I am new to the work of Glen Cook, but I do know that his novel The Black Company, published in 1984, is considered by many to be the birth of the popular grimdark category of the fantasy genre which is now dominated by authors like Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, and George R.R. Martin. It is a subgenre that interests me but with which I have little direct experience yet. Of course, I and the rest of the world watched HBO’s Game of Thrones television adaptation based on Martin’s hit series, but as far as the reading of books goes, I think Mark Lawrence’s Red Sister and Jonathan French’s The Grey Bastards are the only two that immediately come to mind.
I found Glen Cook in an odd way. I was watching this video (skip to 27:13) on the YouTube channel The Modern Rogue and hosts Brian Brushwood and Jason Murphy were performing an ad for Audible, discussing the books to which they were listening on the platform. Jason described The Black Company thus: “The Black Company is a group of hard-bitten mercenaries who are mostly trying to do the right thing. It puts a paramilitary gritty spin on all the fantasy tropes.” As brief as the description is, it was enough to sell me on it.
I listened to the Audible Audiobook of The Black Company in Summer 2018 and really enjoyed it. I love Glen Cook’s writing style. His use of vocabulary is just challenging enough that I find myself gratefully dipping into the dictionary a few times each book. Cook’s writing is so economical and elegant, crisp and snappy. Reading Cook’s sentences is like racing across a field on a horseback. It feels so good.
I loved the moral flexibility of the characters, which is a primary element of grimdark fantasy. Within The Black Company, the heroes might very well be the villains of traditional fantasy stories. In Cook’s story, however, they operate in a grey area, hoping they are doing the right thing but really working for whoever is paying their contract. While I would like to imagine myself as good and pure as Tolkien’s Frodo Baggins, I relate much more to Cook’s heroes. Here is Croaker, the Company’s annalist and physician, on the subject: “I do not believe in evil absolute. I believe in our side and theirs with the good and evil decided after the fact by those who survive. Among men, you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another.”
In Shadows Linger, book two of The Chronicles of The Black Company, the Company is in service of The Lady, one of several powerful beings known as The Taken. The Lady orders them to the distant northern coastal city Juniper where evil is brewing. Croaker thinks The Lady is evil too, but this is a case of choosing the lesser of two. The devil you know and all that. Shadows Linger introduces one of my favorite characters of the series so far, Marron Shed, a tavern owner in debt to some dangerous people. His character arc is wonderful.
Because I have listened to both The Black Company and Shadows Linger on Audible, I now have particular fondness for the narrator Marc Vietor. In his performance of both books, he injects a tone of weariness in his voice, perfect for the ever-exhausted Croaker and his companions. While I still prefer to hold a physical book in my hands, Vietor is a prime example of the benefits of audiobooks.
I am now infatuated with this series about the bedraggled Company and am eagerly shifting book three, The White Rose, higher on my TBR.