The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Literature => Topic started by: Madness on March 16, 2016, 03:09:42 am
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So things keep coming up and I need to post this.
Who has/hasn't read Glen Cook's The Black Company? Both Erikson and Bakker have cited him as an antecedent. Deadhouse Gates's Chain of Dogs is straight out of a couple paragraphs paragraphs in the first book and a number of Bakker homages have come up, including explicit reference to "thaumaturgical" magic a la Duskweaver speculation.
I had tried to read it a long time ago, and even more recently at Camlost's, but it's really gotten me this time 'round.
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I have the first few on my Kindle. I got a few chapters in on the first book and liked it. Something, I don't know what, dragged me away from it. I do plan to getback to them one day though, I liked the writing and was intrigued by the magic and The Ten(?). I think I will like them, maybe I'll give them a go after the reread.
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The first three books of The Black Company saga are amazing in my opinion. The following two are really good, but it started to taper off for me after that. I think it has to do largely with the narrator and narration. I found it easy to follow along with Croaker.
Both Erikson and Bakker have cited him as an antecedent.
Doesn't matter what order you read them in, once you've read both it is impossible not to recognize how much the Black Company inspired the Bridgeburners.
I liked the writing and was intrigued by the magic and The Ten(?)
As someone who typically craves systematic magic--else it become plot device--I absolutely loved Cook's ability to leave utterly everything unexplained but still manage to define just enough that the reader can easily delineate sorcerous rank where none is imposed. Example being, there is no doubt that the Ten Who Were Taken are unrivaled, and that he who "took" them is superior to them.
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Cmon don't do that. I've already got too many books to read.
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Lol :).
I'll finish The Black Company over the next night or so and then probably go back and try and finish one of the three books I had stalled on the twoish weeks previous.
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The first three Black Company books and the Silver Spike are really good, and the first two books of the South are almost as good. The rest aren't up to the rest of the series in terms of quality. Cook's influence is absolutely clear on Erikson (who gives Cook multiple acknowledgements in his books) and present in Bakker and Martin. Cook is the guy who brought armies of morally questionable soldiers fighting wars for even more questionable warlords to the center stage of mainstream fantasy. In Dunyain terms, he prepared the ground for Martin. The early books are definitely worth reading.
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Lol - I've only read Shadows Linger since my last post :'(.
Agreed on your points, CC.