"We fight for money and an indefinable pride."

I just finished the first 3 books of the Black Company series by Glen Cook (single volume, The Chronicles of the Black Company). Mustafa made me buy it. Literally. On the last day of Kathy and Mustafa's visit last month, we had breakfast at IHOP and then poked around in a Barnes and Noble. I was watching Elaine in the kids' section (she had a blast) while everyone else did some shopping. Mustafa placed this book in my hands and told me that I have to read it.

The book is told from first person perspective. The voice is Croaker, an ironic name for the physician/soldier of the legendary Black Company, a highly disciplined band of mercenaries that could trace their existence back for many centuries through their Annals. Croaker is also the Company Annalist, which is why we experience the story through his eyes. The secret to the Company's success is a combination of planning and sorcery. Three of the Company members are skilled spellcasters. The Company are not the Good Guys. They merely fulfill the obligation of their hire. Protection. Warfare. Assassination. The Company exists to ensure the further existence of the Company.

The main narrative revolves around how the Black Company, and specifically Croaker, become involved in a cyclical prophecy. Long ago, the world was under the rule of a very powerful sorcerer, the Dominator. (I should stop here to point out that all of the sorcerers have ridiculous pseudonyms; to declare a sorcerer's true name deprives him/her of all of their power.) Apparently, the Domination was a bad time. The Dominator was married to the Lady, who was nearly as powerful as he. The end of the Domination came when the White Rose, a girl, defeated the Dominator and the Lady and interred them among multiple spells and safeguards in the Barrowlands. They were too powerful to kill.

Later, a too-curious wizard accidentally let the Lady out of her prison. She immediately began a push for control of all of the lands. She ends up hiring the Black Company as her personal bodyguard. She has the ability to take powerful sorcerers and make them her subjects, more powerful than they would ever have been alone. These Taken are the boogeymen of the story, alternately advancing and twisting the plot as you try to figure out where their individual loyalties lie. The Lady wants no part of her husband's resurrection, and the Dominator's touch and allure was never fully eradicated. The crisis comes as a comet appears in the sky, heralding the birth of the next White Rose, meaning that the Dominator's time of imprisonment is drawing short.

That's the basic plot explored by the first 3 books. I liked the concept, and enjoyed all of the great wizard battles and military planning. The whole thing kept reminding me of Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, except THIS ONLY TOOK THREE VOLUMES. The story was of a similar scope and theme, without all of the tiresome descriptive passages and repetition. In fact, these books provided all of the things that I liked about The Wheel of Time and excluded all of the things that I disliked.

The third book was not the end of the stories of the Black Company, but I'm assuming that they're the end of Croaker's involvement. I liked the story and I was satisfied enough with where it ended up that I'm not likely to pick up any more of these. It was a fun read, and I'd recommend it to any fantasy aficionados.

Now here's some pictures of us at the bookstore. (Smooth, eh?)