The Black Company

Ooooooh mama was this one was a banger. Four book series set in a grim dark fantasy world following the adventures of… you guessed it, The Black Company! What makes these books awesome is the format they’re written. Each book is told from the perspective of the Company’s Annalist, essentially the companies historian, responsible for recording the travels, trials, and tribulations of the company and its constituents. The characters stay more or less the same throughout the series but the lens which the reader sees them changes with each annalist. Each book really feels like the personal journal of whichever character is annalist at the moment.

This setup is really well complimented by the writing style of Mr. Glen Cook. The books start at a jarring pace and don’t slow down. At first I was frustrated by what I was perceiving as lack of detail, but later realized that it was part of the charm of the series. There are several “time-skips” where large distances are travelled, people die, and these events are given nothing more than a few sentences in explanation. Cook doesn’t always explain things; there’s no concrete magic system, no map in the front of the book, and some characters seem damn near immortal. Cook makes up for all these literary faux pas through sheer gritty badassery. Me likey!