Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!JAFFE From: JAFFE@RUTGERS.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: The Black Company Trilogy Message-ID: <2520@topaz.ARPA> Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 16:29:33 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.2520 Posted: Mon Jul 8 16:29:33 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 9-Jul-85 07:21:54 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 30 From: watmath!jagardner (Jim Gardner) In article <2372@topaz.ARPA> SUTHERLAND@TL-20A.ARPA writes: >From: Dean Sutherland>Try Glen Cook's "Black Company" trilogy (The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and >The White Rose). The Black Company of the title is a mercenary company trying >to survive and fulfill their contracts (in that order). >The series is VERY bleak, but it is good reading. On the contrary, I got a big kick out of the Black Company and found it not a bit depressing. The members of the company were certainly capable of military atrocities, the most memorable for me being the point at which they forced a group of prisoners to dig trenches for fallen dead, then killed the prisoners and threw them in the graves too. At the same time, the company recognized such actions as evil and usually tried to find alternatives to bloodshed. Moreover, there is a significant emotional difference for me between mercenary ruthlessness and love of death, stupid self-hate, and banal violence. I understand ruthless self-preservation, especially since the people they were fighting were no more noble. On the other hand, the love of suffering displayed by Donaldson's Ravers, and the constant self-disgust of Covenant and Linden Avery are simply loathesome, without the excuse of self-preservation. I agree that the Black Company have no noble sentiments about war or heroism and that the books are much grittier than most fantasy, but I think the villainy is of an entirely different nature than the Covenant books. For me, the Black Company books were not downers at all (and the third book was rather charming). Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo