Bleak Seasons

Chronicles of the Black Company, Book 6

By: Glen Cook

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's Summary

Having risked their lives and souls to capture the fortress of Stormgard, a band of weary soldiers known as the Company witnesses their commander's descent into madness and await the reemergence of their ancient gods.

Listen to more in the Black Company series.

©1997 Glen Cook (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Not as bad as the other review.

I'm just writing to go against that other review of the guy hating the book and making him stop reading the series.

The narrator is great. The timeline in the story is set up strangely. But not too hard to follow and anything would be better than the book of lady.

don't quit now

I'm sure at this point you have been with the efforts of the Black company since they came into the service of the dominators lady. some are saying this book is confusing and hard to follow- they are right. however, it is not so confusing and hard to follow as to obscure the story. the naration has been sorted out, but this annal is a lot more obscure hand generally a lot less fun than the previous. but, it's more of croaker and wizardry and a story you're invested in over many volumes, so keep on.

TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE READER.

names pronounced incorrectly, loooooong unexplained pauses. BAD READER. Book was okay. Murgan took some getting used to which I blame on the reader. time line is confusing as well

very enjoyable

This was a very good book. I was worried when I saw many people complaining about the story continually jumping through time. I found it a great way to tell the story of what happened to the Black Company inside the city of Dejagora (uncertain of exact spelling) during the time frame of Croaker and Lady's time outside the city (previous book) while at the same time pushing the Black Company's story along with the war against the remaining shadow masters.

also loved the narrator's performance. having a new voice for murgen to differentiate from the narrator who reads Croaker was great. the reader provided great voices and personality to all the characters. after having listened to a couple other books recently with monotonous and emotionless voices, this narrator was like a breath of fresh air.

Series Killer

If any book in the Black Company series can drive a fan to quit, it is this one. The constant, disjointed, mind numbing jumps between perspective time periods turns this book into some bastardized choose-your-own-adventure story. Take a regular novel, chop it into a dozen or two pieces, then read those pieces in random order and you've got Bleak Seasons.

The narrator does such a fine job with the voices, I almost pity the man for having to read this assault on listeners minds.

The style of presentation in Bleak Seasons is so dreadful and of no narrative relation to its predecessors that one has to wonder if Glen Cook were in a particularly vile mood when he wrote it and was purposefully trying to kill the series.

Mergan is good

this has been the best narrative yet. I teared up some and laughed too.

not the best

out of all the series so far this is probably the worst one it's not too horrible but not fun and the narrator isn't as bad as everyone says not my favorite but not too bad .

Poor Audio Processing

Audio and tone of voice consistently varies between barely audible and piercing, requiring constant tuning of the sound levels.

Fantastic Narrator!

The Narrator fits Murgen perfectly.

MINOR SPOILER

This is the weirdest of all the novels, hardest to follow, because Murgen himself is "Lost" in time. But the narrator makes it sooo good. On top of doing Murgen's voice perfect, he does fantastic accents for Goblin, One-Eye and the Nar.

Not as bad as everyone says

I'm here to tell you not to be put off by the other negative reviews. I think the narrator was fine excluding the pauses, and I got around that by listening at x1.10 speed. The story is pretty good, not quiet like the ones before as it starts to expand in scope. The time shifts are kind of confusing but you get used to it pretty quickly. I like Murgen as the author because he brings a bit of humor to the situation. I think I laughed more in this book than any of the others, though I haven't read the rest of the series. in conclusion, if you want to continue the black company saga but are put off about doing so via audible, don't be. This is a fine book that gets unfairly shit on because its not read by Vietor.

Not as good as the others but still great

found this one a little hard to follow, still very much enjoyed it just jumped around a little too much

Disappointed

My least favourite Black Company book. it was disjointed. I was confused where we were up to a lot of the time. With this major challenge I was not that concerned with the change in narrator.

A tough listen at first

Story – 4/5

I found this audiobook very hard to get into, as I kept drifting away, which is mainly down to the narrator. I gave up about half way at first and opted for a lighter listen instead. When I returned and re-listened, I enjoyed it a lot more and the second half was much better than the first; the last 2-3 hours especially. Probably not my favourite Black Company book, but still good enough to get 4 stars.

I enjoyed the new characterisation and fantasy element added via Murgen, and his time travelling capability, made for something new to the mix. The atrocities being committed by both sides during the conflict was interesting, and sinister, and it was good to go back and have a different viewpoint of a story already told in Dreams of Steel.


Performance –3/5

The production was a real struggle for me, and the main reason I gave up first time around. The reading is incredibly slow, and there are large gaps between (and even in the middle of) sentences. I sped it up to x1.25, and it was still a problem. x1.5 was too fast to keep up. I don’t remember this being an issue when Jonathan Davis read The Silver Spike, so it must have been the way the producers cut and pieced it together.

I liked the character voices and Davis’ tone though, so I do think he is a good narrator. I was glad I forced myself to re-listen, and I did get used to it the second time around.


Overall – 3.5/5