Markus's Reviews > Chronicles of the Black Company

“No one will sing songs in our memory. We are the last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Our traditions and memories live only in these Annals. We are our own mourners.”

The Chronicles of the Black Company tell the tales and legends of a renowned mercenary company with centuries of histories and tradition, told through the lens of its own preserved annals. Throughout this three-book omnibus edition, first of many, the reader is brought along on a journey from the rich, southern cities of the south to the dark, feared catacombs of the Barrowland in the far north. And some journey that is.

Our story begins in the city of Beryl on the southern shore of the Sea of Torments, where the Black Company sits around and does nothing while it is hired to the service of the local ruler, the Syndic. But the war-hardened mercenaries of the company are never able to rest easy for long. While the city of Beryl is boiling with riots and public unrest, a mysterious black ship carrying an equally enigmatic sorcerer sails into the harbour.

After terminating the agreement with Beryl by letting the Syndic die and slaughtering his Urban Cohorts, the company escapes a city virtually in a state of war. They are left with only one option: to join up with the sorcerer and travel wherever he decides. Their mysterious new employer soon reveals himself to be a representative of the Lady, the dark ruler of a vast empire in the north, who attempts to crush the last great rebellion against her absolute rule. Thus begins the epic tale of the Black Company...

"I believe in our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact, by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another."

The viewpoint of the Black Company is that of common soldiers fighting a war for an evil mistress whose desire is to rule everyone and everything. They live in a world where darkness is fighting against darkness and they have adapted to reality instead of playing heroes. They follow orders without questioning and take their pay, going wherever they have to and fighting whoever they must.

The narrator of the story is Croaker, company physician and annalist. This guy is more or less a brilliant choice for the role, as he sees all the action while also being indispensable enough to stay far enough behind the lines to survive and report everything that happens in his annals, whose pages are filled with centuries of history. The narrative of the trilogy is really well written, and to me it did really feel like reading Croaker's writings most of the time, as opposed to those of a present-day writer. In the last book, the story actually takes place in three different periods of time with three different protagonists, but even there the author easily weaves everything into Croaker's narrative by having the annalist receive letters containing the other parts of the story.

The many different supporting characters all add to the quality of the story in their way, and Croaker's descriptions of them are usually both fascinating and beautiful. Among the soldiers of the company there is the Captain, calm and experienced; Goblin and One-Eye, the constantly quarreling wizards; the loyal and honourable Elmo and the Lieutenant; and the enigmatic Raven, who is a mystery to his fellow mercenaries.

"An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

The Chronicles of the Black Company, the tale of their many years of wars and struggles, of victories and defeats, is an amazingly beautiful one. It's filled with amazing descriptions of places and people, of journeys to the end of the world and of battles against the darkness.

Glen Cook really manages to shape the legend of the Black Company into a great work that any fantasy fan should find the time to read. Through the experiences and musings of Croaker, the reader experiences a haunting story of war and death, love and loss, and even regrets and nostalgia, as the annalist recounts memories from earlier, happier days.

“With the Black Company series Glen Cook single-handedly changed the face of fantasy—something a lot of people didn’t notice and maybe still don’t. He brought the story down to a human level, dispensing with the cliché archetypes of princes, kings, and evil sorcerers. Reading his stuff was like reading Vietnam War fiction on peyote.”
- Steven Erikson

The Chronicles of the Black Company is a trilogy of fantasy novels. But mostly it's a collection of war stories. Of completely normal men fighting a war to earn their pay. This was unlike any other work of fantasy I've ever read, not in a positive or negative way; just different.

In the end though, this was in my eyes a great trilogy and a wonderful reading experience. While this is not normally the kind of fantasy I normally read, I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent reading it and I would not hesitate to recommend it to everyone. And not only fantasy fans, but everyone who loves fiction in general. It is now a series spanning four omnibus editions, and is still being written, with a recently published prequel, and a final book still to come.

(Updated 13/11/15)
(Updated 27/04/20)
This is one of two reviews I have done for this series. This is an introductory one. The other can be found here, and is a look back on the series after having finished.