# The Black Company series by Glen Cook



## Werthead (Jan 8, 2012)

*The Black Company*



> The Black Company is an elite mercenary force whose history goes back centuries. Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar, the Black Company fights for coin, but is also a proud army that is its own master. Accepting the commission of the Northern Empire and its ruler, the ruthless Lady, the Company soon finds itself fighting a war against an oppressed populace struggling to be free...but the leaders of the rebellion seem every bit as ruthless and amoral as the Lady and her senior sorcerer-warriors - the Taken - are. Evil battles evil, a continent bleeds and through it all the Black Company struggles to survive.
> 
> Glen Cook's Black Company books are widely regarded as being amongst the most influential and important epic fantasy novels ever written. Steven Erikson cites them as the primary influence on his Malazan series, whilst George R.R. Martin is a fan. A dozen years before Martin made 'grimdark' cool, Cook was already writing adult stories about wars, soldiers and the causes they fight and die for, with no elves in sight and no punches pulled.
> 
> ...


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 8, 2012)

Glen Cook keeps coming up as a reference, not least behind Erikson and GRRM. Think I'm going to have to search this one out.


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## David B (Jan 8, 2012)

I read the books many years ago and endorse the review. If there's a new omnibus edition out, I'll get it and read them again.


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## thaddeus6th (Jan 8, 2012)

There is a pair of omnibuses (isn't omnibus itself a plural?), I think.

I remember being irked because Amazon doesn't (or didn't) sell the third book singly. Reminds me, actually, I've been meaning to get it from Abebooks.


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## old wallie (Jan 11, 2012)

I like Glen Cook very much.  His books are all good reads.  I'm more inclined to read his Garrett, private eye books.  This is a matter of taste, as his Black Company books and his Instrumentalities of the Night are darker.  He also wrote some Dread Kingdom books that are very dark.  

Through all his books, his characters are vivid and lifelike.


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## Werthead (Jan 15, 2012)

There are four omnibuses collecting the ten novels. The first has both UK and US editions, the latter three are only available in US editions, but are easily available on Amazon UK:

CHRONICLES OF THE BLACK COMPANY: Books 1-3
THE BOOKS OF THE SOUTH: Books 4-6
THE RETURN OF THE BLACK COMPANY: Books 7-8
THE MANY DEATHS OF THE BLACK COMPANY: Books 9-10

Cook has plans for two more BLACK COMPANY novels set years later, though my understanding is that the series ends reasonably well at Book 10.


*Shadows Linger*



> Six  years after the mighty Battle at Charm, the Lady's Northern Empire has  expanded further than ever before, carrying the Black Company into the  distant lands of the east. However, orders come that will drive the  Black Company on a march of thousands of miles to the far north-west, to  the city of Juniper were mighty forces will clash as the result of the  activities of one dirt-poor innkeeper.
> 
> _Shadows Linger_ is the second novel in *The Black Company* sequence and comes as a bit of a surprise for readers expecting more of the same. _The Black Company_ was a vast war epic, huge in scope. _Shadows Linger_  feels a lot smaller in scale and more intimate, with the bulk of the  action taking place in the single city of Juniper and focusing on the  troubled life of the innkeeper Marron Shed. This division of focus -  between Juniper and the Black Company as they cross an entire continent  to get there - requires Cook to adjust his POV structure from the first  volume. Whilst the bulk of the action continues to be relayed by  Croaker, annalist and physician of the Black Company, we also get  third-person POV chapters focusing on Shed. Later it is revealed that  Shed recounted his adventures in detail to Croaker, explaining how this  structure works.
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## Werthead (Jan 15, 2012)

*The White Rose*





> The  Black Company - or rather the handful of its survivors - has broken  ranks with the armies of the Lady and sworn its allegiance to the White  Rose, who is prophecised to bring the Lady down. But the Lady's armies  have besieged the Plains of Fear, hemming the Company and their allies  in. As the threat draws in, Croaker, annalist of the Company, receives  anonymous messages relating how the wizard Bomanz awoke the Lady and the  Taken in the first place. As events unfold, it becomes clear that the  Lady's husband, the evil Dominator, is planning his own return to the  world, a prospect that cows even the Lady, and that the growing war will  soon develop a third side.
> 
> _The White Rose_ concludes the original *Black Company* trilogy, wrapping up story and character arcs begun back in _The Black Company_ and continued in _Shadows Linger_.  Based on those two books, the reader might go into this novel expecting  a massive magical conflageration and battles of mythic proportions.  Again, Cook blindsides the reader by crafting something far less  predictable and much, much weirder.
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## juelz4sure (Jan 20, 2012)

i read the first three books (CHRONICLES OF THE BLACK COMPANY) and i loved them than i got the second collection  THE BOOKS OF THE SOUTH and for some reason i can't get into it as much as the first three books am i the only one that is having that problem?


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## Werthead (Feb 7, 2012)

*Shadow Games*



> The wars in the north have come to an end. The threat of the Dominator has been eradicated, and the remnants of the Black Company are setting out for their ancestral homeland of Khatovar. Unexpectedly joined by their former ally and enemy, the Lady, they strike out across the Sea of Torments and across the vast southern continent. But their return has been foretold and the Prince of Taglios convinces the Black Company to join his war against the enigmatic Shadowmasters, an alliance that will have long-lasting consequences for the Company and its members.
> 
> Shadow Games is the fourth book in the Black Company series and marks the opening of a fresh chapter in the history of the mercenary army. Much of the plot baggage from the first three book is jettisoned as new characters, factions and locations are introduced. Some things stay the same, such as Croaker's ongoing first-person narration, but broadly speaking this is the series moving into fresh pastures.
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> ...



*Dreams of Steel*



> The Black Company and its Taglian allies have fought a great battle against the Shadowmasters at Dejagore. Whilst much of the Shadowmaster army was destroyed, the allies also suffered grievous losses and most of their army was forced to retreat into the city, where it now stands siege. Trapped outside and with Croaker missing, Lady is forced to assume command of the routed Taglian forces, attempt to regroup them and forge a new army strong enough to relieve Dejagore, but finds that politics and religious machinations amongst her own troops are as much a threat as the plotting of the enemy.
> 
> Dreams of Steel marks a notable change in the Black Company books. For the first time, Croaker is dropped as the primary POV in favour of Lady, who now serves as the main POV character, narrator and 'annalist', recording events for posterity. This shift in structure and approach is successful, with Cook employing a character who is far less prone to moralising than Croaker (it serves to remember that Lady was, more or less, the main bad guy in the original trilogy, and has only repented up to a point) and is still fully capable of using incredibly ruthless and bloody means to achieve her goals.
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> ...



*The Silver Spike*



> The Black Company has departed into the far south, taking Lady with them. For Darling, Raven, Case and the other outcasts from the Company, their future is uncertain. But when an enterprising band of treasure hunters steals the Silver Spike, within which lies imprisoned the undying essence of the Dominator, the world is again thrown into jeopardy and the heroes of the northern wars are called back into service.
> 
> The Silver Spike is a novel set in the Black Company universe, though not part of the main series. It's instead a 'sidequel', picking up after the events of the third novel in the series but taking a different group of characters off in another direction and following their adventures.
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> ...


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## biodroid (Feb 8, 2012)

Are these books as long as Eriksons (seeing as everyone says Eriksons got his inspiration for Malazan from Cook)?


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 8, 2012)

No - first Black Company book I think is just over 260 pages.


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## biodroid (Feb 9, 2012)

Brian - How would you compare them to the Malazan series? I have only read the first two in that series and got bored, I couldn't attatch myself to a character as there were too many, and too many unexplained things happening.


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## Alex The G and T (Feb 9, 2012)

Well, I'm not Brian, but I'll render an opinion on your question, biodroid...
I've read many Black Company, mostly borrowed, long since lost track of which I have or haven't read, or where the _Order_ went to. Love 'em.  They stand well enough alone as individual paperbacks.

I took _The Bonehunters_ as an accidental delivery from SFBC.  I really _wanted_ to like it, as deliciously similar to Black Company; but I got lost in a ridiculous number of disparate story threads, which showed no signs of eventual reconciliation, and never finished it.

I see now that Bonehunters was somewhere in the middle of the Bazzillogy and it may have helped had I started at the beginning.

Except... but...  If the frontispiece is a four page "Dramatis Personae," in fine print, my eyes start to glaze over, anyway. 

Personally, I just haven't time or inclination to invest in too many characters doing too many different things, and I like a story to wrap up somewhere short of volume xxx, sometime next decade.

I guess I'm saying that Cook is easily accessible and one had better prepared to develop a serious, long-term relationship with Erikson


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 9, 2012)

biodroid said:


> Brian - How would you compare them to the Malazan series? I have only read the first two in that series and got bored, I couldn't attatch myself to a character as there were too many, and too many unexplained things happening.



Basically, if you took Whiskey Jack's subplot from the first Malazan book, kept only with that POV, and put a lot more fighting and character into it, you would have Black Company.

And at 260 pages, the first Black Company book is a lot more pacey as well.


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## biodroid (Feb 9, 2012)

Thanks Brian, I will see if they are available on Kindle.


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