Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "We seven remained at the crossroads, watching the dust from the eastern way..." (more)
Key Phrases: little brown guys, little brown men, glittering stone, Black Company, Willow Swan, Cordy Mather (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

After the devastating battle at the Tower of Charm, Croaker leads the greatly diminished Black Company south, in search of the lost Annals. The Annals will be returned to Khatovar, eight thousand miles away, a city that may exists only in legend...the origin of the first Free Companies.

Every step of the way the Company is hounded by shadowy figured and carrion-eating crows. As they march every southward, through bug infested jungle, rivers dense with bloodthirsty pirates, and cities, dead and living, haunted by the passage of the Company north, their numbers grow until they are thousands strong.

But always they are watched--by the Shadowmasters--a deadly new enemy: twisted creature that deal in darkness and death: powerful, shadowy creatures bent on smothering the world in their foul embrace. This is the first round in a deadly game, a game that the Black Company cannot ea hope to win.

About the Author

Born in 1944, Glen Cook grew up in northern California, served in the U.S. Navy, attended the University of Missouri, and was one of the earliest graduates of the well-known "Clarion" workshop SF writers. Since 1971 he has published a large number of SF and fantasy novels, including the "Dread Empire" series, the occult-detective "Garrett" novels, and the very popular "Black Company" sequence that began with the publication of The Black Company in 1984. Among his SF novels is A Passage at Arms.

After working many years for General Motors, Cook now writes full-time. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife Carol.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 311 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy; 1st THUS edition (June 15, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812533828
• ISBN-13: 978-0812533828
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #428,710 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 5 in The Black Company Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very, very good...If not quite up to standards of first 3, August 12, 2000

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

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.

Shadow Games is the fourth book in a series on the the Black Company, a mercenary band in a sword and sorcery world. The first three novels told the story of how the Company came into the service of Lady, a sorceress of great power who rules a purportedly evil empire in the northern part of the Company's world. Eventually the Company rebels against the Lady and joins the White Rose, a reincarnated hero who opposes the empire. At the end of book three, the Rose, the Lady, and the Company join forces to defeat an older evil. A related book, Silver Spike, follows the subsequent adventures of the Rose. In Shadow Games, Lady and the last members of the Company travel south to the legendary city of Khatover from which the Company originated many centuries before.

I enjoyed Shadow Games and recommend it (although NOT as an initation to the series). But I didn't quite like it as much as the first three novels. There is less character development. Old villans get recycled for reasons that are not entirely clear. A cliffhanger ending forces you to buy the sequel. Shadow Games also marks the beginning of Cook's fascination with the quasi-Indian philosophy and mythology that, in my judgment, detract from the later books. If I had it to do over again, I probably would have stopped with the first three novels.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And the plot thickens..., May 16, 2000

By	Zeta Thompson "Zeta Thompson" (USA) - See all my reviews

This book picks up right after Raven, Darling and Silent have gone one way and Croaker and the 6 remaining Black Company members have gone another accompanied by the Lady. Croaker is leading the remnants of the Black Company, the last of the the Free Companies of Khatovar back in time to thier beginning. He is searching for their lost histories, for the Annals of the Black Company that were lost in the Southlands as the Company moved North. They find more mysteries in this book and lose a few things as well.

They are given artifacts of the the company prior to their leaving the southland, they find descendants of their long lost brothers. Croaker begins to see things no one else does, has he lost his sanity? They find pirates, foes and Shadowmasters, long lost friends and some very old enemies. You will find lots of hints of things to come.

Croaker has changed some in this book. He is more like the Old Man in the first books. Yes, Croaker's humanity,insecurity and romanticism are still there, but he has turned downright sneaky and nasty when it comes to dealing with opponents. Whether they be internal power struggles, a little disiplining of the troops (One-Eye and Goblin go at again) or all out battle - Croaker handles them like the Black Company vetern.

This book is definitly worth reading, but it will hook you on the series all over again. I don't know about you but I HATE waiting for the next book in a series. So make sure you get the next one as well, so you don't have to wait for the solution to this cliff hanger. While you're at it , you might as well get the forst & second book of the Glittering Stone, too. It'll drive you crazy waiting to find out otherwise.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Glen Goes For The Cliffhanger, May 12, 2001

By	Elyon (Mesilla, New Mexico) - See all my reviews

And what a cliffhanger! In past books, despite being part of a series, each has had a sense of resolution, a clear delineation between episodes. Not so here, with an ending so bald and precipitous one could almost imagine The Howler wailing in his grave. If you are following this series, be prepared to buy both "Shadow Games" and the following volume "Dreams of Steel" together, otherwise you will certainly discover yourself cursing the walls sometime in the middle of the night.

As already hinted as well as revealed by an earlier reviewer, Cook again turns to blithely resurrecting previous characters. I say again, for unlike the previous reviewer's comments, as those of you who have been following the series from the beginning should recognize, raising the dead has become a common Cook convention, previously encountered in the multiple reappearances of the Limper, Raven and Bommanz. That this should occur again here with other thought to be deceased characters should by now come as no surprise. Cook has always displayed a predilection for playing fast and loose with his plots and storylines. Nor do I feel this work is a departure or decline from his earlier novels, only more of the same standard fast-paced, swiftly rendered fare we've come to expect of the author, work that can be enjoyable as long as not too closely scrutinized. Complaints here about a lack of character development seem inapt, as since when have the majority of Cook's characters been anything more than mere cartoonish cutouts?

Despite the tone of criticism evidenced here, I continue to read and largely enjoy this series, turning to it when I am seeking light diversion. For such moments Cook's writing continues to be entirely successful, providing a cast of heroes and villains in adventures that while in many ways conventional and similar, make up in action and fast-paced fun for what they lack in imagination or depth of development. Like the characters and plots of many of the spaghetti westerns or samurai movies, they hold the same attraction when recycled as Star Wars: sheer escape and better rendered than most of the other conventional fare out there. But if you're looking for original ideas or development of story, imaginative world building or depth of characterization and description, you'd be advised to look elsewhere. Cook's outings to date have not compared with other authors such as Marcos, Martin, Stover, or Erikson with whom his work has been broadly linked.

If you are a fan of traditional heroic fantasy, and looking for something to fill the void while awaiting new offerings from the authors mentioned above---looking for the American equivalent of, say, David Gemmell---this series, as long as you are not too demanding, will likely not disappoint. Uncomplicated, energetic and fun, written in a style never pretending to be what it is not.