I'm gonna be frank, the first book in the series (the titular Black Company) is honestly my favorite book. Ever. Is it objectively one of the best? No, and it's not even Cook's best (that probably goes to the Instrumentality of the Night series that he just recently finished)
The basic set up is that the main character and his allies are part of a merc group called The Black Company, Last free company of Khatovar. The entire thing is told from the first person, as it's written as a journal entry within the Annals of the Company. It can get a little annoying but it ends up working fairly well.
Anyway, after a chapter or two setting up the Company itself, they end up enrolled as part of the Empire. The Empire is the recreation of the Dominion of the Dominator (they were really creative with names, I know!) which had been crushed ages ago by the woman known as the White Rose. More recently, the Dominators wife, known only as Lady, was released along with his 10 great generals (The Ten who were taken). The Ten were actually the Dominators foes in ye olden times, that were also great sorcerers, the Dominator "took" them and broke them to his will, binding them forever under his power (and Lady's).
This was some of our finest work!
The pacing is... honestly a bit bad. It tends to plod along for a bit, then all of a sudden a dozen things happen, then it plods again. This is most evident during a later period in the book right before the final Grand Battle.
Similarly the Characters aren't quite fleshed out. Goblin and One Eye are two of the groups sorcerers, and tend to be fairly funny. They also have a constant playful rivalry and magical spats against one another every so often.
There's Silent, the third of the pet magi, who's probably the most calculating of the three, but he isn't allowed much character until later in the plot (of the first trilogy) because he chooses not to speak.
Croaker gets the largest character overall, as he's the one who's writing the book. Basically he's the gruff battle doctor of the group, he's got a few soft spots and is more often than not thinking what any sane person would think when confronted by some of the things he finds.
SoulCatcher is a manipulative son of a gun, and is ruthless in her manipulations. He gets weirder as time goes on and more books pass.
Raven who has the second most "screen time" out of all the characters is more or less an archetype. He's the tough guy, he could kill you at a dozen paces without even thinking about it or batting an eye. There are hints at more that pan out in later books with his interactions with Darling, but for now, he's just the stock character. Honestly, I always sort of had him in my head almost like Letho from Witcher 2
I just like Letho ok?
And finally Darling. This is a 9 year old girl who attaches herself to the company early on in the book (in possibly one of the darkest scenes ever put to the page). She's Deaf and Mute, but she's VERY smart and honestly, lives up to her name. You can't help but get a warm feeling when reading about her.
Now, the reason I love this book overall is it's sense of morality. In this, more than any other of the series, there is no good and evil. The Empire and it's Lady have all of the standard Evil stereotypes attached to it. Evil Sorcerer generals, insane internal politics, stories of high taxes, armies raping and pillaging on their way to the front... And yet, the Rebel is portrayed almost the same way. The leaders of the Rebel are just as power hungry and corrupt as the Ten and Lady, but are using the history behind the Ten and Lady to drive their ambitions. Later books start slowly moving to the standard good/evil dichotomy, but good is always tinged by evil and vis versa.
Magic in this world is also different than most. Sorcery has a sense of awe to it. One of the first instances of it on a large scale (as in, the scale you'd see in any other fantasy novel) is the Company coming upon an open field and finding dry humps pockmarking the entire place, and each hump is a perfect circle. Turns out those humps were created by one of the Ten ripping off a spell to slaughter the Rebel. For the most part however, it's used more for slight of hand and minor illusions rather than sending fireballs flying around the place. Also another thing I like about this magic is that there is no inherent drawback to it's use. Most fantasy novels and media have Sorcerers and magi being tightly controlled and usually rather flimsy (when all is said and done) because the magic costs so much to do so much. There isn't a Raistlin Majere in the tale, in fact all of the sorcerers (other than Silent) are confirmed as over 100 and still going strong (even if they look like a rasin).
Combat in the novel is MOSTLY taken care of "off screen". Similar to George R.R. Martins work, the actual combat and warfare is out of the characters perspective because he's either detached from the company, or stitching up the casualties from the fight. When they do occur in the novel it's almost... detached. It's not "And Lo! I Swung my axe and smote his head from his body and watched it roll down the stairs before attacking the next poor poodle on my way to the princess bedchamber!" rather he tends to stand back and talk about it from a more tactical standpoint about how the guys actually worked while fighting rather than the gory details.
It ends up being less this:
And more this
The series gets better as time goes on (second book out of the 9 being the weakest overall), with the best overall being the last one simply because Cook obviously had gotten MUCH better at writing a story. It is kind of interesting that each book feels like Cook wants to go back to the "there is no good and evil" thing, but he can never really bring himself to do it.
He managed to mostly pull it off with the most recent series, Instrumentalities of the Night, but his Dread Empire novels (written before Black Company) had obvious good vs bad bits in it.
Also, it should be noted that Black Company was sort the basis for what Bungie put together in it's Myth games. A lot of the basic elements of the narrative and backstory are similar (for example, in Myth a comet appears every 1000 years to herald the changing of an age, while in Black Company it appears every 37 years to herald something big happening relating to Lady and the Dominator
The basic set up is that the main character and his allies are part of a merc group called The Black Company, Last free company of Khatovar. The entire thing is told from the first person, as it's written as a journal entry within the Annals of the Company. It can get a little annoying but it ends up working fairly well.
Anyway, after a chapter or two setting up the Company itself, they end up enrolled as part of the Empire. The Empire is the recreation of the Dominion of the Dominator (they were really creative with names, I know!) which had been crushed ages ago by the woman known as the White Rose. More recently, the Dominators wife, known only as Lady, was released along with his 10 great generals (The Ten who were taken). The Ten were actually the Dominators foes in ye olden times, that were also great sorcerers, the Dominator "took" them and broke them to his will, binding them forever under his power (and Lady's).
This was some of our finest work!
The pacing is... honestly a bit bad. It tends to plod along for a bit, then all of a sudden a dozen things happen, then it plods again. This is most evident during a later period in the book right before the final Grand Battle.
Similarly the Characters aren't quite fleshed out. Goblin and One Eye are two of the groups sorcerers, and tend to be fairly funny. They also have a constant playful rivalry and magical spats against one another every so often.
There's Silent, the third of the pet magi, who's probably the most calculating of the three, but he isn't allowed much character until later in the plot (of the first trilogy) because he chooses not to speak.
Croaker gets the largest character overall, as he's the one who's writing the book. Basically he's the gruff battle doctor of the group, he's got a few soft spots and is more often than not thinking what any sane person would think when confronted by some of the things he finds.
SoulCatcher is a manipulative son of a gun, and is ruthless in her manipulations. He gets weirder as time goes on and more books pass.
Raven who has the second most "screen time" out of all the characters is more or less an archetype. He's the tough guy, he could kill you at a dozen paces without even thinking about it or batting an eye. There are hints at more that pan out in later books with his interactions with Darling, but for now, he's just the stock character. Honestly, I always sort of had him in my head almost like Letho from Witcher 2
I just like Letho ok?
And finally Darling. This is a 9 year old girl who attaches herself to the company early on in the book (in possibly one of the darkest scenes ever put to the page). She's Deaf and Mute, but she's VERY smart and honestly, lives up to her name. You can't help but get a warm feeling when reading about her.
Now, the reason I love this book overall is it's sense of morality. In this, more than any other of the series, there is no good and evil. The Empire and it's Lady have all of the standard Evil stereotypes attached to it. Evil Sorcerer generals, insane internal politics, stories of high taxes, armies raping and pillaging on their way to the front... And yet, the Rebel is portrayed almost the same way. The leaders of the Rebel are just as power hungry and corrupt as the Ten and Lady, but are using the history behind the Ten and Lady to drive their ambitions. Later books start slowly moving to the standard good/evil dichotomy, but good is always tinged by evil and vis versa.
Magic in this world is also different than most. Sorcery has a sense of awe to it. One of the first instances of it on a large scale (as in, the scale you'd see in any other fantasy novel) is the Company coming upon an open field and finding dry humps pockmarking the entire place, and each hump is a perfect circle. Turns out those humps were created by one of the Ten ripping off a spell to slaughter the Rebel. For the most part however, it's used more for slight of hand and minor illusions rather than sending fireballs flying around the place. Also another thing I like about this magic is that there is no inherent drawback to it's use. Most fantasy novels and media have Sorcerers and magi being tightly controlled and usually rather flimsy (when all is said and done) because the magic costs so much to do so much. There isn't a Raistlin Majere in the tale, in fact all of the sorcerers (other than Silent) are confirmed as over 100 and still going strong (even if they look like a rasin).
Combat in the novel is MOSTLY taken care of "off screen". Similar to George R.R. Martins work, the actual combat and warfare is out of the characters perspective because he's either detached from the company, or stitching up the casualties from the fight. When they do occur in the novel it's almost... detached. It's not "And Lo! I Swung my axe and smote his head from his body and watched it roll down the stairs before attacking the next poor poodle on my way to the princess bedchamber!" rather he tends to stand back and talk about it from a more tactical standpoint about how the guys actually worked while fighting rather than the gory details.
It ends up being less this:
And more this
The series gets better as time goes on (second book out of the 9 being the weakest overall), with the best overall being the last one simply because Cook obviously had gotten MUCH better at writing a story. It is kind of interesting that each book feels like Cook wants to go back to the "there is no good and evil" thing, but he can never really bring himself to do it.
He managed to mostly pull it off with the most recent series, Instrumentalities of the Night, but his Dread Empire novels (written before Black Company) had obvious good vs bad bits in it.
Also, it should be noted that Black Company was sort the basis for what Bungie put together in it's Myth games. A lot of the basic elements of the narrative and backstory are similar (for example, in Myth a comet appears every 1000 years to herald the changing of an age, while in Black Company it appears every 37 years to herald something big happening relating to Lady and the Dominator