The Silver Spike

Well -- this will be a short review. 'The Silver Spike' is Cook's version of a heist novel. It's great. Pure, thrilling fantasy, without clichés or fluff or other bullshit. It's again creative in its use of tropes and magic, again fast-paced, and again the plotting is clever. Characters are solid and serve their purpose, some get a bit more depth, even if their development is not Cook's focus. There is a tad of comedy here too, as the thieves act like doofuses, and part of the pleasure is seeing them take on powers they totally underestimate -- but we, readers, by now seasoned connaisseurs of the Company's Annals, don't.

Some reviewers call it one of the weakest books in the series, but for me it was on par with what I've read so far. I loved it a lot. There aren't that many writers that can pull of what Cook does: write something that is totally confident and at the same time insane and singular. The fact that it remains grounded to human reality only makes it more laudable -- the madness of air to surface combat in Vietnam is never far off in The Silver Spike, and Cook's observations about evil, power and nihilism are again spot on. No idealism here, just reality -- yes, it's fictional and rococo in its fantastical elements, yet somehow it is unadulterated.

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Full review on Weighing A Pig