Glen Cook is the leading modern writer of epic fantasy noir, tales of magical warfare and intrigue as seen, not from the commanding heights of the great generals and wizards, but from the eyes of the soldiers and mercenaries who do their bidding and scramble to survive. Tough, astonishing, and often very funny, Cook's saga of the "Black Company" is like nothing else in modern fantasy.
Now at last Cook concludes the "Glittering Stone" cycle within the larger "Black Company" series, giving us one of his strongest, most memorable novels yet.
As Soldiers Live opens, no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. Croaker figures it can't last. He's right.
For, of course, many of the Company's old adversaries are still around. Narayan Singh and his adopted daughter - actually the offspring of Croaker and the Lady - hope to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls. Other old enemies - like Longshadow and Howler are also ready to do the Company harm. And much of the Company is still recovering from the fifteen years many of them spent in a stasis field.
Then a report arrives of an old enemy newly active again. It attacks them at a shadowgate - setting off a chain of events that will bring the Company to the edge of apocalypse and, as usual, several steps beyond.
