it was a worthy ending. Yes several main characters were killed off, but that shows Cook's grip on real life where not every righteous hero can live and every evil villain die (refering to SoulCatcher being placed in the Cave of Ancients). All in all I felt it was a good ending, just reading the last couple lines gave me goosebumps and I look forward to (hopefully) new Company novels.
Rating:
Summary: A fitting end
Review: After finishing the last page I was also feeling a bit emotional, like the other reviewers. I had to go back and read the last 100 pages again to really fix it in my brain. And I decided the the ending was incredibly ... appropriate. Mysteries are solved, justice is meted, and rewards are bestowed.
Cook's writing style is comparable to Cherryh, or Faulkner. They all narrate from the viewpoint of the characters. Actions that occur outside the view of the main characters is not described. When a character departs the Company, you may never hear about them for several books, if at all. And the switch from narrator to narrator is sometimes difficult to follow, particularly when someone is magically viewing something happening in another part of the world. Cook sometimes gives us a couple of pages before telling us who is talking.
So, if you've read the other books, this is more of the same. Excellent as ever.
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: 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!
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