Author Glen Cook has been around in the fantasy publishing business for quite some time, in fact his first novel in the ‘Black Company’ series was published in May 1984. Yet, unlike the writer influenced by his storytelling, Steven Erikson, he has never rose to prominence in his field of work. Indeed, if it was not for the Steven Erikson mentioned earlier, I might not ever have read any of Cook’s works. Erikson’s latest Reeaper’s Gale was dedicated to Glen Cook, and that did caught my interest. As I said, Erikson was influenced by Glen Cook, especially when creating his Bridgeburners, a squad of gritty soldiers not very unlike Cook’s Black Company. So when I started reading this book, I not only set out on a dark journey seen through the eyes of a world weary soldier named Croaker, but I also set out in a search for the very source of imagination that had sparkled the imagination of Steven Erikson while creating his own cast of characters.
The similarities between the two squads, the Bridgeburners and the Black Company, are striking. For example, the gritty, down-to-earth style in which the Black Company operates can be also seen in the way in which the Bridgeburners conducts their business. The character One-Eye, a moderately talented wizard who appears to be more than meets the eye, is in many ways very reminiscent of Quick-Ben. Also, members of the Black Company continually play a card game Tonk, this reminded my a lot of the strange card games Fiddler and Hegde played during the Genebackis campaign. The Captain, leader of the mercenaries is not unlike Whiskeyjack, wearing his heart in the right place, but buckled under the weight of responsibilities for his squad. Both squads can be described as kind of ’shady’, not totally right or wrong, but with its own sense of honour and duty. If we explore the themes in both debut novels even further we find resemblecanes there, too. The situation in which both squads find themselves at the beginning of the story is identical, they are trapped in a war that they have not really chosen to fight in, but they carry on nonetheless. Commanding them from above, it a seemingly ‘untouchable’ Empress (Laseen/The Lady), with a handful of strong minions (The Claw/The Taken) who are the only ones allowed to communicate with the absolute ruler.
So it is in many ways very clear what led Steven Erikson to creating his squad of gritty soldiers, but I think he has managed to do a better job at that than Glen Cook did.
Cook’s style of writing is compact, nothing fancy but straight to the point. Especially at the first fifty pages or so, I struggled to get into the story because his very style put me off. The author has a habit of switching to present tense when explaining things. I will give you an example illustrating my point:
… They sparked something monstrous.
The perpetually abrasive weather does things to men’s reason. The Beryl mob is savage. Riots occur almost without provocation. When things go bad the the dead number in the thousands. This was one the worst times...
This was bothering me quite a lot during the first chapters. As you see Glen Cook’s keeps the length of sentences to the minimum, but in fact, the writing is clunky at times, not completely smooth. My example illustrates yet another thing that did bugged me while reading the novel. As a starting writer the first rule of thumb you learn is show not tell, meaning you have to use descriptions of the actions taken by the mob which will illustrate the fact that the mob is savage (ie. they start throwing rocks, demolishing buildings) instead of telling the reader that the mob is savage. It’s fair to say that Glen Cook does ignore this rule quite a lot, leading to a boring story and a struggle to read for the first parts. It is in the latter parts of the novel that his writing seem to improve and likewise the overall quality of the story.
Apart from the style aspects of this novel, there were more elements in the prose that I found bothersome. For starters, Cook kept adding characters along the way, without really explaining where they came from. They just appear out of nowhere, when they’re somehow needed a plot device. The characterisation of most the soldiers of the Black Company was poorly done, most of them looked a like. In fact, only the person the story is told by, Croaker, seemed like a ’round character’, someone you could have been a person of flesh and blood. In addition, in the latter chapters of the novel Cook sets up subplot, adds a little romance into the mix, but it did the story little good because the gritty tone seemed to suffer from it.
Another aspect that I found confusing, was the fact that the setting is never fully explained. A map added to the book would come handy. The four points on the compass seemed to have different kind of climates, natural barriers separating them but it all remained vague. Various places are recalled during the stories, only adding to the confusion.
So what aspects did I do like? Well, I think as I said earlier, the characterisation of Croaker was very nicely done. He is really portrayed as a world weary soldier, somewhat of an anti-hero, and you got to empathise with that. Apart from the fluency of the writing, I really liked the dark, gritty tone, the matter of fact-ly way in which business was conducted.
In conclusion I can say that this book did not really lived up to its expectations, as the writing style and the characterisation really put me off. I think Steven Erikson has done a much better job at incoperating a gritty style into an epic fantasy setting. After reading the first of the Black Company novels, I think it is fair to say I have not really any inclination to read any following installment of this series. If I ever pick up another Black Company novel, it will be to see if the quality improves. For now, I would rate this effort:
Five out of Ten
lawrence89
