Book Review: Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook (The Black Company omnibus #1)

“Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.”                                  -Glen Cook, The Black Company

I love reading fantasy fictions. It is my favorite genre. I particularly enjoy the kind of heroic fantasy written by authors such as Joe Abercrombie, Steven Erikson, Mark Lawrence, and George R.R. Martin. I am attracted to this type of fantasy books because they are dark, gritty, and have morally ambiguous characters, where life exists in shades of gray. In other words, these authors dispense the stereotypical fantasy tropes, and write fantasy stories set in worlds like ours and filled with people like us.

Since when did the genre of fantasy took on this face? Supposedly, it started in 1976, when author Glen Cook published a series of military fantasy books called “The Black Company”. 40 years later, The Black Company has become a cult classic in the genre, and it is widely recognized as Glen Cook's signature works. Tor has re-published all 9 books in The Black Company series, into 4 omnibus collections. I have had all 4 of them on my bookshelf for almost 6 months, and I finally started to read this series. The first omnibus collection is called “Chronicles of the Black Company”. This omnibus, collects the first 3 books to the series, they are; The Black Company, Shadow Linger, and The White Rose. Today, I will review the first omnibus collection.

Synopsis:

With 400 years of history and fighting experience, The Black Company is a band of mercenary soldiers with a fierce reputation. They were hired to fight for The Lady, an evil sorceress who ruled the northern empire with an iron fist. In the meantime, the rebel forces within the empire seek to overthrow The Lady as an ancient prophecy predicted the downfall of the evil sorceress. In the middle of this conflict, The White Rose, a powerful heroine who once defeated the forces of evil, is reborn.

The Black Company is sucked into this epic struggle, but very soon, they discovered good and evil aren't always separated by a clear line. Meanwhile, an ancient, sadistic, and powerful entity stirs in his tomb, seeking to rise and once again dominate the world..

What I think about this book:

After I read this book, I can see why The Black Company is held with such high regards in the fantasy genre. It is not hard to see how this series turned the fantasy genre upside down when it was released. The story is really interesting. In the beginning of the book, we were told that The Black Company was hired to fight for the evil guys, but we weren't told why their employers are evil. The same applies for the supposed “good” guys whom The Black Company was against. However, as the story developed, we began to see, that while the “bad” guys weren't very nice, but the “good” guys weren't always good either. In this story, Glen Cook emphasized a point; Often, the conflicts between mortals aren't always as simple as good versus evil. Instead, conflicts often pitch those who have power, versus those who are without it. I heard that Glen Cook is a veteran of the Vietnam war, it seems Cook imbued his own experience into this story, and I think he made some good points about the nature of conflicts.

In terms of writing, admittedly, it took me a while to get used to Cook's style. Unlike most modern fantasy authors, Glen Cook doesn't write descriptive sentences. It seems he is kind of a minimalist when it comes to describing events and scenery. Initially, Cook's style of writing created a huge problem for me, especially in part 1 of this omnibus. Let me explain. The story is narrated in first person, by a physician in The Black Company, named Croaker. However, there are very little descriptions whenever major events took place. For example, there are many instances when battles would take place, but the entire battle scene would be skipped. I finally figured out this was done on purpose, because this book is meant to be appear as military field reports (hence the first person narration). Obviously, the narrator's reports are limited by his visions, i.e. he can't report what he didn't see (it makes sense). Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel that part 1 of this omnibus is really choppy and disjointed. I constantly had to re-read paragraphs to understand what was happening. Therefore, I did not enjoy the first part of this omnibus.

The book was significantly better in part 2, Shadow Linger. This part is simply brilliant. The story is still narrated in first person by Croaker, but we also get a second story line, where we meet a very interesting character called Shed. He is a cowardly tavern owner who first appeared as a pathetic man. However, as the story went on, Shed's character changed and grew, he faced and struggled with human conditions. Shed's story is so intriguing, I was totally sucked into the story, and couldn't put the book down until part 2 was over. By the end of it, I was sorry to say goodbye to Shed. The writings in part 2 is more cohesive, and it is far better than part 1,

In Part 3, The White Rose, Cook threw 3 parallel stories into the book. The characters in The White Rose are interesting. However, they are not as intriguing as Shed from Shadow Linger. They also struggle with human conditions, but not as deeply and realistically as how Shed struggled. There are certain dimensions in Shed that was missing from the characterizations in The White Rose. Make no mistake, The White Rose still has a good story, but it pales slightly in comparison to Shadow Linger.

Overall, I enjoyed this omnibus, the writings are a bit dense and unusual, but the story of The Black Company illustrates a fine point: The moral problems in this world are not always black and white, but exit in shades of gray. I can imagine when this was released in 1976, it must have kicked the traditional, Tolkien style fantasy tropes in the balls with messages about moral ambiguity. I like The Black Company, the characters are interesting, it has a good story that makes a good point, and I want to read the rest of the series.

Stay tuned, next time I will review the second omnibus to The Black Company series, titled “Books of the South”