Glen Cook?

[Androxine Vortex]

I was in Barnes n Noble the other day to pick up a Warhammer 40K novel and I spotted a bunch of awesome looking books. They were all written by the same author, Glen Cook, and they were all about the "Black Company." I read a little bit about the series online (didn't expect there to be so many!) and it sounds like a really good read. Just wanted to know if anyone else has read any of these books and if they are worth paying for? I also am not sure where to start because there are different series like Books of the North, South, etc.

 

[gerald.parson]

By recommendation, on this forum I believe actually, I read "The Black Company" and currently half way thru "Shadow Games". I like them both very well. So I would say, give it a shot.

 

[Steerpike]

The Black Company books are a lot of fun. I second the recommendation.

 

[ThinkerX]

I third the recommendation.

 

[Ravana]

And I may well have been the one who originated the recommendation gerald mentions… so I'm not sure if it's appropriate for me to say I fourth it or that I primed it.

The complete order of the books is:

The Black Company
Shadows Linger
The White Rose
The Silver Spike [This is a one-off; it takes place, and therefore should be read, after the first trilogy, but follows a different event line than the rest of the series.]
Shadow Games
Dreams of Steel
Bleak Seasons
She is the Darkness
Glittering Stone
Soldiers Live

The first three are fairly easy to find at used bookstores in the SFBC edition. All of them appear collected in one or another permutation, depending on the publisher involved.

And, yes, I did do that by memory. Which should give some sense of how many times I've read them.

 

[shangrila]

Yeah, it's a great series. It took me a while to get used to the 1st person perspective, but once you do you'll really feel like you're reading Croaker's thoughts.

Personally, I skipped The Silver Spike. After reading 5 books about Croaker I wanted to stick with him rather than the group that left.

 

[Steerpike]

Personally, I skipped The Silver Spike. After reading 5 books about Croaker I wanted to stick with him rather than the group that left.

It is well worth going back to

 

[shangrila]

I would, and after finishing that series I have no doubt it'd be a good book, but I've got SO MANY others sitting in my book case waiting to be read its not funny. Bakker's trilogy, all of Sanderson's work, Rothfuss' books, the Esslemont Malazan stuff, Thomas Covenant chronicles, the Long Prince quartet, Song of Ice and Fire, Gormenghast trilogy, Acacia, a couple of Meville's books, something called Orcs, not to mention I'm prepared to drop everything when the next Locke Lamora book comes out.

Ugh.

 

[Shockley]

Glen Cook is the author who convinced me that great villains can drive a story. I love the Limper.

 

[Ankari]

Glen Cook's Black Company series rocked. I loved how intimate you became with Croaker. I loved the realness of the characters. The fact that none would fit the "knight in shining armor" mold also was a strong point. Another thread was asking about language barriers. These books handle that aspect very well. Definitely worth the read. I don't know why, but I had a hard time getting every book. A new publisher has been putting each leg of the series in one book, so I think its a lot easier to find now.

 

[Ghost]

Definitely, definitely read them. I rescued some Black Company books my dad was going to throw away. It's criminal and makes me think we're not really related. Anyway, I love the first one, but I'm missing the second book. Why does that always happen to me?! Book two of every series I get into mysteriously vanishes from libraries, bookstores, and my own bookshelves. It's like a cosmic joke.

Anyway, I'll check at the library once I finish the books in my reading queue.

 

[Christopher Wright]

I only read the first two (because only two had been released at the time) and never found out about the others. So... thank you for this thread! The first two were amazing, and now I'm going to look for the others.

 

[Steerpike]

Definitely, definitely read them. I rescued some Black Company books my dad was going to throw away. It's criminal and makes me think we're not really related. Anyway, I love the first one, but I'm missing the second book. Why does that always happen to me?! Book two of every series I get into mysteriously vanishes from libraries, bookstores, and my own bookshelves. It's like a cosmic joke.

Anyway, I'll check at the library once I finish the books in my reading queue.

LOL. I hope you find it somewhere! I bet you can get a used copy on Amazon or something.