port of shadows a chronicle of the black company

Martin’s A Game of Thrones and 20 years before Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself, The Black Company is rooted in, and indeed it defines, the grimdark genre. A grimdark masterpieceĪlmost 40 years after it was first published, The Black Company by Glen Cook is one of the freshest books I have ever read. Who just so turns out to be one of the Taken. These Annals, written from the point of view of Croaker, the Company’s Annalist, chronicle the history of the Black Company, starting with the last days of its service to the Syndic of Beryl, when the Company is approached by a prospective, albeit mysterious new employer. To win, the Lady and the Taken need the military might and the strategic genius of those for whom war is the very lifeblood… Together they should make this war a quick one. The Lady is almost as strong as the Dominator was in his prime, and the Taken, these gods among men, whose very footsteps shake the ground they walk on, instil fear into the heart of anyone who so much as feels their presence. The Dominator, the Lady, and the sorcerers known as the Ten Who Were Taken were all sealed in tombs from which they were never to return.Īlmost 400 years later, the Lady broke free of this prison, releasing the Ten Who Were Taken with her and started waging a new war against the world, ushering in another age of dread and despair.

The only good side is the side of winning, and that is the side that the Company prefers fighting for.Ĭenturies ago, the dreaded Dominator, and his lover, the Lady, seduced and subjugated ten of the most powerful sorcerers of the age into his service and established a cruel and merciless empire in an era that came to be known as the Dominion.Ī century later, the Dominion was ended, overturned by a rebel known as the White Rose. There are no good sides in war, no good deeds. These men are ruthless and violent, and they do not concern themselves with such trivial questions as whether they are fighting on the good side or the bad side. And no matter who it’s fighting for, the Company always upholds its contract. The Black Company, the last of the Free Companies of Kathovar, moves from one war to another, from one employer to the next.Īlways fighting.

Port of shadows a chronicle of the black company