Chronicles of the Black Company

Ok, since I don’t have Mr. Greg’s reviewing skills I’ma keep it short and simple! This is like somebody gave the guy who wrote this book a fucking Minigun and loaded with bullets of awesomeness and told him to aim directly in to my brainand then the mother fucker went trigger happy! This is good shit! I read it twice in a fucking row!


It got it all! Awesome wizards, kick ass villains, drama, action, more action and more drama! And the hottest villain ever!!! EVER!!! I have a crush with The Lady now! I love this mother fucking book!

“There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies. We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant.”

Took a long time to buy this book and some more to start reading it, only to end up controlling myself so I could pause and put down the book to go back to my responsibilities. I needed some dark fantasy. Something to fill the void I got after finishing the A Song of Ice and fire series.

The Black Company is a mercenary outfit with years of history as far as any Annalist could write. Centuries of war and tradition keep being recorded, along with the good, the evil and the heroics. show more This book is, in reality, three books: The Black Company, Shadows Linger and The White Rose.

Croaker is the man responsible to put all of that on paper when he’s not on active duty as the physician. At the beginning of the book, we’re told the Company is in the city of Beryl under a very uneventful contract with the Syndic, its ruler. Reputation is the moral ground that avoids terminating it and moving on to a new contractor. Fortunately, a black ship appears on the coast with an ominous entity and an offer. The rules have loopholes and the top brass knows how to find them. Being the efficient men they are, a way is found to be relieved from their commitment with the Syndic. Immediately they discover the entity is a dark sorcerer from an empire in the north, led by an even darker sorceress called The Lady. The epic journey starts here...

What I loved about this series is how Glen Cook manages to write Croaker’s scribbles in a way it feels like it was actually written by Croaker. The immersion is amazing. We can relate with him and the other characters he writes about, like his leader, The Captain and his friend, Elmo; The wizards are amongst my favorite, no matter which side they fighting for. They are powerful and capable of incredible feats but are also tricksters, possess cunning ideas and can have vices and habits as us mortals.

It feels like a memoir. You get an idea of the world you’re in, detailed descriptions of the landscape and the actions taken on the battles fought on it. This is basically a war book where you get to know the tactics used, the musings, the politics and everyone’s place in them.

I have to contain myself to give away more details. More could be said but I’m sure it would lose the charm of the book. It’s unique. The language used is almost “everyman” type. Croaker does not leave much unsaid but will make sure everyone understands it. Even uses slurs.

I had no idea the Chronicles started back in 1984. Some would say its ahead of its time. Can’t wholeheartedly agree but I can certainly understand why due to writing style alone.

This is the kind of fantasy I love. Average men doing work on a fantastic world, growing with their struggles, learning, adapting and rising in life. It has some of the best examples on character development so take notes.

I usually recommend the books I read to specifics but in this case I’m recommending to everyone. More than fantasy, I love fiction and this is some of the best fiction I read. It’s a must for such lovers. Speaking of which, this has probably the best “affair” I’ve ever read. Funny too.

As for myself, hopefully I’ll find some hardcover for Books of The South. show less

The Annals, currently kept by physician Croaker, are the history of the Black Company. Feared and hated, the mercenaries are often bloody, deadly and crude, but have an honorable streak as well. Croaker is charged with the Company's memory - when mercenaries fall, no one but their brethren remember them. When the Company is manipulated into taking a new contract with the Lady and her Taken, little do they know how many years and countless casualties their deal will cost them.

Epic fantasy in the very best sense. Cook has a knack for putting sentences together in a way that forces you to read the meaning between the lines.

I will start by stating that the Black Company series would be five star ratings across the board but for the fact that Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series one-ups Cook in this vein. Nonetheless, the Black Company started the 'hard boiled, soldier-in-the-mud' style fantasy story for me and as such it hold a dear place in my heart.

I have read the entire series multiple times; Croaker and The Lady are always close by and ready to appear on my night-stand once again.

Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates fantasy a little more 'realistic' and little less flowery.

These three stories are the cream of the crop for Black Company tales. Plot twists, excellent character development and interaction, and shifting of good/evil show more perspective that is so lacking in so many fantasy stories. I like my characters realistic, with flaws and foibles and I like my issues of morality to be a mess of tangled grey area. The Black Company's first three stories deliver. Croaker and The Lady are some of my favorite characters from any fiction.

Alas when I first experienced a Black Company book, it was Water Sleeps - which after (much later in life) reading them all is by far my least favorite. If you have judged Cook's storytelling skills on the basis of anything other than these three novels, do yourself a favor and pick this up. These are good hard-boiled fantasy fiction. show less

Grittily realistic, violent and no holds barred; Glenn Cook has a way of dragging you into his scenes and holding you fast so you have no choice but to witness the horrors of his world unfold. The boys of Black Company become a rather unsavoury part of your literary family, someone who you would rather not want to invite over for a formal tea but would want at your back in a bar fight.

This is the collected first three books of Glen Cook's "Black Company" series, chronicling the adventures of a famous mercenary company in grim world threatened by all sorts of darkness. Although the series was continued, the first three books are an effectively self-contained trilogy.

I first read them in college. And back then (so long ago!) they seemed terribly dark - almost unbearably so. How times have changed; compared to some of the torture-porn that's being put out under the fantasy and science fiction labels, the Black Company seems almost as tame a Curious George.*

Well, not really. But it is much less horrible than I remembered, in retrospect. It's also much better than I remembered. While not necessarily a deathless classic of show more the genre, the books are very well written, well-paced, and exciting. Yes, there is some darkness, but this series would be a good addition to the library of any fantasy fan from mid-teen to adult. And if my memory serves me, the Black Company books did break new ground in fantasy, extending the "dark" trend previously exemplified in Michael Moorcock's Elric books.

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* - I'm talking about you, David Wingrove: you should be in prison, along with Jack Chalker's corpse and some of the contributors to the Wild Cards series. show less

The first books I have been able to read for 10 minutes, put down for a week, come back to for 10 minutes, put down for two weeks; I think you get the point. It was entertaining but nothing I thought I would ever finish or so I thought. It wasn’t until I had a nine day vacation, nine days I took off from writing as well, when I got into the book. I finished around three quarters of the first book and the next two in two days.

Glen Cook’s style of writing is positively wonderful. I’m sure a lot of people don’t like it. I am not one of them. I wish nearly all the books I read, read like these three books. It’s so fun and personal too. Written in the first person, I felt like I knew all of the main characters (not just the person show more talking) in the story by the end of Book 2. I knew exactly how they were going to act in Book 3.

Fantastically written. It comes highly recommended. show less