Chronicles of the Black Company

Chronicles of the Black Company is the first omnibus collection in the Black Company Series by Glen Cook, comprising the books The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose.

The cover art is by Raymond Swanland, who is perhaps my favorite fantasy-themed artist working these days. It's kinda hard for me to attach an adjective for his work... except for ferocious. He does all of the cover art for these Black Company omnibus collections, and all of them make you feel like there is going to be some badass things going on in the book. And there are.

The Black Company is the first book in the series, and in this collection, and makes a pretty good impression for the series as a whole. The story follows the first-person point-of-view of one Croaker, the annalist of the eponymous Black Company, as they are working in a coastal city called Beryl, and are then hired into service to an empire across the sea to the north, ruled by the dreaded "Lady". The empire has been fighting rebel forces (creatively named "The Rebel"), and it becomes the Black Company's job to assist in defeating these forces. 

This first installment is definitely my favorite in the omnibus. The characters are interesting, the dialogue is snappy, realistic, and often funny, and the prose is not burdened with overlong, flowery descriptions. The tale is written like a journal of a man in the military, and is thus very straightforward. Fighting and battles are not drawn-out, instead being realistically portrayed as short engagements spread out over time with periods of lull in between. Despite the long chapter lengths, the book is fast-paced, and there are plenty of breaks that allow you to take a break from reading for the moment without being caught in the middle of a scene.

Second is Shadows Linger, which is just as good as the first installment. It takes place a few years after the events in The Black Company, the events mostly taking place in the city of Juniper, based around the mysterious growth of an ominous black castle located there.

All of the details behind the writing as were in The Black Company are true here as well, except for a couple of differences. Firstly, the chapters are much shorter, and secondly, while most is still told in Croaker's first-person point-of-view, a good deal of it is in third-person as well. It might seem strange at first, but it will make a lot of sense once you get to a certain point in the book.

Last in the omnibus is The White Rose, which takes place almost a decade after Shadows Linger, and whose story I can reveal nothing of due to extremely spoileriffic reasons. I will tell you that The White Rose falls a little flat compared to the first two books, not really coming into its own as a page turner until the last 120 pages or so. It continues the shorter-chapter pattern of the second book as well as the alternating first- and third-person points-of-view, and just like Shadows Linger makes sense even if even stranger than it was before.

Chronicles of the Black Company is a great buy, even if The White Rose doesn't live up to the first two books. It's hard to beat three books for fifteen dollars or less, in a trade paperback format, so that for me ends up pushing this up into "Books That Are Awesome" territory. I highly recommend this gritty, dark, humorous series with its realistic portrayal of military lifestyle. In the end, you will not be disappointed.

Rating: Awesome

Top Five Fantasy Novels

Can't go more than three days without a blog update. It makes me feel terrible inside. Unfortunately, my reading has slowed down somewhat because my writing output has increased, and I've been doing some other important things besides, so I won't be able to do rapid-fire reviews like I did for my first three.

So, content. My current favorite five fantasy novels, limited to one novel per series. I'm not going to go into why these are my favorites; that's what reviews are for. And trust me, I will get around to reviewing all of these.

List is likely to change as I read more. Let's begin!

1) Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson

2) The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (My review for this can be found here.)

3) A Storm of Swords, by George R. R. Martin

4) American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (My review for this can be found here.)

5) The Black Company, by Glen Cook (My review for this can be found here.)

American Gods

  

Neil Gaiman is a pretty well-respected, renowned dude. He started out in journalism, then started writing comic books, and then went on to write novels. Good novels. Novels that win awards. American Gods is one of these award-winning novels, earning Neil the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards in 2002. That right there should give you an idea as to how awesome this book is.

American Gods follows the story of Shadow, a man who has just spent the last three years in prison and is due to be released, and he just wants to live the rest of his life in peace, staying out of trouble, with his wife. When he meets with the warden to discuss his release, he learns that his wife has recently died in a car accident, and things aren't looking so optimistic anymore. As he's heading home, he meets a peculiar man named Mr. Wednesday who knows far more than he should about Shadow. Mr. Wednesday offers Shadow a job, and his life starts taking some very strange turns.

This book borrows heavily from the mythology and folklore of many cultures throughout the world, with such characters such as Mr. Wednesday (Odin), Mr. Nancy (Anansi), Czernobog, and others showing up and playing semi-important roles. It also introduces newer gods, such as the Internet, Media, and other elements of modern American/Global Culture. These gods make for extremely interesting characters, especially in the cases of Mr. Wednesday and Mr. Nancy, who will make you laugh and sympathize and everything in between.

When you have a title like American Gods, you expect the novel to feel... well, American. And Neil Gaiman, an English author, manages to pull it off flawlessly. The words used and the way they are spelled are American English; the prose is very snappy, utilitarian, functional; and the dialogue reads like an American would speak. Down-to-earth, with occasional vulgarity, occasional slang, occasional imperfect grammar. All of that, without being difficult to read on paper.

Another interesting thing about American Gods are the short stories embedded at the ends of a few chapters. They manage to indirectly relate to the events in the book, little folklorish tales that provide a break from the main story without taking away from the novel as a whole. In fact, I believe they add to the whole feel of the book, in both its Americana and mythological mystique.

Get this book. Read this book. Love this book. It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. I think I needn't say more.

Rating: Awesome

Writing Excuses Podcast

Of late, I've been avidly listening to a podcast called "Writing Excuses". It's run by authors Brandon Sanderson of Mistborn fame and Dan Wells of I Am Not A Serial Killer fame, as well as the creator of the popular webcomic Schlock Mercenary, Howard Tayler.

This podcast has been extremely helpful to me, being full of not only tips to help polish one's writing skills, but also information on the business of writing, such as how to market books and how to get published. I am even going to go so far as to say it should be considered an essential resource for aspiring writers.

You can find the podcast here: http://www.writingexcuses.com/

Enjoy!