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Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Glen Cook |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
Notes: Black Company Series:
(N) - Books of the North
(S) - Books of the South
(G) - Books of Glittering Stone |
The Black Company
The Silver Spike |
hadows Linger (N)
The White Rose (N)
Shadow Games (S)
Dreams of Steel (S)
Bleak Seasons (G)
She is the Darkness (G)
Water Sleeps (G)
Soldiers Live (G) |
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 Our
Ranking The Black Company for some reason unknown
to me has never reached the level of popularity it probably deserves. The original
3 books of the trilogy is probably one of the top 3 fantasy series I've ever read,
right up there with the Lord of the Rings and maybe even ahead of the Wheel of
Time. What really distinguishes the Black Company from most other fantasy is that
the heros are actually pretty evil themselves. Cook does a terrific job avoiding
the rut that most fantasy books seem to land in where evil and good are very much
separate entities. In this series the only thing that separates the villains from
the good guys are degrees of evil. The Black Company is a crew of elite mercenaries
that will do pretty much anything for the right price. The series is the tale
of their most dangerous mission told from the perspective of Croaker, the companies
doctor as well as default historian. Croaker is probably the most moral of the
crew in that he doesn't usually perform the tasks they are hired to and when does
usually restrains himself from anything unnecessary. However, through his story
telling it is obvious he is not too bothered by it either. The Black Company is
the first of the trilogy and starts with the company being hired by an immortal
demon to act as its mortal muscle in a war that is ready to rage. The immortal
is one of 9 immortals who are vying for power awaiting the day when their master
awakes. Part of the appeal of this series is the layers of complexity that Cook
delivers. The infighting and alliances and backstabs of the immortals leaves the
reader unsure as to who they should truly be rooting for. The Company finds themselves
just being pulled along in a war they can't begin to understand yet and also maybe
for the first time a bit fearful of their own employer. Another strength of this
book is the characters that Cook develops. Both the company and the immortals
are developed wonderfully, leaving you really attached to many of them. Cook is
so consistent with his characters for the entire series. This is an amazing fantasy
book, and the series only gets stronger from here. The conclusion in the third
book the White Rose is absolutely worth reading all three. Any fantasy fan needs
to pick this one up to get a fresh perspective on how fantasy should be written.
The other two books of the series are Shadows Linger and The White Rose. |
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Our Ranking I picked this one up with
a bit of hesitation. If you've read my review on the Black Company, you'll know
that this is one of my favorite fantasy series out there. I didn't want to tarnish
that by reading a terrible spin-off book from it, just rehashing the characters
or even worse, unraveling the conclusion of the series itself. Well, as it turns
out, my fears were not completely unfounded, but there was enough new material
here to make it worth it. The book is set pretty much immediately after the conclusion
of the Black Company series. The Black Company has disbanded, and scattered off.
In the meantime, the essence of the evil that threatened the world in the series
still exists, locked magically into what is known as the Silver Spike. The Dominator
is dead, but his evil is still able to be tapped by other wizards and such if
it falls into the wrong hands. Amazingly, the simplest of thieves decide they
can make a score stealing the Silver Spike and from there all breaks loose. As
with the Black Company series, Cook does a great job in delving into the corruptness
and evil of man. Nearly all of the characters in evil in some way or another,
it just really comes down to the degree of evilness that decides what side they
are on. Cook does a good job of introducing some new characters to the book instead
of relying solely on the old characters from the original series. One of the narrators,
Case is very well done, and the small band of low level thieves really manages
to steal the book by the end. Their characters truly come alive as the realize
just how over their heads they really are with this supposed sure score. The fear
and desperation Cook describes is incredible. Obviously there are a lot of characters
also brought up from the original. Raven, Darling, Silent, and Limper to name
a few. Croaker is mentioned a lot but never really appears (much to my dismay).
If there was a downside to the book it was this rehash of the old characters.
Especially in regards to Limper and Raven, I felt Cook took away a bit of these
characters. They weren't really true to their form in the original series. This
was pretty disappointing, and especially with Limper, threatened to really hurt
the book. However, the plot itself is original enough, and the new characters
added enough energy to the story to make up for the above. It was a little slow
at the start (it really felt like Cook didn't know where to go) but about midway
things really came together and I began to see this more as a new story than just
a hack of the Black Company. All in all, this wound up to be a pretty enjoyable
read. Nothing groundbreaking, but a good solid, fun fantasy read. Word of caution
though, if you haven't read the full Black Company series first, do not read this!
It relies very heavily on you knowing the history and events of the first 3 books.
Cook wastes very little time filling in those details. |
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