At first, there's not a lot to distinguish the world of The Black Company. It's a medieval fantasy set in a realm ruled with an iron first by The Lady, the bride of the defeated dark overlord (and a pretty good dark lord herself). You don't get a lot of heavy world description, but that's mainly because the narrator doesn't find scenery important unless it's relevant to what's happening. That being said, there's some pretty damn cool stuff in the world, like giant floating sky whales and ancient trees that can imprison gods. The magic system is loosely defined, so pretty much anything is possible.I really liked the way that "true names" were handled in this series, and it's a major factor towards why very few characters use their birth names. Characters The main character is Croaker, the physician/annalist of the Black Company. In addition to his medical duties, he is responsible for recording all of the significant events that the company takes part in, and the book is the compilation of his writings. There's a pretty big cast of side characters in the company, but two of my favorite are Goblin and One-Eye. They are some of the company's wizards, and though they can be pretty formidable if they want to be, most of the time they just dick around and compete in ever-escalating prank wars. The Lady is an intimidating villain, though we see more of The Ten Who Were Taken, her incredibly powerful sorcerer lieutenants. These guys are seriously bad news, but they don't get along with each other. Plot The story, as recorded by Croaker, follows The Black Company as they enlist in the service of The Lady. That's right, the main characters work for the bad guys! The first 50-100 pages of book 1 can be pretty confusing. Each scene is somewhat disconnected and the overarching plot can be hard to follow. Part of this is intentional because Croaker is new as an annalist and is still learning how to tell a compelling story. If you can make it past this, the rest of the first trilogy is tightly plotted and full of memorable moments