What did I think? Well, I liked it, but I wasn’t really into it and so I don’t feel compelled to read any other of the dozen-or-so black company books that are published.

The writing style still puts me off at a distance, even after 3 books of it, and the world building is almost none-existing, which for me, is a real deal-breaker.

The author comes up with the most strange creatures that you can imagine, often only providing a very short description and even less context. It feels like a made-up story you would tell your kids, where the kids halfway through start making suggestions for things to add.

Here are some examples:

• Let’s add a whale that flies! But it has very long arms like a jelly fish
• Let’s add a dragon!
• Let’s add a super dog that can’t be killed!
• let’s add walking (?), talking stones that die when they fall over
• How about a giant tree that conjures lightning in it’s branches?

This is stuff my kids would come up with, and it doesn’t really fit into the story for me.

Combining both the odd narrative style, the lacking world building, Glen Cook still manages to provide a relatively interesting tale, just not good enough to give it 4 stars.