67th out of 91 books
—
6 voters
Water Sleeps (The Chronicles of the Black Company #9)
by
Glen Cook
Regrouping in Taglios, the surviving members of the Black Company are determined to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. Journey there under terrible conditions, they arrive just in time for a magical conflagration in which the bones of the world will be revealed, the history of the Company unveiled, and new world gained and lost...all at
...more
Paperback, 480 pages
Published
March 15th 2000
by Tor Fantasy
(first published 1999)
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I'm continuing with the Black Company Chronicles more out of commitment at this point than anything else. Still, this is a definite step up from the previous two books. The narrator has changed from Murgen to Sleepy, and this is a noticeable change for the better. Sleepy is much more tollerable and readable, and significantly less tiresome. The Black Company is now resorting to a subtle, guerrilla existence. Only a few members remain and they are a mere shadow of their previous selves. Sleepy an...more
Series: 11/27/2005 5/10
The Black Company series' premise was very interesting - a gritty dark take on the ins and outs of a military company in a fantasy world. It didn't really live up to expectations though. I would've preferred to see more of the company rather than the focus on one individual. The series definitely has it's ups and downs. Some books are decent and others are pretty bad - it seemed to get worse as it went on. The plotting was pretty poor and the characters were one-dimensiona...more
The Black Company series' premise was very interesting - a gritty dark take on the ins and outs of a military company in a fantasy world. It didn't really live up to expectations though. I would've preferred to see more of the company rather than the focus on one individual. The series definitely has it's ups and downs. Some books are decent and others are pretty bad - it seemed to get worse as it went on. The plotting was pretty poor and the characters were one-dimensiona...more
Water Sleeps was actually pretty good, which was a nice change. Sleepy is a much, much better narrator than Murgen, and the immediacy of the guerilla campaign is much more interesting than the previous book's long march to nowhere. I did not love the increasingly obvious parallels to India - maybe I am misremembering, but they didn't seem so lazy in previous books, I mean, use some new names at least - and once they leave the city it starts to have some of the same problems with immediacy as the...more
Finally done!
Kids, I gotta be honest. This one felt kinda like homework.
Sleepy is our narrator this time. She's not fun or funny, which is a drag. But she is a genius at guerrilla warfare, and that is pretty great. She is in charge of a tiny ragtag bunch - Company members not cocooning under the Glittering Plain. We have the ancient but antic loving wizards One Eye and Goblin, Murgen's wife and son, and a few other newbies.
They are in the capital city, living in a super secret hideout, wearing d...more
Kids, I gotta be honest. This one felt kinda like homework.
Sleepy is our narrator this time. She's not fun or funny, which is a drag. But she is a genius at guerrilla warfare, and that is pretty great. She is in charge of a tiny ragtag bunch - Company members not cocooning under the Glittering Plain. We have the ancient but antic loving wizards One Eye and Goblin, Murgen's wife and son, and a few other newbies.
They are in the capital city, living in a super secret hideout, wearing d...more
The gist of this book is: the black company survives. I expected this as part of the story, because I knew there were 2 more books, but what I didn't expect was how well the series did without its major characters in a narrative sense.
The narrator of this book is Sleepy. She was mentioned in the pervious book, and appeared once or twice, but was a very minor character. Now, she is pretty much the only character left, and so keeping up the story is up to her.
The shift in narrative style and vena...more
The narrator of this book is Sleepy. She was mentioned in the pervious book, and appeared once or twice, but was a very minor character. Now, she is pretty much the only character left, and so keeping up the story is up to her.
The shift in narrative style and vena...more
The only complaint I had about this book, was that towards the end Sleepy really began to annoy me. I loved her at the beginning but by the end I just wanted her to shut up. Her continual insistence that "this can't be happening! My g-d would never approve!" became tiresome after awhile and I'm thankful that the next book with go back to atheist Croaker so I don't have to read any more crisis of faith stuff. Other than that, Water Sleeps was as enjoyable as all other Black Company books.
I was really hoping there would be a quicker return to the characters and plot that made the prior Black Company books so enjoyable, but unfortunately it doesn't happen until the last fifty pages. Additionally, I wasn't satisfied with the "Black Company in hiding" plot that makes up the bulk of the book. If you're already invested in the series, it's a necessary read, but at the same time Water Sleeps is disappointingly weak.
Regrouping in Taglios, the surviving members of the Black Company are determined to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. Journey there under terrible conditions, they arrive just in time for a magical conflagration in which the bones of the world will be revealed, the history of the Company unveiled, and new world gained and lost...all at a terrible price.
Some Cook fans don't much care for Sleepy as a POV character, but I find her interesting. The departure from the scattershot Murgen POV makes for a more focused story, and Sleepy is an oddly powerful character. Perhaps having a weak-seeming woman as narrator turns off some of the military fantasy lit fans?
It's a good book of the series, and sleepy is a great narrator, my only complaint is when she goes into religion. She keeps going into it, and yaking about her god being the one true god etc etc. I mean hey great you're religious no on else in the black company. Lets not keep mentioning your religion every time something that scares you happens.
Sleepy carries on as Annalist, 15 years after The Black Company's ill-fated journey through the Shadowgate. Her voice is unique in the series; Sleepy being young, female and possessing a devout monotheistic faith gives her Annals a very different flavor from those of Croaker and Murgen.
A great book that features the remaining Company members scheming to try and find a way to release their trapped brothers...and finally provides a ton of answers about the Shadowgates and the Glittering Plain, the...more
A great book that features the remaining Company members scheming to try and find a way to release their trapped brothers...and finally provides a ton of answers about the Shadowgates and the Glittering Plain, the...more
The narrator got off to a slow start, pausing overly long in the dialog and action scenes. Although he got into the book later on.
Jun 18, 2013
Adam Young
added it
Jun 17, 2013
Marta Stamatopoulou-bogdanowicz
marked it as to-read
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Glen Cook aka Greg Stevens is a contemporary American science fiction and fantasy author, best known for his fantasy series, The Black Company. Cook currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/glencook
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http://us.macmillan.com/author/glencook
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Dec 06, 2012 03:28pm