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If my parents named me “Thud Brunch”, I’d probably go ape-shit and torture the world, too.

Oh man…

I have to wait another year?

I’ve been anticipating this novel since Port of Shadows was released back in 2019. To be honest, while I liked Port of Shadows, the pacing of the book seemed off. After reading Lies Weeping, I know why. It answered a lot of questions and plot-points that I’d only guessed at, and as is the way of things, introduced more questions.

Once I finished reading Lies Weeping, I went back and read Port of Shadows. Once I was done with that, I read Lies Weeping again just to set some plot-points in my head. I’ll deal with that later on.

⚠ Warning: Spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

There are going to be spoilers for Port of Shadows as well, since a number of plot-points factor into the story of Lies Weeping.

Ending of Soldiers Live: A Recap of Sorts

Casting my brain back to the summer of 2000 when I read Soldiers Live^[1] What I remember: the last chapter was written from the perspective of both Shukrat and Arkana who were taking over as dual Annalists of the Black Company. Their notes fill in the blanks of the fates of Croaker, Lady, Soulcatcher, and Booboo.

The epilogue was a paragraph—Croaker as Shivetya the New—remembering all of his Company brethren^[2]. That ending leaves you with the impression that this was the final note for the Black Company.

It was—for the Black Company of Croaker’s era—the Company that came from the north and later gained new members as it drifted south after the Barrowland fight.

You’re left with the impression that while the members themselves come and go, the Company will always exist.

Lies Weeping/Soldiers Live Spoiler: Howler’s Fate

Things that should have bothered me^[3] but didn’t: Howler cropping up alive when he should have been dead actually doesn’t bother me at all.

In Soldiers Live, we’re left with the impression that Howler died in the same raid that killed Murgen and the two Voroshk adults but here he is, cropping back up as Lady’s assistant in Lies Weeping. Port of Shadows establishes that Howler is a Senjak relative—Lady’s uncle.

I realized then that we only assumed that Howler died according to Croaker’s narration of how that disastrous raid went down, and Sleepy’s recap later on. Considering everything that happened in that raid, it would make sense that Croaker could have missed a crucial detail.

What is comes down to is that like The Limper, Howler is a survivor. It would stand to reason that he would have some way out.

Port of Shadows as a Prologue to Lies Weeping

Going back to 2019, I knew that the reason Port of Shadows felt incomplete is that it was supposed to be a prologue to another story. At the time, I thought for sure that the three characters Baku, Shin, and Ankou were Shukrat, Tobo, and Croaker (as Shivetya) reaching back into time for some reason that would become clear in later books.

However, Lies Weeping throws that idea out the window—well, sort of.

Lady mentions the other children that she had with Croaker but doesn’t mention names. This dialog would probably confuse people who read Soldiers Live but skipped Port of Shadows. However, if you didn’t skip Port of Shadows, you’d remember Baku and Shin, whom Mischievous Rain insisted were her and Croaker’s children.

A subtle detail of Port of Shadows is that Croaker and the rest of the Company were being forcibly pushed to “forget” the events that occurred during the later half of Port of Shadows. Towards the end, Croaker is obsessed with making sure that every detail is recorded so that even if he forgets, there’s written record somewhere of the events that occurred.

That being said, who or what was Ankou anyway? Lies Weeping may provide some clues on that.

Thoughts on Lies Weeping

The story almost seamlessly picked back up in the “modern” timeline of the Company. I get the impression that it could have been anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after the Company’s return to An Abode of Ravens. Which is pretty good considering that it’s been twenty-five years since Soldiers Lives was published. Cook is older and still managed to keep the original feeling from the previous books. Without knowing its publication date, I could have started reading Soldiers Live before continuing on to Lies Weeping and not known that it’s been two and a half decades between the two books.

Between Shukrat and Arkana’s bickering—it felt like we got Goblin and One-Eye back, just without the destructiveness that the two were known for when they started fighting each other. Of course, Goblin and One-Eye’s fights frequently involved alcohol.

You do see both of them grow as annalists in their own right by the end of the book when the action picks up in Burnishing Sunrise. On that subject, is there some kind of connection between Ankou and the shadow cats that Arkana and Shukrat pick up before arriving at Burnishing Sunrise?

The Connection Between Booboo and Laissa

Another plot-point is Lady wishing to revive Booboo even when there’s nothing there to revive—or so we think. However, this is where the secondary plot of Port of Shadows becomes relevant—Lady’s sister was accidentally killed by the Dominator’s lackeys and discarded. Her body was retrieved by a necromancer who later came to be known as Papa. She was revived and named Laissa, and slowly developed a new personality based on her lived experiences with Papa and Lady.

Port of Shadows Spoiler: Laissa, Kitten, and Papa in the unknown fortress

In Port of Shadows, Dorotea Senjak^[4] is accidentally killed by the Dominator’s henchmen—mistaking her for one of his “discards.” Her body is dumped and later retrieved by Papa, who uses necromancy to revive her. Papa names her “Laissa” since she doesn’t remember her previous life.

Bathdek(sp?) Senjak (the girl we’ll eventually come to know as The Lady) decides to follow up on some leads to find out what happened to her sister’s body. Eventually, these leads bring her to Papa’s house in a forest near Grendirf (the Dominator’s capital), and there she is captured by Papa.

A little later in the story, Papa decides to abandon his home and flee into the wilderness, taking both girls with him. During the course of this part of the story, Bathdek uses her sorcery to assist in building the fortress while Papa is away gathering supplies.

So how does this relate to Booboo? Dorotea is revived as Laissa, and initially had no personality. She developed her own personality throughout the course of the story. The implication here is like Laissa, Booboo was dead but then later revived but lacked a personality due to her original personality being an avatar of Kina.

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Towards the end of Lies Weeping, Lady takes a comatose Booboo to that same unknown fortress in the wilderness east of the Plain of Fear that featured so prominently in Port of Shadows. It’s implied that the inhabitants, including Laissa, are still alive thirty-odd years after the events of Port of Shadows. For those who haven’t read Port of Shadows, the Croaker-narrated portions takes place during that time-frame between The Black Company and Shadows Linger, before the Company occupied Tally.

The Return of Longshadow?

Quick recap: Longshadow was one of the main antagonists from The Books of the South and Glittering Stone^[5] who we all thought was as good as dead after he was turned over to the Court of All Seasons in Soldiers Live.

However, people being people, there were some in the Court who were looking to use Longshadow for their own purposes, which we begin to get a sense of as the story progresses.

Early on, we’re introduced to Kaminariyama^[6] no Kuma, or otherwise known as Dikken. Tobo, Lady, and Suvrin all know that Dikken is a spy for someone in Khang Phi. Later on we learn that Dikken was sent to An Abode to learn what the Company knew about The Book of Names—which at this point in the story is basically diddly-squat^[7].

Lady being Lady, she knows that there’s something more to Dikken than meets the eye, so she leaves him with Croaker and Soulcatcher on the glittering plain—potentially thwarting plans of antagonists back in the Land of Unknown Shadows.

Other Thoughts

Long after it was relevant, we finally get the True Name of the Dominator. Cook has quite the sense of humor, but somehow I am not surprised by the Dominator’s real name. Frankly, if my parents named me “Thud Brunch”, I’d probably go ape-shit and torture the world, too.

What is Soulcatcher up to? Other than her usual “do it for the lulz” mentality. Is there some method or plan behind the madness?

Also, what’s the history behind Jun Go, who we know was a veteran of the revenge campaign in Soldiers Live. I’m left with the impression that he’s sort of a combination of Croaker and Uncle Doj, but his background is mysterious—which actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he came from the same tradition (or similar) as Uncle Doj did. I really need to read the Books of the South again.

This first book did end on a cliffhanger, but unlike the other book I’ve been ranting about, Cook didn’t feel the need to announce it with a “To Be Continued.”

Going through reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, plus commentary on Reddit, there are people who didn’t like the girls’ narration. Some of this could have come down to people listening to audiobooks^[8].

Bitching and Complaining about People Bitching and Complaining

Intrusive thoughts under the cut: Bitching and Complaining about People Bitching and Complaining

Complaint #1: Modern Vocabulary in “Medieval” Fantasy

Some of the complaints were around “modern” vocabulary in what’s supposed to be a “medieval” fantasy setting.

I’m not sure if I should sigh or roll my eyes whenever I see that complaint. It’s old, it’s tired—I’ve heard this same complaint about other fantasy authors, even that one very popular “romantasy” author that I hate. In all instances, I want to tell the complainants to get over themselves. Yes, I’ll even defend shitty romantasy authors—I might hate them but I will defend them against complaints like this.

I mean, what are you expecting? Ye old High English? A bunch of thees and thous?

If you want that, go read Tolkien. It’s called fantasy for a reason. It’s like going to Taco Bell because you want burgers and then bitching and complaining because TB doesn’t do burgers^[9].

Complaint #2: Lies Weeping as Romantasy?! What Crack Are You Smoking?

This was one that I saw on Amazon from a reader claiming that he’d been reading Black Company novels since Raker was published back in 1982. My reaction was “Lol whut?! Glen Cook writing romantasy? Bud, what kind of crack were you smoking to come up with that conclusion?”

There’s going to be some romance in any well-rounded story—that’s life. You had Croaker and Lady in the first five books; Murgen and Sahra during the last four, then Tobo and Shukrat at the end of Soldiers Live. But unlike the romantasy genre^[10], these romances are not the main focus of the story—however, they are sub-plots that do tie into the main plot.

That being said, Glen Cook is about as far from romantasy as you can get.

At the end of Lies Weeping, while she does still care about him, Shukrat is mostly over Tobo due to his self-pitying and selfish behavior. Arkana very briefly flirts with Dikken, until the latter turns into an unadventurous whiner.

With all of that, I’m surprised that haven’t seen people complaining about the age inappropriate “flirting” between the girls and Jun Go. Y’all, stop overthinking it.

I get the impression that the people doing the complaining aren’t happy with two teenage girls taking over the roll of Annalist.

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Do I Detect a Fellow Weeb?

Final note—I’m noticing a lot of Japanese influence in not just Lies Weeping, but Port of Shadows as well^[11]. My poking around on Reddit has revealed that Cook may be an otaku—and might even be a fan of Fate. If so, I gotta wonder if he plays Fate Grand Order.

Now I don’t feel so weird now being in my late 40s and heavily into anime and manga, considering that Cook is in his 80s.

Five out of five—that’s how I feel and that’s what I’m sticking with. The pacing may have been a bit off, but it wasn’t enough to really pull me out of the story. The only thing that lightly irritated me was Shukrat’s occasional whining but by the end of the book, there was character growth.

While Arkana isn’t my favorite of the Voroshk girls—she had every right to whine considering what had happened to her in Soldiers Live. Glen Cook did a very good job of not glossing over her trauma, or the dark places that trauma can lead us—especially when we have the power to inflict that darkness on other people.

So here’s to waiting a year for the next book—which sort of ticks me off. They Cry was already written, and could be published sooner but of course, Tor decides to sit on it for a year. Guess I’ll pass that year doing a recap of the previous Black Company books, and then dive into the Garrett, P.I. books.

Glen Cook’s world-building around the history of the Land of Unknown Shadows has ticked off the world-building in my head concerning the universe of Silent Shadow^[12] but I’ll save that for a separate post. I have another post coming up about my thoughts around the latest GUDAGUDA event^[13] in Fate Grand Order^[14], as well as a series of posts dealing with rigging Poser figures in Blender.