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| The Omnibus Edition |
My interest in Glen Cook is explained in large part by my being an unabashed fan-boy for the works of Steven Erikson (SE) and Ian Cameron Esselmont (ICE), who are the co-creators of my favorite fantasy series - or universe, really. SE's Malazan Book of the Fallen is a true magnum opus, and ICE's Novels of Malaz are great additions to the vast universe they've gamed out. Time and again, I had heard that SE and ICE owe a great debt of inspiration to Glen Cook (they even admit themselves that there are elements in their books that they ripped off of Cook wholesale!)... I thought it was about time I started tracing the antecedents for SE and ICE's work. Who knows? Doing so might even inspire me to complete my abortive "Malazan Mediation"...
This then is a reflection (not quite a review) on my first run-in with SE and ICE's genre daddy! At the risk of giving away the gut punch of this article early, let me say this: as soon as I finished "The White Rose", I ordered the remaining seven published books in paperback from Flipkart, because they don't seem to be in the Kindle store!
The Credo
Very early on in the first book in the series appears this passage:
"Every ruler makes enemies. The Lady is no exception. The Sons of the White Rose are everywhere. If one chooses sides on emotion, then the Rebel is the guy to go with. He is fighting for everything men claim to honor: freedom, independence, truth, the right... All the subjective illusions, all the eternal trigger-words. We are minions of the villain of the piece. We confess the illusion and deny the substance. There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies. We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant."
No better introduction need be offered for Glen Cook's writings. This is not your childhood fantasy, of funny dwarves and majestic elves and spunky Hobbits. No Men of the West fighting the savage Easterlings, and although there is a Dark Lord in the piece, the cliche is subverted..
These books aren't about good or evil; they are instead about the many characters that make up the mercenary company known as the Black Company, the last "free company" from Khatovar, so old that no surviving members remember if Khatovar is in fact a city, a country, or a continent! No one's even sure if it is a place at all!
Through the murkiest beginnings to the present day, the Company is guided by that credo - fight for money, fight for pride, abjure labels. They have worked time and again for 'Dark Lords', as much as they have for Messiahs and Saviors - they work not for causes and beliefs, they simply... fight together.
The Plot
Our narrator through the present day tale is a man called Croaker, the Annalist of the Company, whose charge consists of a history of the Company stretching far back into its murky past. We are swiftly introduced to characters that threaten to take you into cliche abyss - two crabby squad mages, a man who has vowed silence, a mysterious new recruit, a foundling, a laconic but competent Captain, and his trusted Lieutenant.
The Company soon come into the service of The Lady, the wife of an evil dark lord type buried yonder, who came out of slumber herself, and brought her husbands minions - the Ten who were Taken - with her. The Company becomes integral to her plans for world domination and the defeat of the 'Rebel' who has taken up arms against her, awaiting the reincarnation of the White Rose, a prophesied savior who beat the Lady and her husband The Dominator the first time around, and buried them..
Yes - the cliches and tropes are all there. You'd expect the Lady to be Sauron, and the Dominator to be Morgoth. The Taken are clearly the Nazgul. Soon, the world of men will take up arms as the White Rose is reborn...
Wait.
Not really.
The Taken are not faceless minions - well, one of them literally has no face, but that apart - they have personalities and politics. They fight one another - more like the Forsaken from the Wheel of Time than the Nazgul then? Not quite - they kill each other and stay dead. Fear not, new ones are manufactured. The Lady, contrary to expectation, is not really all that bad, and is in no hurry to dig up her husband either! Croaker in fact is quite enamored of her, and although a powerful sorceress, she is rather a dish.
The Company itself is not all that nice. Its soldiers pillage and rape, as did all medieval soldiers. It is a band of cut-throats and mean people, and yet it is a brotherhood. The new recruit with a mysterious past isn't an all conquering hero, but quite a dick.
Our 'heroes' work to undermine the Rebel in the first book, succeeding in an apocalyptic battle at the end. And yet, even in that victory, the seeds are sown for the Company's eventual - inevitable - turn against the Lady, culminating in a showdown between her, her husband, and the White Rose at the end of the first trilogy, which comes together and ends in ways that are anything but expected. Even the most jaded and practiced reader of fantasy will be surprised.
The Writing
Quite contrary to my expectations, and the style employed by SE and ICE, these books are short. I mean they're scarcely bigger than standard issue pulp mystery novels. At about 300 pages each, they are on average one third the size of a Malazan volume. And yet, Cook's economy with words in no way hampers the world-building, plotting, or characterization.
The characters will feel very familiar indeed to any Malazan fans. The Bridgeburners, the Bonehunters, those world-weary, cynical bastards owe their birth very clearly to the members of the Black Company. They are delightful, and hoary, and despicable, and wise... in perfect balance. They leave behind the names of their birth, and take on such delightfully descriptive ones as Silent, One-Eye, Raven, Goblin, and Darling.
Another departure from standard (somewhat snooty, to be honest) practice in the genre these days is - there are no maps! Although the tale told in the first three books happens "in the North" and the next omnibus is in fact called "The Books of the South", we are given not so much as a local city map where the action happens.
What surprised me was how fresh and contemporary these books felt, although the first three were written between 1984 and 85, with the final book coming out in 2000. Although contemporaneous with David Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean, and the initial books of the Wheel of Time sequence, these books are really short, really adult in theme and voice, and not escapist in the sense of standard fantasy fare.
These are perhaps the roots for the 'gritty' fantasy of today, along with the (contemporaneous) First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever - another set of books by Stephen Donaldson that SE and ICE admire. (On a personal aside, it was on Donaldson's recommendation on his site that I first bothered reading the works of SE). They fit right in with the work, for example, of Joe Abercrombie when it comes to grit and gore, and the works of Brandon Sanderson when it comes to inverting plot tropes.
The Philosophy
Despite the short length, the fast paced and intricate plot, and an undercurrent of world weary cynicism, these books are quite cheerful in their message (as I interpreted it). Although they deny notions of absolute good or evil, they do promote a sort of decency, which shines through time and again in unlikely places.
In the second book for example, there is a powerful tale of redemption, where an initially despicable character follows an arc that takes him from sniveling coward to a man of conviction (if little power) that becomes central to the plot.
The verdict on humanity is mixed however, for at the same time, a 'hero' of the strong and silent type is revealed in the end to be an emotional coward, who for all his strength ends up alone and sad.
Our moral compass through it all, Croaker the Annalist, perhaps exemplifies this mixed verdict. As he labors on in his role as a healer and a writer, against mounting odds, his moral compass does not waver. To me, the books speak of this fight to maintain a shred of honor, of truth and decency in a bleak, grey world. It matters not if one character wins the fight and another loses, what matters in the end is that they tried...
In Conclusion...
Although not for everyone, these books are a must-read for any fan of good fantasy fiction. It is a "are you daft enough to miss it?" read for any Malazan fans, and a dose of "wake up and smell the literature" for anyone who disdains the genre. It would also serve as a good shock to the system of any fantasy fan (and there are many) who are yet to move beyond Tolkein, Lewis, and their many, many derivatives.
No, the farm-boy doesn't rescue the princess from the dark lord's dragon here, mate! He ends up working as a minion for the Lord, and the girl kills him for getting naughty with her. And rides the dragon off into the sunset...
Onward then, to the further chronicles... specifically, The Books of the South!
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