The Black Company

Glen Cook’s The Black Company is the first in a series of ten novels. These are ostensibly tales gleaned from “the Annals” of the Black Company. The member of the Company tasked with writing the Annals is Croaker, who is also the Company physician. The history of the Company goes back perhaps thousands of years, the full length of time is only hinted at, and there is no indication given why the reader is introduced to the Annals at this point.

This book was published in 1984, and as many such novels of previous era’s has a narrative style and feel much different than those prevalent today. In many ways the novel is much more violent than the likes of Joe Abercrombie or GRRM, but in a way that is almost more ominous because it is less graphic. The tone is somewhat more cerebral and the action more sparsely described than more current novels, and the author is not afraid to skip periods of time between one large event and the next.

Apparently the second chapter of this novel was the first actual published story of the Black Company. This is only vaguely noticeably as one reads through. In fact if the reader were not aware prior to reading the first two chapters it may not even be noticed. The first chapter tells the story of how the Company came to be in the service of the Lady, and in the North. The second chapter begins some months later and spells out first true bit of infighting between the Lady’s minions.

The story goes on from there with many battles between the Lady’s troops (of which the Black Company is one) and those of the Rebel, leading to a climatic showdown at the Lady’s fortress. There are many little skirmishes between the minions of the Lady along the way, and somehow Croaker finds himself closely involved in most of them. At first Croaker romanticizes the Lady but gradually he begins to realize that the Lady is evil. The true strength of the novel lies in that Croaker realizes that there is no good side in this conflict, rather two evils, of which neither is truly lesser.

All in all this is not a hugely complex tale. Cook takes a fairly straightforward approach, as one would expect in a true Annals. What makes this a better than average story is that although the tale itself is not hugely complex, there are several important twists and turns which are foreshadowed, or not, to varying degrees. Perhaps aided by the fact that it is very short by current novel standards (barely cracking 300 pages) I found myself really yearning to have the second novel on hand to read the moment I was done with the first.

As I noted before, any reader used to reading newer novels will immediately notice stylistic and tonal differences. Is the change from then to now as great as the change from the days of Asimov and Heinlein to when the Black Company was first published? I would say easily. This does not in any way tarnish these older works, in fact it can be a refreshing change. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I give it 4/5.