Darkwar is the second series I've read by Cook, and is a beast of a completely different color than The Black Company. At the outset it seems standard, if strange, fantasy, but soon enough you will begin some very serious Sci-fi elements. We're talking space battles here. I went in with absolutely no expectations. The books were picked more or less at random, save for the fact that I had enjoyed Cook in the past. What didn't suck: The series has some rather unique elements. For one, the central race of the series was the non- human Meth. Mammal, upright, intelligent, all that jazz, but with an alien thought process. One has to respect Cook for thinking so far outside the norm, and giving the race as a whole a unique perspective. Another element that I found interesting; it truly runs the gamut of civilization. With no significant time lapses, it starts you with a primitive, hunting and gathering culture, and by the end you're dealing with space battles of epic proportion. Not exactly what I expected, but the for the most part it worked.What sucked:Sadly, it had some pretty serious flaws working against it. First and foremost, the main character is the ultimate Mary Sue. Seriously, Westley Crusher has nothing on her. If there is a thing that has to be done, she will do it. Given, everything and everyone that she loved would likely be ashes and dust by the time she was done, but that she would succeed is never in doubt. After the first few times her miraculous magical powers manifested themselves, this was annoying. After the first couple books, this was maddening. Throughout the series, the character always made the right decision, was always smarter, faster, stronger, ad nauseum. Hardly unique in fantasy, but still it pisses me off to see it done to this extent. Come on Cook, you're better than that!Another thing that sucked. The ending. I won't ruin it, but to say it was dissatisfying is an understatement. You see it coming, you hope you're wrong, but in the end...you're not. Yeah, it's as lame as you think it will be. Weak.And character development? I actually think the main character devolved throughout the series rather than evolving. It was pretty painful at times. Deep Thoughts: Overall, I don't regret reading the series. It had it's weakspots and then it had some more weakspots...but there was a thing or two that was cool as well. And hell, I've got lots of free time. Final Rating: Meh. 2 stars.
What do You think about Doomstalker (1985)?
This is not really separate book. The whole trilogy is whole book that was for some reason broken into three books. General setting was very appealing to me, matriarchal society, nice mix of magic and tech, everything looks very good. Unfortunately most characters are really obvious, you could tell who they right away. there were no serious character twists in this part. But I can give a credit to how the world unfolds. So what do we have here? The very average character progression, relationships development is quite predictable, quite interesting and unusual setting of tech and magic. I'll try the second book.
—Viktor Davion
