Company of Bones: Book One of the Pendulum Series is not a book masterfully written. There’s a lot of bumps and bruises along the way, lots of writing faux pas, lots of sentence structure issues, shifting POVs, eruptive time jumps and many more.
I understand why people who are strict about how books are edited had difficulty reading this book.
But, after saying that, I will add that I’m not a fan of such formulative strictness and much prefer a good story over proficient writing.
I like storytellers.
Storytellers come with varied voices.
Of course, Company of Bones could have been improved with some quality editing, but I’ll not focus on that.
The Golden Wolves, led by Tar Hardhammer, are massing on a hill, ready to charge down and massacre an outnumbered warband below.
Under a white flag, a rider from the warband below approaches, seeking parley.
The aging legend, Tar Hardhammer is a big believer in tradition. He honors the parley despite the complaints of the standard-bearer, Gulath Trollfeller.
The messenger of the warband says he represents the Company of Bones. He is entertainingly insulting to the Golden Wolves and seeks a duel, the champion of the Company of Bones to fight the champion of the Golden Wolves.
Before Tar can stop him, Gulath, seeking to rise in rank and fame, accepts the challenge.
Tar knows his own reputation will suffer if he doesn’t allow it. He’d rather just ride down the hill and crush them.
The messenger reveals himself to be the chief of the Company of Bones, a man named Nimblejack. He goes on to tell Tar a lengthy tale of his warband. He speaks of his champion, an orc-human hybrid going back as far to when “the boy” was being trained by his mother, an orc. Much later we learn “the boy” is named Dreadfalls.
The story stays pretty focused through the first section even as the author switches to the tale of Garlan, a young thief in desperate straits, invariably becoming a member of the Vine-Canton gang. Desperate Garlan schemes to get out from under the gang and the watchful eye of the thug Timoth is more than ready to end his life if he even breathes wrong.
Wetzel, a knight-like devotee of the teachings of Bulfur, travels through the countryside with some priests.
All their paths cross in the city of Glanfield where Nimblejack and the Company of Bones enters the story as well.
Occasionally, the author snaps the reader back to the hillside to remind them that is a tale being told by Nimblejack to Tar Hammerhard.
I enjoyed reading the book. The faux pas didn’t bother me, and I could almost feel the writer’s passion in writing the book. There’s a lot to be excited about.
I’ve read many books by better writers with perfect writing skills that failed to be as exciting and passionate as this book.
If you think of it that way, I think 3 stars is a fair ranking.
Allen M Werner is the author of two series.
The Crystal Crux Series
Betrayal
Blue Grotto
Cold Knight
Shimmer
Beautiful
The Shades of Myth series
Ares In Chains
Kiss Of Death
Below is a link to enter a giveaway of Kiss of Death on Goodreads – applicable from
8/25/26 – 9/6/26
Author Allen M Werner 
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