This is a world dying. A world where wild magic leaks from the corpses
of rotting gods, desperate tyrants battle over fading resources, impassive
shapeshifters marshal beasts of enormous size and startling intelligence, and
ravenous demons infest the northern mountains. A world where the only
difference between a hero and a killer lies in the ability to justify dark
deeds. But even in this world, pockets of resistance remain. When two aging
warriors save the life of a young rebel, it proves the foundation for an
unlikely fellowship. A fellowship united against tyranny, yet composed of
self-righteous outlaws, crippled turncoats and amoral mercenaries. A grim
company, indeed…
Head of Zeus, who is publishing The Grim Company series, just opened its
doors early last January 3rd 2013. Already they have a great amount of titles
published to start with and many to follow soon this year. But already
somewhere late summer there was a big press release about this particular book:
The Grim Company written by Luke Scull, which is the first of a three books
series. Luke Scull is known for his game designing of roleplaying-games like
Neverwinter Nights, The Witcher and has also worked for Bioware. The Grim
Company is his venture into the written word of fantasy. And I am already
hoping he is not stopping after these three books!
Okay, onto The Grim Company itself. This book offered for me a more than
great reading experience. I have read a lot of epic/high and sword and sorcery
fantasy from some of the well known and less known authors out there and there
are a few to which I can compare the setting of the Grim Company. I do think
that Luke Scull definitely has an edge in writing up the stories of The Grim
Company, with his background in roleplaying game designing it is quite
noticeable that he knows what he is talking about. The creativity in The Grim
Company shows a great strength for an aspiring author.
The Grim Company has a lot of fantasy elements showing a great blend of
epic/high fantasy and sword and sorcery. This latter part does have the most
emphasis in the story. Just some of the elements used in setting up the story
are: mages, magic, augementors, gods, highlanders, shamans, brethren and
kingdoms at war to name just a few. It might already seem a lot from the
beginning but each element is nicely introduced in the storyline, and each one
adds a great flavour to the world of The Grim Company. It just gives this grand
feeling to the series and really leaves you craving for more once you have
finished it. Most of the scenes were full of sword on sword and magic action,
it felt that some dialogues and events following up on each other could have
benefited with a bit more finesse in elaboration or explaining how events
followed up each other. The writing style of the book is pretty neat and
directly places you into the characters that you are currently reading about,
this must be owed to the fact that Luke Scull has worked on videogames and
knows exactly what to do. There is another aspect that felt a bit like a
videogame and that were the characters, again this is a minor detail but what
you often see when you play a videogame are that the characters are already
done. And for some of the characters this was true and they did feel a bit
static in the middle of the book after they were firstly introduced. What I
would have like to see was for some of the character to start to begin growing.
In here the introduction were ready and you were more or less presented with a
finished character. Take for example Brodar Kayne, who you got to meet earlier
on in the story, his introduction was just done brilliantly and did show from
the beginning a great amount of depth in his background but soon it felt that
most of the events that surrounded him led his interesting character more to
the background. But luckily this fell away in the end of the story where this
was picked-up again. I was very pleased with this because it already soon felt
that Brodar Kayne will play an important role in the other books to follow.
I already mentioned one of the important characters: Brodar Kayne. Next to
his character there were quite a handful that make an important appearance. The
main protagonist Davarus Cole was another great character that did grow a lot
from start to finish. I really liked Cole’s character, he goes through a lot,
from a member of the Shard not fully trusted, being taken capture, again being
taken capture by a different party and from there he starts developing to his
possible true potential. Another great feat in the book was how you as a reader
was led to believe certain statements about the characters that were in the end
complete turned around. This really got my hopes up for the sequels and what
might occur there. This turnaround was also in store for Cole. Where he found
out in the encounter between him and Salazar (I will get to him soon) what he
really is. The ending of the book for Cole was directly up to my expectations,
as you saw him in the earlier chapters, though he has grown confident he does
flee in the end. Just a bit of a highlight of Kayne’s character. He is a
Highlander, a barbarian, The Sword of the North. He is cool and collected and
has a richer past than I first assumed. And by a twist in the end his goals
have become clear and I am curious about what kind of adventures his quest will
have to offer. All in all there is a great interaction between the many
characters of the storyline, Cole and Kayne are just two of the many rich
characters that you will get to know along the way. There are many many more
interesting characters for you to find out.
The storyline itself is very, very rich with all the above mentioned
elements in place, The Grim Company definitely hits the mark for a thoroughly
enjoyable read. The story goes about a kingdom that is actually at stake. In
the past the most powerful Magelords of the land defeated the gods in the
godswar. The magic in The Grim Company is again quite unique (yes!). Magic is
harvested from the Swell but also from gods. Mages have a reservoir of their
own but they can leech magic from crystals and the like. On top of this Mages
can also imbue objects/people with their magic and make the augmented. i.e.
enhancing specific abilities, like on shows walking fast or swords that can
cleave virtually everything. This augmented feat was really cool and was
integrated to the fullest in the fighting scenes. It was just awesome to read
about the fight between Kayne and Barandas (an augmentor of Salazar). Earlier I
could make up that Barandas had great augmentation. And this face-off produced
an enjoyable experience and reflected how I like to see this king of action.
Because you know Kayne is special and this showed it again. Just to mention
Salazar quickly, he is the tyrant of Dorminia, the city where he rules. He is
one of the surviving Magelords and he ordered the culling of all the other
mages that lived, so he could be sole ruler. But there are two more Magelords
in this first book. The White Lady who is warring against Salazar and a distant
party from the High Lands, The Shaman. The High Lands feature a rough and wild
lands where the Highlands live. The storyline of The Grim Company can be
divided into two. One with the war building up between The White Lady and
Salazar but also that of the events that occur in the High Lands and that
greatly disturb the plans of the Shaman. But they do both collide with each
other in the end though. I must say that this was just fine and was glad to see
that there weren’t that many more main storyline put up in this first book
because then they usually feel to diverge. But in the end The Grim Company
shows a few new openings into the second book of the series “Sword of the
North”.
In short The Grim Company offers a more that great reading experience. There
are so many different things happening in this book that it is hard to get
everything told in a review, it is just something that you have to experience
for yourself! So far in 2013 I have read only great books and happy to put The
Grim Company in my shelves of one of the better overall books that I have read
until now. It shows a great combination of many fantasy elements that are all
worked out in nice details and leave nothing to be desired. Though some of the
introductions might have been a bit hasty and lacked a bit of finesse, The Grim
Company series will make a name of its own with Luke Scull great and addictive writing
style and how he uses the fantasy elements to its fullest to produce a great
story, he is definitely an author to watch in the future and if he continues in
these lines he will, grow to be a top author. The Grim Company leaves you
craving for more. It’s just that awesome!
The publisher of The Grim Company, Head of Zeus, is allowing you to get a
free sample of the book. Well not a few sample chapters! But a stunning 2/3 of
the book! You can have a look yourself, head over to: The Grim Company