The Black Company

Hello and welcome to another episode of Is This Just Fantasy? The podcast where every other week two nerds get together to rate, read and review a fantasy novel. I'm your host, Geordie Bailey. And I'm the man recording everything we do for the sake of the annuals, Duncan Nicoll. I love that. That's a really good intro, Duncan, but I did notice that you pronounced it as an annual, like a collection of Beano magazines. It's the annals. Oh, that's embarrassing.

I'll have you know that I've read this entire series through and I have been pronouncing it the annuals the entire time. And even more embarrassing, Geordie, you're spot on. That's because I had the Beano as a kid. I knew it. I absolutely knew it. Duncan, I don't know how it's going to come across, but you do have Beano energy. Thank you. That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. You lived by the seaside growing up. You probably ate fish and chips like for morning, noon and night.

I mean, weekly. Did your school not have a fish and chip day? No, but the college I work for now does. So every Friday, if I want, I can get fish and chips. It was decreed at some point, I think. It was a lizard beefen. There was some sort of when they said everyone had to practice archery after church, there was also a we want to increase the amount of people eating fish. So the fishermen make more money. Do we do like a, you know, do we just do like a campaign?

Do we just try to tell people how healthy it is? No, let's just say God decreed it. Yeah, Walter Raleigh came back from the Americas with the potato and Queen Elizabeth I said, this is great. We're going to celebrate this every Friday. Best decision she ever made. Right, Geordie. Let's get into no, before we get into things, let's ask the age old question. Geordie, have you been reading, watching, experiencing any other fancy related stuff or stuff you just want to join with us?

Join with us, share with us. The last fortnight. I have not. I've had a very hectic time with work and I'm moving house. This is the last time I'll be recording in this room and heaven knows what the acoustics in the next one are going to sound like. So this might make or break the podcast, but no, I've not been reading anything. I do have something I'm looking forward to, but actually Duncan, I would like to bring that up last of all, because I think it would pivot quite well into the episode.

So Duncan, have you been reading anything in the meantime? Yes, I have. I've actually finished two fantasy books in addition to the book of the day. I know I'm actually really pushed about out. I caught a real reading kick, which is funny. Well done, Duncan. I finished this book an hour ago. Well, I have read two other books. I read another Star Wars book, as we all know. I'm a big old fan and I just finished reading the Legends series book X-Wing Book 3, the Kratos Trap. I see. That's right.

So this will be one of the books that is one of the very earliest books then, like after Return of the Jedi, but before the Thrawn trilogy. That is absolutely right. So this book series is really fun. It focuses on the fighter pilots in Rogue Squadron during the time where the rebellion is kind of retaking Coruscant, which is the imperial capital planet. And I think what's really nice about this series is that we don't follow a Jedi.

You know, we're not following like the immortal crew and it just gives the whole thing a little bit more, dare I say, boots on the ground. This is the war from the perspective of a bit more of an average person. The third book in the series I really enjoyed. I didn't maybe enjoy it as much of the previous books. It kind of pivoted where the previous books in the series are very much more about starfighter action and daring battles above cityscapes.

This book goes in a different direction, which I think it kind of needed to do to for the series not to kind of get repetitive. This focus around two main plots. You've got a military trial where one of the teammates has been framed for the murder of another teammate and you've got the trial itself and we've got the crew trying to prove his innocence and the whole sort of jag. I don't get that reference, but sure. That's amazing.

Duncan, you know how the show NCIS is a detective show, but exclusively based around naval crimes? Yep. There was a TV show called Jags, which was a law show exclusively about Air Force crimes. Okay. Was it good? I don't fucking know. Why would I watch that?

Well the other part of the book, which was really enjoyable as well, is that we then follow the character who he's been framed for murdering who turns out the whole time is actually in a top secret prison facility run by the Empire and his whole plot is this prison escape plot from the insane great escape. He starts out, he sort of notices a guard, he hatches a plan. The first one doesn't work out. It's a fun book. I highly recommend X-Wing for getting to the more expanded Star Wars universe.

The other thing I finished reading though, Geordie, and you might be surprised about this. I finally finished Conan and the City of the Dead. I had been wondering about that Duncan. I was looking at it today being like, I wonder if he's done this yet? I wonder. Oh, I finally finished it off a mere five months after I recommended it on the podcast. I've actually finished the book. It's actually two stories. I read the first story in the collection before I did the recommendation.

I've now finished the second story. It's really fun. If you're a fan of the character of Conan the Barbarian, obviously we did a whole episode talking about expanded works of the character. This is the book that I recommended above all else and I stand by that recommendation, especially now that I finished it. I think John C. Hocking, the author of the book, gets the voice of the character as well as anyone else ever has.

When Conan speaks in this book, it sounds like Robert E. Howard's Conan is speaking. The other thing he does that's really well is the fact that obviously in these books, we know Conan's fine. He's the main character. He's in lots of stories after this, lots of stories before. It's like James Bond. He can't die, but John C. Hocking does a really nice time of bringing in an extended cast.

In this book, it's like a group of mercenaries that have some really nice banter with Conan and he does a really good and really short time frame making you like these characters so you can feel that tension when they're in jeopardy. Sure, like Beyond Thunder River. Beyond the Black River, yes. It's Beyond Thunder River. No, I think of Drums Beyond Thunder River. That's what I'm thinking of. What is Drums Beyond Thunder River?

Well Duncan, you should know because that's the first adventure that you ever ran from us in the Conan RPG system. You're absolutely right. I've completely forgotten about that. Yes, the Conan A-Dreams and Land, no. Adventures and Land, no. Adventures in the Age I Dreamed Of. That's it. 2D20. They're bringing out another Conan RPG, which I do have an eye on. They've gone very much the opposite direction. So the previous Conan RPG was, let's make this more complex than anything else.

Let's mechanize everything. That's not true, but yeah. There were a lot of rules. That's true. There were rules, but no rules for gaining experience points. It was just, ah, make it up. The game developers decided how many XP you get. Each player can get a different amount. You're like, what the fuck? Did you just stop trying? Why didn't you write rules for experience points? It blew my mind. At that point, just say this whole game is based on a milestone system.

Do an adventure, like a classic Robbie, Howard, Conan adventure, and then let them level up. Right, but it's not a leveling system. It's a talent based game, like Lancer or something. Which means that you need to run it from experience points because the amount you're spending on your different abilities can vary a lot. Ugh, God. I can't believe we're still having this same conversation. Wouldn't that have been like, that would have been like 2016. So this is nine years later.

Duncan, you and I are still talking about this. Wow, we've been friends a long time. That's cool. I know. That's lovely. With the 2016, was that actually? Gosh. Well, that's when I went to university and I'm pretty sure it was in my first year. Yeah, it was first year. I played in your room. That's how we met. We met over D&D. Ah, the good old days. Right. Talking about reminiscing about the good old days in books with mercenary companies.

No, Duncan, I said I had something I was looking forward to, remember? Sorry, Shorty, go ahead. So next week, guys, in fact, the day, maybe the day this episode releases. Nope. Everyone, happy Valentine's Day. Aw, that's really sweet. Are you saying you are also excited for the new Bridget Jones movie coming out on Valentine's Day? Duncan, I am not. That's not what I have in mind.

Um, what, obviously the most, there's one thing which Valentine's Day is really all about and it's not the release of the new Bridget Jones movie and it's not the release of the new Captain America movie and it's not the release of, uh, The Chasm, a straight to Apple TV movie that actually looks pretty good. Of course, Valentine's Day is all about the latest chapter of Berserk. Wow. I cannot believe it. There's no story more romantic than Berserk.

And after a full month, we're getting the next chapter. The love story of Guts and Griffiths needs to be told. Exactly. And it's only, I'm not going to lie, Shorty, it's only just clicked in my head that when you say chapter, you're not saying volume and chapters are like 12 pages long. No, no, no, no, no. We're getting 40 pages of content at most. Is this a return to a regular schedule? Er, this is pretty regular actually. I mean, yeah, regular just means consistent.

It doesn't actually mean frequent. Yeah, yeah. This is pretty, this is kind of ahead of schedule. Actually, it's like a four month break instead of a six month break. That's, that's pretty, that's pretty abrupt. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to that. And as you said, and as I've sort of said, mercenary companies, Guts was in a mercenary company.

He was, and today we are talking about quite possibly the granddaddy of Dark Fantasy Mercenary Company Fiction, The Black Company by author Glenn Cook. Indeed. And much like in our discussion of Berserk, we're going to have to start this off with a pretty heavy trigger warning. Oh, most certainly. This book has some incredibly dark themes. It depicts sexual violence. It depicts paedophilia. It has a consistent level of homophobia throughout. Yikes. Yeah, it is grim.

And as you said, it's sort of the granddaddy of the grim dark genre. So as you might expect, proceed with caution if this really isn't your thing, because we are going to have to discuss it in some level of detail, as well as how it handles the topic. I guess then, for the benefit of those who might be dipping out right now, Duncan, should we start off by giving our opinions on how we found it? Now I know this is not your first time doing this.

In fact, I believe you just said you've read the whole series. I have. So I'm a fan of Glenn Cook. I'm a fan of Glenn Cook's The Black Company. I have read over 10 books in this universe, all the way through the series, and I enjoy it. I like it. I have enjoyed where it goes, the ideas it brings up. I like Glenn Cook's writing. But it's worth noting that I'm also the type of person who read Prince of Thorns and The Broken Empire. Like that's the content that I can put myself through.

There are moments that it made me feel a bit uncomfortable, and I generally think my bar is quite high for this. So that's the big warning. But I do enjoy this because I feel like what it does really well is it portrays this sort of dark and brutal and bleak world, while still populating it with, not likeable, compelling characters. Compelling's a good word. And that's what really kind of drives the series is the character work, I think, more than anything else.

But yeah, Geordie, what are your thoughts? Now Duncan, I got the sense from the text you sent me prior to the start of this episode, I got the feeling that you might be a little bit nervous about how I would find this one, especially given my negative reception to the previous book we did, The Straight Razor's Cure.

This is certainly a series that I was nervous because I do enjoy it, but it's also one of those things where if you really came out swinging at it, I feel like I would struggle in places to explain my enjoyment, mostly because it comes from the same place I kind of mentioned. I find something very compelling and very gripping in this sort of dark world, less so than I find it necessary a rip-roaring ride and a fun time throughout. So yeah, I am very nervous that you found it.

What do you think, Geordie? Considering how much I griped on the previous episode for being dark and broody, you might be surprised that I really, really liked this book. I am a little bit. Wow. Go on. And here's what it comes down to. Here's what it comes down to. No ifs, no buts. It works here because Glenn Cook is a much better writer than Daniel Polanski. I'm not going to argue that. Yeah, it really is a skill issue.

You know, the striking way this story is written, which is frankly kind of daring, not even in terms of the topics it's willing to discuss. And I'm going to be quite frank, as much as we have issued a very appropriate trigger warning about sexual violence. This is the grand daddy for a reason, because it is nowhere near as out there and excessive as what I kind of expected from it, considering its reputation. It certainly plays sometimes emotionally impassive.

It's all about this is happening, I'm going to tell you, but I'm not going to give you the grisly details. I'm not going to give you the ins and outs and the intimate moments of these horrific events. It's more like they're happening over there. Yeah, and it's not overwrought. And it also works very well in the way the story is packaged, because this, possibly more than any other book we've read so far, has the strongest authorial voice.

It probably comes up short compared to something like The Black Tongue Thief, which is like a masterclass in writing a story with a very strong voice. But this is coming quite close. I'm so glad you brought that up. So Geordie, let's just lay a bit of groundwork. And then I do just want to maybe give out some information about the wider series and see how you kind of respond to that and my experience on this reread. Sure, go ahead.

So for those approaching Black Company, it is about the Black Company, this mercenary band. We follow, well, the stories we tell to us by a character called Croker, who is not only the company's physician, he is also their analyst. Have I said that right? Analyst. Analyst. Excellent, thank you. His job is to recount the stories of the company, write them down for preservation's sake, and very much so to keep a sense of community of the company.

There's a really nice scene later on where he actually does readings, like it's part of like a church service where he gets the company together, he's made of different creeds, and tells them a story of what the company has done in the past. You know, you think it's bad now, guys, let me tell you a tale of the siege of Torn, where we stood our ground. And it's any kind of nice how it kind of creates that sense. And this first book of the Black Company.

Tradition and continuity, like they are a culture that they belong to onto themselves. And we pick up with the company just about when they begin their campaigns on the northern continent, where the rule of the empire that spans the northern continent, a great sorceress known simply as the Lady, is having lots of pesky revolts and rebellions launched against her.

So she's got in one of her chief wizards, an order known as the Taken, the ten who were taken, to go and get a mercenary company from across the sea to come along and help her crush these pesky revolts. And when you're reading the Black Company, the first trilogy of books, known as the Books of the North, follow that conflict in its entirety. Then the series does go on after that. After that, we get a three book series known as the Books of the South. Guess where they take place.

And then there's a texturology called the Books of Glittering Stone. And that takes us up from when the first book was released in the mid 80s to the year 2000. There was then a big long gap, but in 2018 we got a mid-cool book called Port of Shadows, which was set between the first and second books in the Books of the North trilogy. And already very exciting news, Glenn Cook at the right old age of 80, he's at it again.

Later this year, we're getting the first book in the Pityless Rain texturology, called trilogy, not quite sure, four books in another arc that will continue the series. So I'm very excited for that. What I will just say about the Black Company as someone who's read the whole series, if you come into this and you're like, oh, that's a lot of books, I'm intimidated by the sheer scale, the first trilogy is completely self-contained. It's done.

You can finish on The White Rose, which is the last book in the Books of the North trilogy and be completely satisfied. And I do believe Glenn Cook wrote it as such, but he didn't know if he was going to be writing more at that point. Sure. So that is very much put to the side. Something else I would also say, Geordie, I'm really glad that you liked The Black Company, because when I reread this book, I liked it a lot more than I did on the first time through.

Maybe because I knew the world a bit better, I'm familiar with some of these characters, I knew where they were going. I had a much nicer time of the first book, because as a series as a whole, while I think that Black Company, the book, is really, really, it's a great book with great ideas, it's also the first ever novel that Glenn Cook wrote and published. And I would actually say he hasn't hit his stride yet.

I do think it takes to the least the sequel to him as an author to really get going and become the masterclass that he is later on. Wow. Now that is the idea that this is one, his first book, which I didn't know, and that's extremely impressive. And two, that he gets better from here. That is striking stuff. I was already very interested in reading ahead and following and seeing where the story goes from here.

And I wasn't sure, Duncan, that if I read the next book, that I would even know what was happening. And the reason for that is in the great meta-narrative around the Black Company and the Annals. Now this is something which I know because I'm a fan of Matt Colville, and he's spoken about the Black Company a lot as an influence. He even based his live D&D show, The Chain of Acheron, on it heavily.

I also own an RPG which I've never played before called Band of Blades, which is extraordinarily inspired by the Black Company. Do you want to lead the Black Company on a doomed quest to outrun an army of undead? Yes. You can do that in the Band of Blades. Maybe we'll play that another time. But the reason why I wasn't sure what was going to come next is that I knew that the Black Company takes place over a long period of time.

I'm not quite sure what this is, Duncan, but am I right in saying it's centuries of history? Not quite, no. So the Black Company, we only follow about 40 to 60 years of the Black Company's history. The Black Company itself has existed for about 400 years. We kind of only really follow one generation of Torch, so the characters that you see in this series sort of exit as the...

By the time of Book 10, it's this generation of characters, I won't give specific names, who makes it that far, pass the torch to the next generation of analysts, captains, and all of that. Okay, interesting. The point is though is that what you get a sense of in this book is the long, profound history of the Black Company and the idea that what you're following more than just the Croker as your main perspective character, it's not about any individual character, for the most part.

It definitely feels like it towards the end. It's about this larger conflict. It's about this body, this group, this unit, and its identity more than it is about anything else. And that's really compellingly told to us by the way in which Croker isn't that interested in the battles. This is a war story. It's about an actual mercenary company that goes to numerous locations. It's on the march for months.

It's involved in many battles, but only two of them are written about in any kind of remote detail. There is an amazing moment early on which encapsulates this so beautifully. And actually, Geordie, I'm just going to go and read you the quote. So give me one second. Sure, sure. Okay. To demonstrate Geordie's point so incredibly strongly. We've just received orders that they need to take the fortress at Deal. They get the orders. The captain says, is that it? The captain grumbled.

That's it, the messenger says. We'll keep in touch. So we went and did it. We captured the fortress at Deal in the dead of night within howling distance of awe. There you go. That's the entire siege battle. And then we literally jumped to, one eye flipped a card over into a discard pile. He muttered, somebody's sandbagging. We just go straight into the bits that Croaker cares about, which are them all playing cards afterwards.

Yes. Exactly, because I have a much more profound memory of that line about the sandbagging and going straight into the card game, because the personal relationships which he has are the things he's focusing on. He doesn't actually care that much about these pretty inconsequential battles. And that's fantastic. It reminds me of, so in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, Duncan, there are two years which we know nothing about.

We know nothing about what happens in these years in the last days of Edward the Confessor's reigns because the monks who were writing this thing down only cared about the fact that their roof was being fixed. Oh, that's amazing. And it's brilliant. And I really want to hone in on, we can talk specifically about the different characters because you're right to say that they are compelling, but they are not detailed characters.

We get an overall impression of characters based on Croaker's perception of them, but almost everyone is surrounded by a great shroud of mystery. Sometimes that's on purpose, there's a dualist explanation for that.

Glenn Cook is being deliberately vague about people's history and backstory to keep us intrigued as readers, but also the fact is that everyone in the Black Company has a shady past and no one's really that interested in finding out what each other's deal is, so Croaker doesn't interrogate the personalities or histories of the people around them. He has to just sort of take them as they are and then moan about them a little bit. And Croaker draws attention to this.

He makes it very clear, a big factor is that no one's using anyone's real name. Everyone has a bit of a nickname. No one in this book, I'm pretty sure, has an actual name. Maybe Darling's Grandpa has a name, but everyone else is known by a moniker or a super-k. And obviously for some of the wizards in the party, that's like a very intentional factor. There's a very element of the true name having power in this book. Which I love as like a feature of a magic system.

And so it does, it plays double roles. It both is part of the lore, why they're like this, and like you said, there's the meta-narrative for just it builds intrigue. What do we know about One Eye's Pass? Why is Raven, yeah, why is Raven really good at killing people and why is he an asshole? We will never know. Can I just actually drop in a little point about the future of the series as well? This is something that Glinko very much maintains.

You don't need to fear that we're going to pry into the background. Jim Croker, who's our primary POV throughout the majority of the entire series, we know so little about his backstory and where he came from. I think we've learned the majority of it in this book. And at one point in the books of the South, they're literally at a crossroad and he goes, yeah, I don't think my home is that far away from here. And that's the only line. And then they move on.

You can tell by the way we talk about this how striking and off-kilter this book is sometimes. There are so many periods of time where you genuinely have no idea what's happening. And that's very much on purpose. You have this real sense that you've picked up a document that exists in this world. And he's not going to bother explaining shit that you should already know. He doesn't say who the lady is. You just have to pay attention. You just have to figure that out. Not to keep talking.

It wasn't even clear to me when the Legate was telling them, like, you have to go do this. Don't worry about the syndic. I'll take care of that. I'm like, literally what the fuck is happening right now? I just have to pay attention and write it out. That was such my experience when I first picked up this book. I think a lot of people will have that. And I think it's really important to highlight not to be concerned about that. That is on purpose. It's not you the reader.

And I have to admit, Dodie, there was quite a lot of stretch in this book, even on a reread, that I had to stop, go back to the top of the page and be like, wait, what's happening here? Yeah. I did that all the time. Now that's partly that's this deliberate vagueness that surrounds everything. Now I might have missed this Duncan because of this very abrupt style.

But to my understanding, when Raven's introduced, there's a scene where like he kills some people, including a woman, but it's not explained why he's done this. It's just like, say like, this is something that he had to do. And then way later down the line, like several chapters later, Croker casually drops the information that the woman in question was his wife. And it's only at this point that we've learned this. Am I right in saying so?

Yes and no. If you read that first scene again, you know, it's drawn your Croker draws attention to that, that the only thing Raven takes, despite everyone having a lot of jewelry, is a ring from the woman. And that's the only hint you get. Yeah. Early on in the text. To be fair, if I was in like a movie and I couldn't like get confused, that would have been blindingly obvious. But again, it's literally one line. Like nothing is spelled out. So it's easy to miss shit like that.

Definitely. And I will say actually, as a critique of this first book, I think the moments in the original black company where what Glen Cook is intentionally obscuring and what is just a bit jumbled in delivery, there is a little bit of both going on. There's a scene later on that I want to draw attention to after the main characters, Croker and Raven, they kill one of the enemy rebels, a guy called Hardin. Now after he goes down, I believe a wizard called the Hanged Man takes a lethal wound.

And there's a bit of a standoff about if anyone's going to try and help save him. I got a bit confused about this scene. I was like, wait, who's on whose side? Who's staring down who? And I had that same experience. And I think Duncan, what we're both identifying there is the doubt wasn't is what's happening here. Not really. It was am I supposed to know what's happening here or is this deliberately opaque? Yes. And I still don't know. I think it is deliberately opaque.

I think the whole point of that whole conspiracy is it creates this sense of mystery. In the previous episode, I made a deliberate distinction when talking about the straight razor's cure to say I called it a mystery and I stopped myself and I said it's a detective story because there is a distinction because this book is definitely not a detective story, but it is absolutely a mystery. Mystery is all over the place. The world is mysterious. The lady and magic is mysterious.

The lives of the people surrounding Croker are mysterious. There are only a couple of things and I think this is also very deliberate are laid out extremely obviously to sort of give us something to anchor onto. So Croker's actual dialogue is sardonic, but very easy to understand. The language itself is incredibly simplistic for the most part and that allows us to stay anchored. It's not confusing us by being lofty and hard to reach. It's grounded, it's gritty and that means we can hold onto it.

And there's other stuff which is just signposted like the identity of Darling for example. Technically speaking, that's a mystery. It's so obvious though that it's dramatic and it's dramatic irony. We know, the characters don't know, we're waiting for them to catch up. Like a Columbo mystery. So let's talk a bit more about some of these characters. Croker, you said he had a very distinctive voice.

The character himself is sardonic when he's engaging with other characters, but also the entire book is presented as his writings. That's right. So this is literally a document that he's written down. Something I do just want to throw out there because it is and I think it's really a testament to Glen Cook and I want people to, I just want to praise it while I have the platform. Beyond the series, we do swap to other characters and- Makes sense. Oh my god, Geordie.

The way Glen Cook changes his entire writing style so that you know that a descriptive paragraph whether or not it was Croker or one of the other future analysts is incredible. I had heard this. I didn't want to speak to it with authority because I haven't read that, but I have heard about this reputation of the change in narration.

I can't remember whether it's they say it gets more clear or it's saying like the language and choice gets even more opaque and strange when other characters take over. There is a later book which I would genuinely want to say. It's book- oh I can't remember the name of it now. Is it Bleak Seasons? I'm going to say it's Bleak Seasons which is so convoluted, so unclear.

The main character in that book essentially is- the main plot of that book is the character retelling his experience within a siege city.

However, at the start of the book he goes through a particular traumatic event and the book's written as he's trying to piece together what happened and his own confused, conflicting, unreliable memories and the fact that the character slips from recounting something he thinks he's remembering to thinking he's re-experiencing it through a traumatic flashback and it gets- it's one of the things I'd have to say was brave of Glen Cook and interesting,

but I would ultimately come away and go yeah mate you're a bit off to more than two. You're good, but what you just tried to pull off there was absolutely insane. So compelling. That's interesting. That sort of reminds me a bit of the culture books because the first book is quite challenging just in its pure writing style, similar to The Black Company. Throws you into the sci-fi world.

Probably explains a lot more than this but the actual where the story is going is way more like what the fuck is happening.

Then you read The Player of Games, it's a much more straightforward, traditional narrative and you're like okay I finally get what's going on and then you get to the next book and I'm start listening to the audiobook and it's like okay every even-numbered chapter is going to be in chronological order but every odd-numbered chapter is going to be told backwards in time from the end of the story and I went you know what I don't have

time for this I can't give you enough focus and I have not gotten past chapter two of that book. I don't even know if it's good, I don't know if it's bad, I'm just like I'm not ready for this right now and maybe I never will be. I think that's very fair enough but like I said that's quite a way, the issue of that particular book for like Lane Cook is quite a way into the series.

Something else that also comes up later which I will just throw out now as well because it might impact slightly your experience with The Black Company, it's certainly impacted mine. When I was first reading Black Company I very much took Croker as his word. What's very interesting is that later on some of the future analysts make comments about I've gotten back through Croker's account. He was very kind to himself wasn't he? Well I'll, well let's get into that in a moment.

I will say one thing first which is that in the, yeah the final chapter of the book, there are not that many chapters in this book, there are like ten chapters. It almost feels like short stories doesn't it? Yes exactly. Do you want to know why Geordie? Oh were they published sequentially?

No not quite, one of the chapters, so the actual first ever Black Company story was published two years before the novel and I believe it was chapter three, Raker, was the first one with an amended beginning and end to make it slightly more standalone. But yeah. And that's the one where they kill the Leper? Or? Limper. Sorry the Limper.

No he gets killed in Whisper, Raker is the one where they're holding out in the city and they set up like a trap for him and we get the first moments of the character Soulcatcher telling Croker about the ladies past. Okay. That's a weird place to do as a short story. But okay, fair enough. Sorry I got distracted, what was I saying? I was going to say, yeah so the last part of the book was the first time I went, are you making this up? Are you lying?

Because that's the bit where there's a friction between the fact that this is an in-world document and the fact that he wants to be secretive, you know he's a historian writing about things he doesn't want people to know. And I'm like, what the fuck is happening? You're really bad at keeping secrets Croker, you're literally writing this into a historical document. Don't tell people!

Ultimately though, it makes sense because the very clever part behind that story is he interrupts this person as they're running away and says, you're running away right now, I don't want people to catch you, so don't go to the place I know you're going to go to, go somewhere else. And the dude goes, okay great I'll go to you and he says, yeah, don't tell me! I don't want to know. People can read my mind, don't tell me where you're going, just run. And it's clever, it's good.

And just also to add on to that particular point as a potential plot hole, there is a moment I believe in book three where we actually do get a bit of context of when in time Croker is writing what you're currently reading. Interesting, yeah, I had questions about that. Yeah, because he's not doing it as he goes along. There is a moment in the series where Glencut does put a little pin in and go, at this point Croker wrote this section. Interesting.

Okay, well, maybe he might be still writing a diary because there's a lot of very specific dialogue and like who won what hand the game? At this point he edits things. Sure, that makes sense. I will say something like, this is just something you have to sort of forgive, like how good characters' memories are.

You know, if you're reading like a Saxon story and the meta-narrative behind that is that Uhtred is telling the exploit of his life to like a bard or historian or another Bernard Cornwall character like Dervil Cadarn is writing an actual history again and he's giving exact lines of dialogue and what was the look on Arthur's face when he had to consider this before the great battle? And you're like, we just have to accept that.

You have to either accept it or accept the fact that the characters are as much authors as the actual authors are. But that's no fun to think about that. Geordie, you touched upon the structure of the book and the fact that we have some very large chapters. In fact, I believe there are only seven in the whole book. That makes sense. So the book, again, I listened to this in audiobook. It was a pretty good audiobook.

It's about 10 hours long and one quarter of the entire book is just the penultimate chapter. Now when I actually first read this, I wasn't a fan of this. And I'll tell you now, this is actually the only Black Company book where this is done. So if we get into the into the sequels, we go to a bit more of a traditional chapter format being only about 15 to 30 pages instead of these 60 plus page long chapters. I'm agnostic towards that.

I don't really have an opinion one way or another about whether that's good. Actually no, that probably is good because I will say, you know, I said before I finished this an hour before doing the episode and even though this is not a very long book, something about the writing style, maybe it's the long chapters, maybe it's the fact that it's all quite opaque and mysterious. It's quite an exhausting book to get through.

You know, when I finished chapter two, I was like, whoa, we got to be at a halfway point, right? Oh my God, we are like 20% of the way there. I definitely felt something very similar, particularly I think it was the I'm going to say it was chapter five or six. Yeah. Each chapter is by and large named after a character and most of them are named after rebel leaders. So it's in this chapter, we're going after this guy or girl in some cases.

I believe it's the hardened one that I did remember reading and thinking, oh my goodness, are we still on this guy? He's not a character. A lot happens in that chapter though. Oh, not certainly does. So Doddy, let's get into some more of the specifics because we tiptoed around a few points. You know, we talked about Croker. Let's talk about some of the actual members of this company. What do you think about our wizards?

Are lesser wizards compared to the big, the big old powerful sorcerers, the Taken? We've got Goblin, we've got One Eye, we've got Silent. At the very beginning of all we have Tom Tom. Compa not forgotten. Poor Tom Tom. Yeah, this is a, I was really surprised by how many fucking wizards are in this company. Granted, we're talking about five guys out of a company of a thousand people. So maybe it's just that, hey, these guys can do magic. Okay, promote them. They're the brass now.

I guess that does make sense. But I'm really surprised by how frequently magic appears in this story. And something that we have discussed in previous episodes is that this is very much high fantasy. Like way higher fantasy than something like The Lord of the Rings. This is like, what was it called? Mysteries of Druun stories. There are flying carpets. People are turning into birds and sending out magical snakes with their faces on them.

There's a tower that's like, that's a perfect cube and then later becomes a pyramid. That was weird. It's quite shocking how, you know, it's high fantasy. It's also very soft fantasy. The magic system is not rigidly defined. I think what this series does quite well. Firstly, talking about the number of wizards in the Black Company, I do get the impression this is meant to imply why the Black Company is almost so prestigious. It's like Croker is sort of a point of pride.

You know, we have our wizards. But you're also very right. I think what's really kind of frightening in this particular world is that magic is both horrifically powerful and just not quite uncommon enough. And those who can use it, none of them are recluse. None of them are, I'm going to be the wise wizard studying my books in my distant tower. They're all like, okay, I'm taking over the kingdom. That's my day.

Yeah. A bunch of the rebel leaders, it sort of like dropped ever so slightly like, yeah, these guys are wizards. That's why they're important rebel leaders. And there's a bit later, there's like a whole flock of them surrounding this woman protecting her. And the way in which this is sort of casually thrown out, it sort of goes to show that this is par for the course.

And he doesn't, Croker doesn't see anything especially special or noteworthy about this, such that he needs to single these characters out. What I find really interesting about this wizard though is that there does seem to be quite a power scale going on. And I was, I never quite got the impression of where people sat. Like how common is magic? Like, and do you have to be special to use it? What was your impression?

Well, Duncan, that's the tricky part is that you've repeatedly referred to the Taken as sorcerers. And I think that is true. I think they are, they're all magical people who can cast spells. But I don't think they really classify as the same thing as everyone else because they're a lot more like ringwraiths, you know, they have been twisted and corrupted and warped by the ladies evil magics. I think there's two things I just want to bring up there.

They do kind of make it clear that all of these people did start out as just powerful independent sorcerers. But you're right. They're now being warped, corrupted, easistically turned into semi immortal beings. And you mentioned the ladies magic. It's not actually the lady who did it. It was her evil husband, the Dominator, whose name I think is slightly hilarious. Yes, you're right. Well, but she can. It is very hilarious.

That's the most 80s thing about this story is how on the nose it can be about about that. Like there's no period in time where you could be like, yeah, the main bad guy, the entire series, the Dominator and the lady. But she can make Taken. Yes, she can. She has unlocked the dark arts of it. Because see, now I feel like there's so many branching pathways. I need to like grab hold and ask you about now we're talking about all the Taken.

So Geordie, what did you think about the Taken as an order of evil wizards? They're quite unique in a way. Obviously, they all got their nicknames. They're all somewhat twisted. What I really enjoyed about them, though, is that although they are like you said, like the ringwraiths, what's really I think enjoyable is that they're all given at least a hint of their own personality, even if it's just in the magic they do, their cool sounding designs.

But also it's shown very clearly that they all kind of have their own agendas as well. This is they're not all just automatons. Like they might have been taken, but they're still absolutely they're rebellious. They could. Yeah, I think they've had the Taken of kind of what makes this story work. I think that if you didn't have the Taken and they were just working for the lady and fighting against the rebels, I think this would genuinely just not work as a story.

The fact that you do have these twisted, almost human characters with petty conflicts like the limper and soulcatcher don't like each other. And that's all it really has to come to at first, that they fact they they hate each other and they want to get in each other's way. And then this develops into this behind the scenes conspiracy, which you are denied knowledge of because Croker knows what's going on. And he's deliberately saying, but I can't write it down. And that freaks me out.

I can't tell anyone, not even you, dear reader. And so that really amps up the peril and the idea of how dangerous this knowledge is. And the question of why they don't just fucking kill this guy. Why they're taking don't kill Croker. That is an amazing question. I don't really have an answer. Currently from where I'm standing, it's just very convenient for the pot. They're like, this guy, he's cool. Let's not do it. We're super evil and we don't care.

I literally eat the souls of everyone I kill and I make them a part of my personality. But I don't want to kill Croker. He's a cool dude. Again, very light on spoilers. There is a similar incident in a later book where Croker is effectively taken captured by an evil sorcerer or some description. And he, Croker at a later point, literally asked, why didn't you kill me? And they literally just said, I, they basically were like, well, I just kind of took a shine to you. I enjoyed your company.

Croker's just very charming apparently. I had a very similar experience. There we go. I had a very similar experience recently. I finished Grim Lagann for the first time, which is a great anime. I enjoyed it a lot. And it's a bit of the end where they have, they've been facing this overwhelmingly powerful foe, and they asked a question of, why didn't you just use this overwhelming power to stop us?

Why did you just like slowly confront us bit by bit with more and more, like more and more minor threats until we were overwhelmed? Why can you just like stop us right at once? And the explanation given is really bad because it's like, oh, we sensed there was like something weird about you guys. And we only just figured out what it is.

So now we are, now we can be like confidently say we have nothing left to learn and we will destroy you now, but we just didn't want to at this point, but now you're about to die. Goodbye. And it's like, that feels very artificial, especially when there is like an actual thematic reason that is why they do this. Yeah. It's one of the things that's just like, don't worry about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Stop thinking about it. Don't think about it.

I mean, he spent a lot of money making that laser to scare people. Like he's got to use it. You know, all those henchmen were there and they're like, boss, are you going to use the big laser? And he's like, oh God, it really makes up the electricity bill, but I have to justify it to the finance department. I expensed it. Okay, fine. We'll do the laser. I want there to be more bureaucracy behind villains. Talking about Croker being charming. Can we please talk about Croker and the lady?

What I quite like about the lady, by the way, that she's referred to as the lady, even though she's head of an empire, I would always imagine you call her like the empress, but it's just the lady. Geordie. Yeah. I mean, it could be a sort of deliberate linguistic choice to be like, we're going to use the word lady to imply like it's, you know, like if we said she was an empress, perhaps that would paint us too many images of something like Rome, for example. I'm not sure.

I mean, we have, it's all very vague. It's not like we know like what system of government she runs. It's not like we have like scenes being like, oh, the rebellion has started because this, this and this. It's very vague to be like, Hey, these guys are the circle of the Rose. They believe a messianic figure is coming and they are rising up against her. And that's all we need to know. But what do you consider Croker and the ladies relationship? Cause it's very interesting. It starts out.

Obviously there's no relationship. It is. But with Croker effectively writing fan fiction about his distant employer. It's really, that is really interesting part. So the lady is understandably this enigmatic and extremely powerful figure.

So Croker is fascinated by her and, and he sort of paints this picture of the fact that Croker is this sort of almost a hopeless romantic in ways which we have to unpack in a, in a different section because of his opinions about the black company and the way he frames them and the way in which he is like aware, but unable to control his biases. His opinion of the lady shifts through the story where he is infatuated by her.

He writes these stories about an imagined past where he's like, you know, he says like, Oh, she was once as good and pure young soul who has been corrupted by the evil magics of the dominator only for soul catcher to say, say actually she murdered her twin sister and stay with teenagers and you go, Oh shit, don't ruin it, please. I love that interaction. I love that interaction all the more when you find out soul catchers true identity as well.

I know God, that was a, that was a humdinger of a twist. I accidentally had part of the identity of soul catcher spoiled for me when I was doing a cursory Google search. Um, but that twist at the very end is like, Whoa, really? What the, what? Oh my God. I mean, when the spoiler territory, I think we can just discuss it. Geordie, I mean, to be fair, Duncan, the book is so mysterious and strange that I kind of feel like we could have a very thorough and clear discussion about the book.

We're not really getting into spoilers. I think we can kind of do that case. I just want to throw one thing out that I really like about soul catchers identity is that one, I mean, reread it, knowing it, everything makes perfect sense and it's in there the whole time, particularly when Koko talks about what he believes to be so cacti's true voice. So cacti uses different voices, um, believes to be channeling the souls of those they have catched.

But also I really enjoy this a bit where let's just say, um, cook uses pronouns to play with the identity and what's fun is that Kroka at points has to stop and go, wait, sorry, I've used the wrong one. I've corrected myself. That's very 2020 Kroka. Good job. Sorry. Back to where we were. Yes. And he, when that scene happens, Kroka gets a little bit, you know, he's a little bit knocked off, but I think, you know, he still has this bit of a, yeah, but she might be nice.

And then he finally gets to see the lady and meet her. Yeah. The, the lady sort of enters into this story like a, like a tornado, not sudden you see her coming, but the closer she comes to more looming and dark and, and mysterious she becomes at a very distance, you paint a picture of her yourself, much like Kroka, you have this idea of who she is, but her approach is so lofty and strange.

Like when she first appears, the first time she like properly appears in the story is because Goblin is whisked away by this vision, which almost drives him insane. And when Kroka is desperate to ask about it, because he's fascinated by the lady, Goblin has to say, my memories have been taken away. You know, she has defenses against that. And indeed when Kroka finally does meet her, the first time he cannot see her, he cannot hear her voice.

He's just aware of her presence and how much of the encounter is stripped away from his memory, perhaps to sort of shield his psyche. Now, Geordie, can I ask you a question about, you know, the lady is mysterious and enigmatic and ethereal and distant. Geordie, what color is her hair? Because it turns out I read 10 blooming books and had this wrong the entire time. Well she has black hair, but on the Collectors Edition, there's a woman with very beautiful woman with blonde hair on the cover.

So when I started this book, I was pretty convinced that was going to be her and she was going to have blonde hair. Yeah, absolutely. The problem with that artist is you didn't do a terrible job, but oh my gosh, I read the entire series thinking she was blonde and then went, oh, that is meant to be the lady and the hair color is wrong. She is like that.

Yeah, I mean, I had that experience of reading the Aragon books, because of course the like shitty movie came out, they hired a blonde actor who looks a lot like Alex Petitre but isn't. And then for the books, you're constantly reminded or occasionally reminded that Aragon is a brunette and you're like, oh yeah, right. I have to reaffirm, I have to completely change my image and like, that's right, Christopher Polini, self-insert, remember that Geordie.

My classic one is reading Bernard Cornwell's Sharps and not just picturing Sean Bean. Sure. I'm sorry, he's just, it's just too much. He's just that boy he looks like. But yes, so. I remember, yeah, go ahead. No, no, I was going to get back on track if you want to go off on a tangent. No, no, please do get back on track because we have a lot to say yet.

The lady, the lady and Croker first gets introduced to the lady when they're hunting down the rebel the Whisperer and taking revenge on the taker known as the Limper. And in this scene, Croker sees the true horror of some of the dark magic that the lady does and he is disgusted by it and revolted by it and he's like, oh my gosh, how could I ever think of her in any other way again? But his mind is still fuddled by it.

She stares into his mind using the magic called the eye and sees every facet of his being and it's a horrific event and Croker is very much like, nope, never again, I'm so sorry, I can't believe I had all those fantasies. And then the lady proceeds to take a bit of a shine to Croker and start inviting him round.

Yeah, he spends a lot more time than I expected, like just in her presence, like when they finally arrive at the tower, which is this whole book has been about, in a way, he just gets invited in and like they go off on like missions together and it's like, why are you even bringing Croker along? Like you can probably handle this by yourself, lady, you're a demigod. And I'm a little bit conflicted on this.

On the one hand, I think the in-text reason is that the lady is like, I think she says at some point, oh, my own history keepers would just want to flatter me, I want someone to keep the true spirit of what happened alive or something to that effect or if the rebels win. She picked the wrong bloke then, didn't she? His cat is a terrible historian. Oh, completely true. And then at later parts, she talks about, you know, she'll always keep the loyal ones safe.

So is the idea meant to be when she stared into like Croker's soul, she went, oh, he actually he's infatuated, he'll actually just do what I say. I'm not sure. I'm very confused. In terms of you mentioned, what's her hair colour? And there is something quite interesting about the way this book talks about her beauty.

And it's interesting in how it contrasts, say, with the descriptions of Yenetha in the Witcher books, because Sapkowski is sort of famous for being one of those fantasy writers who talks about women boobily boobily their way down the stairs, a lot of emphasis on the physical traits that he finds alluring. It's been described as male gaze, even though that's not what the word male gaze means. That's a, anyway, whatever.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that he keeps talking about her attractive features, there's this current of the idea that this being not genuine beauty means that it doesn't count. And that contrasts quite strikingly with the way Glenn Cook writes about beauty, because it's also framed through this magical haze. That the idea that Croker is seduced long before he meets her by the potency of her magic, the ability to seduce by this magical charisma.

There's a bit later where they say that the ladies lose control of the female taken, presumably because the male taken are under the same semi-erotic charms as Croker. But there's no... The way in which it talks about physical attraction is so different from leering at different body parts. It's so much more delicate and powerfully, helplessly romantic. It contrasts in a really striking way. And I really like this, and I think it actually doesn't just apply to the lady.

I think it's generally in Cook's writing. He doesn't spend too much time... I don't know what the word is. Oogling? Ogling? The female form. He describes people that some people are beautiful, but it never seems to be overly descriptive. It's more of a... A little bit, in some respect, going to more Robbie Hale way, it is a fact. And we talk about the magic as well. You're right, in The Witcher, it's all this... Oh, it's just...

It's all emphasis upon the fact that it's like a mask that they're wearing. In a weird way, I think this is written more about... At least it put me in the same mind of just writing about how someone is... Someone's maybe someone's fame or reputation factors into their beauty or their desirability in another way, just by being famous or being powerful, they're more desirable. Yeah, absolutely. In the same way that true love makes you see someone being as more perfect than they are.

There was a fantastic short story I read very recently, actually. It was beautiful. It was someone... And this person just wrote it on Tumblr. So this person wrote this story about how in this world, before you get married, you can go into like a room where you meet your partner's vision of you, and the woman who's just come out of this room tells her partner, we can't be together because I can't measure up to the woman I met in that room. That's father. And that story is called this.

I mean, it doesn't have an actual title. It's a Tumblr post. You just sort of scroll across it on your feed and that's it. So yeah, it doesn't have a name. Bye! Okay, so I can at least give you a name. It was written by Alexander Wales, and if you search for the names Cordelia and Aldwyn, you should be able to find it. Well good for you, and I cannot wait to give that a read. You definitely should. It's like a page log.

Anyway, um. Actually, Geordie, can I ask you another question about the Croc and the Lady? Just for someone who's read the whole series, where do you think this relationship goes?

God, I mean, Duncan, the fact of the matter is that I'm realizing that my impression of the story is extremely different to what it is, because in this book, the very end is like, I'm thinking like, okay, the next book is going to jump forward 37 years, they're going to be completely different characters, and it's just about what happens next, and then the next book after that is going to be like 50 years after that. But apparently that's not it. So I have no idea.

I mean, I guess this is about, alright, actually I said we're going to keep our sort of spoiler policy on. I think I know what next story is about. I have no idea how Croker and the Lady's relationship would change, because at this point in the story, he truly, I think, does understand, like, how awful and like, purely evil she is and is in his way terrified and disgusted by her. Not that I think some of that attraction is just going to go away. That is very interesting to hear.

And you know what, Geordie, despite how much I really want to take this moment to spoil things for you and hear your reaction, unlike something like The Straight Way is This Cure, where I know you're just not going to read it anyway, so why not? I won't take this away from you, because I think you may end up reading more about company. I probably will, Doug. So I'm going to leave this to you. Now. It's well worth it.

Something that we brought up before, we talked about the way he writes about the Lady, we talked about the way he talks about himself. I think we need to talk now about the way Croker and Glenn Cook, to an extent, writes about the Black Company and the evil things they do and how this book is remotely palatable. So before we get into this, Geordie, how familiar are you with the life story of Glenn Cook? Literally nothing, all I knew is that he is now an old man, but still writing books.

OK, so just before we get into this, I'm just going to drop a detail on you about his life and maybe some inspiration that came into this. Glenn Cook was a Navy SEAL. And he, I believe he didn't fight through the entirety of, but he was there during the opening months of Vietnam. OK, that makes sense.

OK, so for absolute clarity, we should say that looking into it, Glenn Cook did serve in the US Navy during the very early stages of the Vietnam War, and he was attached to a Marine Force Recon Division. However, he never actually saw active duty. So he has a lot of experience of being in a conradily situation, but he only ever did practice combat with Marines.

Just to give you maybe a bit of a worldly context where he was coming from when he chose to write a story about how you can have soldiers on the front line that don't fully sum up the ideals of the nation they represent. And the way in which he writes about his own relationship to the soldiers who do bad things. There's this really fascinating part of, oh fuck, what's it called? It's a very famous Vietnam movie. Platoon? Platoon, of course, yes.

There's a very interesting part of Platoon where these soldiers attack a village, they brutalize its occupants, they either attempt to or successfully rape someone, and then afterwards, there's all these scenes about the soldiers feeling sad about it.

And there's this famous line where he goes like, I don't know, brothers, but I'm real hurting inside, and I sat there watching this in part of my American Saves Me movie, and I'm like, well fuck you, I don't give a shit that you feel bad about it, you shouldn't have done that, you want me to feel bad for you? Fuck off! I think that's an appropriate reaction.

So the way in which, because Croker is carrying the same water as whoever was who made Platoon, I forget, but he's carrying the same water, he's seeing his colleagues, well, I don't know what Glenn Cook did in Vietnam, but he's writing about seeing his colleagues do evil deeds, knowing that they're evil, but he's completely unable to hate them. Because at the end of the day, they are your squad mates, these are the people that you depend on to stay alive and you serve side by side.

You know them intimately well. And it's sort of a, if you turn against them, you might as well just walk away. Yeah, and this is really striking and deliberate in the way it talks about rape and sexual violence, because the first time that this happens in the book, okay, we've already made a trigger warning, but we're reiterating it now. So the character of Darling is introduced to the story, gang raped by enemy soldiers. She is nine years old. Yes, that is the opening.

We see her being assaulted, her grandfather is basically being made to watch, and into this scene, if I'm not mistaken, our main character are almost hesitant, oh, by the way, we say enemy soldiers. These aren't actually enemy soldiers, if I'm not mistaken, these are simply soldiers from another unit of the ladies empire. These are limpa soldiers. Okay, there we go. And which makes Raven because so the enemy soldiers are the good guys. Yeah, to a greater letter extent.

So in this scene, you know, Croker comes onto this and it's just like, yeah, it's disgusting, it's bad, but I'm not picking a fight with them now. You know, we're all part of the same army. And it's actually the new recruit Raven, who just walked in and casually murders them all. Yeah. And so like you what you have here is Croker is weary of this and therefore like doesn't want to get involved. But he but important thing is that he criticized them for this.

He says like, it's disgusting things that war makes these these awful men do, you know, like, and he shows no regret for like killing them and like, and doing this, even though he like doesn't want to intervene himself. And then later, almost casually, the black company wins this battle. And then it briefly mentions like, and there was an astounding amount of rape going on outside.

I'm really sorry, I don't actually know quite how to follow that up on a point about the it's it's really shows Croker not being able to not mention this, but at the same time, I think in terms of like in universe, he doesn't condemn his own company in the same way. It's interesting. Yes, because he you're right, he doesn't leverage for saying criticism against his brothers. But he writes explicitly, I know this is bad.

And reader, I think he literally speaks as directly says, you might have guessed that I am not mentioning all the awful stuff they're doing. But what can I do? They are my brothers. And it's this, it's this poignant moment in the story, because it makes everything around the story darker, like for all the like, jeering camaraderie that surrounds these characters. And like, all of them don't on the character of darling, she stay all take care of her.

They all care about her and want to keep her safe. But none of them would have lifted a finger to save her except for Raven. It's this sort of this heartache kind of pinpoint. But it's like, you know, once you're in, you're in. But if you're out, you just aren't a person in the same way. Yeah, and almost completely arbitrarily, you know, like the members of the black company, it's striking and important to me that they're not in their homelands.

They're not in the south, they're in a completely new place. They don't have anyone to relate to accept each other. Now part of what I think is the strength of the story is the idea that the black company is this singular unit. Like it doesn't compare to like an army, because an army can look back and say like, oh, we have we serve. We serve the Queen, we serve the sitting government. You have your previous generals and commanders, and that's it.

You know, but to go to real history, when you read a band of brothers, the majority of the characters you knew from the start of the story are gone. And you they've been replaced by these new fresh green characters at the end of the narrative where who have barely seen any action. The black company is exclusively made up of those characters. They are 400 years late to the party.

The only thing that connects them and which makes Raven actually feel like a member of the company is the reading of the annals is the idea that they belong to something. I mean, and this is made very explicit later on. There's an amazing moment at the end of the books of the north where two characters are basically having this conversation. One basic just turns a ghost. So we're the last of the three companies of cuttive or cuttive are. Yeah. What's that? Where's that?

And basically everyone turns around. It's like no idea. I don't know this. I remember learning of us from a Matt Colville video. He mentioned once that the black company annals go back so far that no one can read the first annals because they're in a dead language. Yes. This is something that's established and something that actually gets picked up in the books of the north. Croakers kind of hit upon because he's very good at picking up new languages. So the problem is though, you're right.

There's some of the old annuals are just written in dialect that everyone who knew how to read them has died. So they have no idea what they say. That's legitimately so cool. Like there's a lot of stuff in this story which just works because it's cool. For some reason them riding on magic carpets, it's not dumb. It's awesome actually. Like soulcatcher, cool. Even the thing that sets off the story, what's it called?

The Kovalaka is like a version of a werewolf except it's a panther man and it's almost indestructible. I love in that scene that they start when they come across that panther creature is that I believe Croaker is like, well I've heard of werewolves but this seems a bit ridiculous and one of the other guys in the company I think it's Goblin is just like, what are you on about? These are so common where I'm from. I think there would probably be one eye who said that.

Yep, you're probably bang on right there. But I love the fact that they're all from these kind of different cultures and this isn't a very well connected world. It's what's very much established. People do not travel far. It's very dangerous. So the Black Company seems to be one of the only actual organisations that seems to actually cross it. Even in the Lady's Empire, something that we kind of get established later on, once you go south, so you've got the Sea of Torment I think it's called.

Lovely name. Well done Glint. You've got the Southern Coast of it with the dual cities but what's really south of them? I don't even think the Lady knows. Yeah, there's a bit at the end here today. He says, I'll go to the dual city and he says, don't go there. The Lady may not have, they may not officially work for the Lady but she controls them, have no doubt. You need to go somewhere where they have never heard her name before.

And there's this great sense of, yeah, this is pre-mass communication. If you just go in that direction and you keep walking you will go to places where there is no connection. It's established, big point in the, I'm going to go minus one for future books, there's a point made in a future book where they destroy, one of the Taken's carpets gets destroyed and they're literally like, well guess what, there's no teleportation spell.

Without a flying carpet it's horseback and walking, no matter how powerful a sorcerer you are. What else do I have to say Duncan? What else do I have to say? Ah, I'll say one more thing. This is minor. Perhaps I've gotten this wrong.

I believe there is a line at a certain point and if I'm correct about this then it's one of the most interesting lines in the book because we've mentioned some of the characters so far, they are compelling, they're not necessarily nice but you have characters like Goblin and One Eye and briefly TomTom, the Captain, a guy who comes out of nowhere, Elmo, and I don't know what his deal is and that's a bad name for a mercenary leader.

I have to say, can I just say I confused, reading this book I completely forgot that Elmo and the Lieutenant are two different characters. That's right, that's right, I didn't realise that at first too, but the character that really interests me is Silent and I think there's something fascinating about the fact that this was written in 1984, a surprisingly good disability representation.

Again, maybe it might have to do with the fact that Glenn Cook's a Marine, he probably knows a lot of guys who've been fucked up by war. Silent is a character when he's introduced but at a certain point I'm pretty sure Crocus says Silent is the only one in our company who I might actually describe or the only wizard in our company who I might actually describe as evil. Now am I right in applying that to Silent or is that someone else? I think I'm not sure is the answer to that question.

Okay if I am right that's compelling because Silent is the only nice guy in the entire book. It's certainly not the character that I understand him to be and I wouldn't say it's something that's pulled up later but if it is the case you're absolutely right, that's amazing. I don't think so, I like Silent.

I like the fact that when Crocus just talked to the fact that he wasn't always Silent but direct to the time he met him he'd taken his vow or gone meet like he no one actually knows if it's a choice or not.

Yeah he's so mysterious but what happens is that as the book goes on like Darling who is Death she communicates via sign language and she's able to communicate with Silent and up until this point all communication with Silent is done by you tell him what to do and he does it or you communicate via a series of hand gestures and facial expressions which takes a while and what I like about this book is that the presence of Darling

where they actually take an interest like Crocus takes an interest in communicating with Darling and learning her sign language to be able to talk to her but it actually enhances the relationship with Silent as well. He becomes better at communicating with Silent and that kind of brings us to again we've avoided spoilers up to now so let's not do it now but the end of the book there's a surprising amount of heart considering how grim this book is.

The point of the whole point of the story is that it's all for nothing. All of this the classic quality of grimdark stories all of this is for nothing. All these lives lost it's all a waste of time it doesn't mean anything. And so to end with this really sincere emotional and like clean and pure emotion of trust and love and devotion it really knocked me for six.

I think it's a testament to the themes of the book and people describe the Black Company as being a very bleak story and I actually struggle to see it that way. Yes the narrative of what they're doing the war they're fighting is always hopeless but the internal mechanism of the Black Company and how it operates as a family is actually I think very uplifting.

You know the banter between Goblin and One Eye the fact that Darling is brought in and they learn the sign language and I love the fact that you know they embrace her sign language and they use it to communicate with Silent but the Captain even amuses on using it as like a way to communicate non-verbally during like missions.

It shows that they are a community and despite what the horrible things they may be contractively obligated to do when they sign up as a mercenary band they do look after each other. And that's nice. It is. It is. And it goes to show like that the book it makes so much sense that this book is about camaraderie when you can what you've told me you know about this dude being like a Marine in the early days of the Vietnam War that it makes a lot of sense that he'd be writing that experience.

It reminds me of something that was once said on the Overly Sarcastic Production YouTube channel which is that they were comparing the works of JRR Tolkien and George R. R. Martin because Tolkien was born in the 1800s. He lived through World War I, he paused writing The Lord of the Rings, what World War II was going on and all of his books are coloured by this immense darkness and this immense sense that the world is getting worse and it will never get better again.

And the only hope you have is to be a good Catholic and you'll go to heaven. Yes. And you know that all makes sense like the fall of Gondolin I would argue is based on the song where Tolkien lost all but one of his best friends he'd known growing up. He had a very dark sad life and that hopelessness is very reflected in the stories. And then you have George R. R. Martin who's a baby boomer and he's writing about a darkness which is inspired by Glenn Cook.

He's writing based on what he thinks is cool. He's writing about, he's writing Elric of Mell Nibene fanfictions. We know what a Targaryen is, it's a Mell Nibenean. Completely. There's a sense of taking from inspiration.

And I think all that goes into why Glenn Cook's writing, just comparing it back to something like the Shred Rays of Cure, it doesn't come off as cringy in the same way because when he is being dark or edgy it very often feels like it's coming from a very, how do I say it, genuine place in a non-horrible way. Yes, it's sincere. This book is very sincere even as there's a lot of sarcastic, sardonic elements. This book has heart. It's a grim, slightly rotted heart but it's there.

I think that's honestly, I think we've kind of hit all the many beautiful points of this book and I'm so glad you joined in the enjoyment. There's actually one little detail which you would have picked up on which I think I'll just throw out while we're talking about George R. R. Martin and Tolkien comparisons. It's a very common conversation point with The Black Company.

Obviously you were on audiobooks so you would have known this but The Black Company and Glencoke as I was quite fair, is not including maps. Glencoke thinks they are unnecessary if you write your book well enough. The readers shouldn't need one. Thoughts? Yeah, and I think that makes sense because the names he gives to locations are very descriptive and they stand out. He doesn't give them proper names.

He names them like the Cloudy Woods, the Jewel Cities, the something steps, I forget what he said there, the Black Tower. They have these striking, obvious stand out names. Yeah, I'm in the same boat really, I had nothing more to add. Only the fact that there's many fan made maps online.

But I really kind of appreciate it because you don't need it, you can follow what's going on and also because like I said earlier, the company is always marching between places, you still get a nice sense of distance and scale when it's needed and when it's relevant to the plot. At one point he says, we've been marching for months. I know, I feel the pain. Well, I think that kind of brings to the end our thoughts on The Black Company. Obviously Glen Cook has written many other series.

If you do end up reading The Black Company, enjoy it. Push forward with The Black Company. He's also read a great dark fantasy series called The Dread Empire, which I read the first trilogy of. It's similar-esque to The Black Company as anything could be, except maybe it's a little bit more focusing on those higher power users in the world. Also I haven't read, but Geordie, this is so up my alley. Do you know what Glen Cook's second longest series is after The Black Company? No idea.

Garrett P.I., our hard-boiled detective on the streets. I'm just like, oh Glen, yes, this is what I need. Is that real life noir or is that like fantasy P.I. noir? I believe it's real life. Okay. Hello Geordie, I think we've come to the closing moments. So if it's not been painfully obvious so far, do you recommend this book and if so, who to? Well, do I recommend the book? That's a very different question to did I like it?

Because there's only a small fraction of people I can say yes, I feel confident about telling you to read this book. You need to really line up with a lot of my personal takes to like this. You got to have a high tolerance for like darkness, but not necessarily edginess. You've got to be okay with reading a very opaque, mysterious story that's not interested in actually giving you answers and be an appreciator of just good books.

You have to, if you feel like you have a high tolerance for that stuff, yes, this is a great book. I'm so pleased to hear that it might even get better. I would recommend it to those people. To put it more abruptly, if you like Berserk, read this book. I like Berserk. This is really good. I am absolutely thrilled. And yes, I fully recommend The Black Company and the continuing series. Do read it in publication order, please.

The idea that you go from The Black Company to Port of Shadows is heinous. Do not do that to yourself. And to kind of build off the audience point, you're right, there are some definite requirements here. Even if you're a fan of maybe some more modern books that characterize this Grimdark, I'm thinking like First Law. I don't think it's quite a one-to-one. You would, you know, if you enjoy that, you enjoy this in any way. But not the same.

Whereas there's similar elements of what I talked about in Best Serve Cold, we talked about in Best Serve Cold, I'm not going to take all the credit, about just being content to ride the wave of chaos. That's close to being here in this book, but it's less joyous in its darkness. There's a very different, not very, there's a somewhat different but distinct tone.

And so I do actually then have to follow, I was going to be like, well, maybe like Prince of Thorns, but I don't think that is as mature as this book by any stretch of the imagination. No, no, not like Prince of Thorns.

Thank you for bringing it up, Duncan, because I was going to say, I was going to leverage into this when we talked about George R. R. Martin, there is a generation of writers out there who have read The Black Company, they've taken a wrong idea, they've gone, this is dark and edgy and cool. I'm going to do that too, without having the emotional courage or strength to really pay respect to it. I don't have the same filter that Croker has.

And in many respects, I hope this doesn't go the wrong way, I think The Black Company probably does some of these, treats a lot of these matters with greater respect and sincerity than Berserk even does by a good margin. Well that's not a high bar, the only real bar of comparison would be the way Berserk talks about sexual assault and rape of men, obviously it's shit in talking about that for female characters, but it's quite good at talking about it for male characters.

I'm not going to make the comparison, I just thought I had to bring that up. It is not quite maybe what its reputation has led it to be, it is the grandaddy of the darker fantasy genre and in being the grandaddy, it is I think mature in what it's approaching. So good on The Black Company, but please you know, take the trigger warnings very seriously.

And don't be misled by the way by thinking this is necessarily an overly bleak or depressing book, it is a bleak world, but ultimately those spirits of camaraderie I think do make it uplifting by the end.

Yeah the last chapter is, I actually Duncan I have to say, right as I was going into the dark chapter I was captured enough by the grim mood of it, there's this one moment where they say this character died, and the moment I heard that I went oh shit this book sucks, because I was so upset by this, I was so ready to be distraught and like just sort of kick a can or something, that if they didn't pull up at that last second and leave us with this

tender soft sweet chapter, I probably wouldn't be really mad about this book. So take away there, if this book was missing its last chapter it wouldn't be as good. You can't, Duncan you can't say that for all seasons. No that is very true. So I recommend The Black Company. Warbreaker. So we recommend The Black Company, if you have read it and would love to share your thoughts with us on it, then the best place is always on our Instagram, it is just Fantasy Podcasts.

Follow us there for updates when the newest episode drops and see additional write ups and reviews. I'm working on one for Conan the City of the Dead as we speak and should go up even before this episode, so look out for that. As always there's our Gmail as well as FantasyPodcasts.gmail.com, we always love to hear from you, it makes our day so much, it means a smile to both our faces. So please do get in touch, even if just to say like that episode.

Guys message that our podcast was lit the other day and honestly I've been riding that high for the entire week, so thank you mate, you're awesome. Alright Duncan, there's only one last thing left to be done. Oh yes, the next book. Well Geordie, I have been thinking and I've been thinking and thinking and to be quite honest I was actually like, do I hit another big one off the list?

Something that I've been meaning to do for ages but I was swerved at the last minute and actually I want to hit a book that I was gifted for Christmas and I have started reading it and I've been very much enjoying it and I want to see if it continues to be good and I want to share it with you and that is the story of The Bonesmith by Nicky Paul Pretto. Right okay, now for the first time in a little while I have no idea what this book is.

I've never heard of this, is this new, did this come out a while ago, what's up? That is an excellent question. It is relatively new, this book came out in 2023, it's been described as Gideon the Ninth meets Game of Thrones, so it's been said, to be honest Gideon the Ninth is something I want to read. Yeah, I mean people talk about that all the time and the more they talk about it I'm like what the hell is this book about? Is this book about Homestuck? What's going on?

Let's start here, let's see if it's a good one, maybe we've discovered something new and fantastic or maybe we'll get online and realise everyone else has been talking about this and we're well behind on the world of fantasy books culture. Who knows, let's see, but that will be next time, I've been your host Duncan Nicholl and I've been your host Geordie Bailey. Till next time. Peace out, bye!