Shadows Linger (Roc) [Import] [Paperback]

Glen Cook (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: RoC (May 28, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140165541
• ISBN-13: 978-0140165548
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My personal favorite of the whole series, November 22, 2000

By 

Stephen M. Bainbridge "www.professorbainbridg... (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shadows Linger: A Novel of the Black Company (The Second Chronicle of The Black Company) (Mass Market Paperback)

I LOVE the Black Company series. But Shadows Linger is easily my favorite novel in the whole series. Here's why: The Black Company is one of the great creations of modern fantasy. In a genre in which most stories are starkly black and white--really great good guys and really bad villans--the Black Company (contra its name) lives in grey. In a genre in which heroes are all-knowing and all-powerful, the Black Company is filled with fallible, vulnerable humans. Yet, they nevertheless are the baddest outfit around. Remember how we reworked Psalm 23 back in the '60s? "Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil--for I am the baddest SOB in the valley!" That could be the Black Company motto.

One of the things I like best about Cook's novels is that the story line is more important than the individual characters. Yet, in Shadows Linger, my favorite characters take center stage. Croaker leads a Company detachment to the town of Juniper (which itself is a great location that is fully realized.) Raven is in town contributing his unique brand of honor and violence. Eventually they meet in a wild climax.

One of the striking things about the Black Company is Cook's notion of honor. The Company's code of ethics is focused almost wholly inwardly. Honor vis-a-vis the outside world consists of keeping one's contracts. Otherwise, honor is focused on one's relationships within the Company. This is both the Company's greatest strength and also its greatest weakness. A critical element of the series is the Company's gradual coming to grips with the nonsustainability of its ethical structure. Shadows Linger is a critical plot point in this line of plot evolution. In it, the Company must decide whether honoring its contract with Lady is worth its collective soul.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A second in the series exceeding the first., June 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Shadows Linger: A Novel of the Black Company (The Second Chronicle of The Black Company) (Mass Market Paperback)

This series is about the charactors, not the setting, or the conflict. Cook has created a cast of dozens, and made them individual enough that you could tell which charactor was doing what, just by when and how. These charactors are as real as one can expect in a fantasy novel. The good guys have their problems and hang-ups. Some of the supposed heros are just out and out unlikable. Some of the villians are compelling, all are interesting, and some are outright repulsive.

The story is told as seen by Croaker, the company doctor, in an unflowering honest chronicle of the companies actions in a war they aren't really happy about being a part of.

The only complaint I have about this series is the amount of time between new books. If this is a concern then read the first trilogy (The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose) which are a complete set unto themselves. The Silver Spike, is a stand alone which occures just after the first three chronologicly.

Read them once to enjoy them. Read them a second time to appreciate them.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dark tale indeed; still great on the fourth reading., October 21, 2005

By 

No one of consequence (Cincinnati) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Shadows Linger: A Novel of the Black Company (The Second Chronicle of The Black Company) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm now on my fourth reading of this series over the course of about 20 years, having first read them in 1985 and then been left in limbo awaiting the release of the Glittering Stone series. Glen Cook did a masterful job of crafting his dark and dangerous world in "The Black Company", and introducing us to that dysfunctional band of somehow sympathetic miscreants, including characters like Croaker, One-Eye, Goblin, Raven, and many others. The author takes it to the next level in "Shadows Linger."

Set in the gloomy, ramshackle port city of Juniper, this volume picks up the trail of Raven and his ward, Darling, as they seek to make a new life for themselves apart from the Company and out of the notice of the Lady and her empire. Just as he did in the first book, Cook focuses on the gritty, unsavory aspects of life, and paints a foreboding picture where some of the darkest aspects of human morality and depravity are commonplace. Men like the hapless Marron Shed or the weasely Asa, whose day-to-day survival is precarious at best, care little about morality, or if they care, they suppress their nagging consciences for the sake of staying alive.

In his efforts to do good for Darling, Raven unwittingly plays into the plan of the incomparably evil Dominator as he seeks to escape his tomb in the Barrowlands. At the same time, he also draws the attention of the Lady and the Taken to Juniper. Those crack mercenaries, the Black Company, are sent to Juniper to serve as the vanguard of the Lady's forces who are to contain the threat caused by Raven's bumblings. From there the tale becomes one of wicked plot twists, intense action, and powerful wizardry as the Company finds itself caught in a battle between earthshaking otherworldly powers -- and pays a heavy price.

I don't want to go into too many details -- don't want to spoil a great book for those who may not have read it yet. Let me encourage you to do just that. I'm still debating which of the first three novels is my favorite -- it may well be this one.