Slow-moving and at times overwhelmingly bleak, The Black Company still ends up on my recommended reading list.

Glen Cook's novel describes the day-to-day operations of the Black Company, a mercenary troop that has a storied past (as regaled by the narrator, an Annalist named Croaker). As mercenaries, the Company can scarcely afford to choose its employers. The very first chapter sets up the moral emptiness at the core of the Company's decisions, as they betray their first employer in favor of a second, more powerful, and better-paying one. But by the end of the first chapter it becomes apparent that the Company has signed on with somebody far worse than any employer in recent memory. The being controlling the Company's actions turns out to be none other than the Lady, who, along with the Taken, her enslaved wizard minions, seeks to re-establish her dominance over a world she formerly ruled with her unfathomably evil husband, the Dominator.

The rest of the book concerns the Black Company's battles for the Lady against her chief opponents, a motley group of rebels (called "the Rebels") led by an ever-changing cadre of wizards known as the Circle. Because Cook tells the story from the point of view of a foot soldier (Croaker, although he is a physician by training, is expected to fight alongside everybody else), what results is an unremittingly bleak series of battle after endless battle, fought for reasons too obscure to be comprehended by the main actors in the book.

Cook does an excellent job with the atmosphere The fantasy world that Cook constructs is fascinating: there are hints of all sorts of weirdness, without anything explicit being said (except about the foklava, which hurts the effect of their introduction). Because most of the time the foot-soldiers deal with the muck and blood of the daily grind, their few encounters with true power are awe-inspiring. For instance, at one point the Black Company comes into contact with one of the Taken who are so heartlessly using them as pawns. Cook gives us this description.

It looked as tall as a house and half as wide. It wore scarlet bleached by time, moth-eaten, and tattered. It came up the street in a sort of shamble, now fast, now slow. Wild, stringy grey hair tangled around its head. Its bramble patch of a beard was so thick and matted with filth that its face was all but invisible. One pallid, liver-spotted hand clutched a pole of a staff that was a thing of beauty defiled by its bearer's touch. It was an immensely elongated female body, perfect in every detail. Someone whispered, "They say that was a real woman back during the Domination. They say she cheated on him."

Finally, Cook aptly conveys the feeling of being just a grunt, with the gallows humor that accompanies the fear that the next day may be your last (especially when your commanders have little concern for your welfare).

The plot is somewhat less compelling. At times the storyline feels aimless, meandering. With so little control over their own actions, the Black Company moves from one mission to another without any real sense of purpose, jerked around by authorities outside of their control and comprehension. Partly because of this, all of the characters also seem cold and slightly off. But the plot picks up near the end, when Croaker is given more responsibility than ever before, and comes into contact with powers heretofore only rumored about.

My biggest problem with this book, however, is that it is almost all set-up for the rest of the series. The ending of the book is the first time something truly significant seems to happen--and then it's over. It's a good ending, but not quite enough to sit through 300 pages of depressing prose for. On the other hand, by the end of the book I had a good understanding of the Lady, the Taken, and the history of Croaker's world. If only Cook had done something about it in this book, I would have been much happier.

The Black Company never filled me with joy while reading it--it was too bleak of a tale, filled with too much despair and gallows humor, to make me smile. But it has raised my interest enough to pursue the next book in the series. Read this if you feel like you've had too much cotton-candy sweetness recently (a la Terry Pratchett). But don't expect to walk away with a grin on your face.

Copyright © 2002 Steven Wu