The Black Company series by Glen Cook

[roo_ster]

Good, gritty (without being slaughter porn), medieval military fantasy.  Some descriptions are a bit harsh, but most of the nasty bits are related matter-of-fact in a workaday fashion without the need for clinical descriptions.

The books follow a mercenary unit as they ply their trade in a fantasy setting.  There is magic & such, but no Mos Eisely cafe freak show of intelligent races.

The first three Northern books are all good.  The Southern books have a few too many coincidences and such, but are still worth your while.  I have read 5 in the series, total.

The series has been around for a while, so you can find used books. I ended up paying Amazon roughly $3/ebook.  Not great literature, but a good read.

[Sindawe]

Not great literature...

My brother unforgiven.

Five books.  That would place you at the end of 'Shadow Games' (if you include 'The Silver Spike' in the count), or at the end of 'Dreams of Steel'.  Even though 'Bleak Seasons' can be a bit confusing, plowing through it (several times if need too, I did) helps to add color, depth and sets the stage for the subsiquent books.  Rumor has two more works in progress past the last release several years ago.

There is magic & such, but no Mos Eisely cafe freak show of intelligent races

For that you have to visit a place known as TunFaire.  Be sure to dine at The Palms, ask for Morley's Meat Lover's Special. 

I've sampled some of the other works of Glen Cook, and while enjoyable they just don't speak to me like The Black Company or Garrett novels do.

[Perd Hapley]

The Black Company? Any relation to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle?

[BryanP]

Glen Cook's Black Company and Garrett novels are very enjoyable. Very different feel to each series though.

Huh.  Reading Cook's wikipedia entry it appears there are two unpublished BC novels. Good to know.

[roo_ster]

The Black Company? Any relation to the works of Arthur Conan Doyle?

No.

[roo_ster]

My brother unforgiven.

Five books.  That would place you at the end of 'Shadow Games' (if you include 'The Silver Spike' in the count), or at the end of 'Dreams of Steel'.  Even though 'Bleak Seasons' can be a bit confusing, plowing through it (several times if need too, I did) helps to add color, depth and sets the stage for the subsiquent books.  Rumor has two more works in progress past the last release several years ago.

For that you have to visit a place known as TunFaire.  Be sure to dine at The Palms, ask for Morley's Meat Lover's Special. 

I've sampled some of the other works of Glen Cook, and while enjoyable they just don't speak to me like The Black Company or Garrett novels do.

How did I know you would respond in this thread?

I'll read Silver Spike at a later time.  I am currently reading Bleak Seasons.

[RaspberrySurprise]

For those that play DnD and like the Black Company setting there is a rulebook for use alongside 3.5e DnD. The rules can be rather... brutal though lol.

[Balog]

The first trilogy in the Black Company series are some of my favorite books. They're also one of if not the first ventures into making a sword n sorcery fantasy setting with a dark and gritty noir feel. I know Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" are older, but they're not really in the same vein.

[MillCreek]

Having not read any of these books, are they somewhat like the sword and sorcery books done by Fritz Leiber or Michael Moorcock?

[roo_ster]

Having not read any of these books, are they somewhat like the sword and sorcery books done by Fritz Leiber or Michael Moorcock?

No.

I love Fritz Leiber's work unreservedly and Moorcock is the master of the brilliant idea combined with mediocre execution.  The closest of Moorcock's work might be The War Hound and the World's Pain, but it still does not get the taste of the Black Company.  The Black Company is neither a vehicle for a Really Big Fantastical Idea (Eternal REMF) nor (the very best) pulp sword & sorcery.

While FL & MM are not happy-happy/joy-joy fantasy, they are do not have the gritty realism (within the fantastical bounds of the setting) of the Black Company books.  (I am not talking violence-porn or clinical close-ups of gore).  If you stripped out the fantastical elements, the Black Company books would read something like a journal of an officer in a renaissance Italy mercenary band. 

If you can slog through MM's work, the Black Company will be no problem.  Cook is a much better writer, execution-wise. 

FTR, I have read roughly 90% of FL's and MM's work at one time or another.

[MillCreek]

Thanks, rooster!  I must look these up. It sounds as if I will like them.

[roo_ster]

Even though 'Bleak Seasons' can be a bit confusing, plowing through it (several times if need too, I did) helps to add color, depth and sets the stage for the subsiquent books. 

Alternately, Cook is just flashing his backside at his readers.  "Here, you must jump through some hoops to prove you are worthy to read my stuff."  Never been impressed with that sort of thing.

So far the books of the South are decidedly inferior to those of the North.  Unless they improve, I can not recommend them.

[Sindawe]

Alternately, Cook is just flashing his backside at his readers.  "Here, you must jump through some hoops to prove you are worthy to read my stuff."  Never been impressed with that sort of thing.

So far the books of the South are decidedly inferior to those of the North.  Unless they improve, I can not recommend them.

I take 'Bleak Seasons' in a like vein as 'The Silver Spike'; sorta a side tale that does have some bearing on the main thread(s) of the series.

Keep in mind that the Analyst Croaker in 'Shadow Games' is not the same Croaker who set quil to parchment in the Books of the North.  He'd survived the events in the first three novels; and come out a changed man.  And 'Dreams of Steel' is mostly from another's viewpoint entirely.

The action & writing does tighten up in 'She Is The Darkness'; and 'Water Sleeps' in some ways feels like the writtings early in the series.

I don't think Glen Cook was mooning his readers with the Books of the South, its just his take on how things progresses in THIS tale.  I've read other works by him contemporary to these that have a distinctly lineir flow.

All long running series have their high and low points.  For every The Inner Light, there is a The Game

[roo_ster]

OK, I finished the last of the published Black Company Books, excepting Silver Spike.  No spoilers follow.

I can unreservedly recommend the first three, the Books of the North.  All the rest, however, are not nearly the same quality, despite being of greater quantity.

I would liken the series to Star Trek. The Original Series was great, had action, and snuck in enough "things that make you go 'Hmmm'" to give it some depth.  The Next Generation devolved into people standing around talking.  Talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk.  Hey, there was a battle somewhere, but instead of writing about it, let us talk some more and (as an author) I'll moon the readers who became attached to the characters/plot in the first three books. 

I may read the first three again in the future, but I never will read the latter six and I can not in good faith suggest one spend the time to do so the first time around.

A great idea and good execution for the first 1/3 of the books, milked dry in the latter 2/3 of the books.

    Books of the North:

    The Black Company (May 1984)
    Shadows Linger (October 1984)
    The White Rose (April 1985)

    Barrowlands:

    The Silver Spike (September 1989)

    Books of the South:

    Shadow Games (June 1989)
    Dreams of Steel (April 1990)

    Books of the Glittering Stone:

    Bleak Seasons (April 1996)
    She Is the Darkness (September 1997)
    Water Sleeps (March 1999)
    Soldiers Live (July 2000)