"The wind tumbled and bumbled and howled around Meystrikt. Arctic imps giggled and blew their frigid breath through chinks in the walls of my quarters. My lamplight flickered and danced, barely surviving. When my fingers stiffened, I folded them round the flame and let them toast. The wind was a hard blow out of the north, gritty with powder snow. A foot had fallen during the...
When sorcerers and demigods go to war, those wars are fought by mercenaries, "dog soldiers," grunts in the trenches. And the stories of those soldiers are the stories of Glen Cook's hugely popular "Black Company" novels. If the Joseph Heller of Catch-22 were to tell the story of The Lord of the Rings, it might read like the Black Company books. There is nothing else in fantasy...
Regrouping in Taglios, the surviving members of the Black Company are determined to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. Journey there under terrible conditions, they arrive just in time for a magical conflagration in which the bones of the world will be revealed, the history of the Company unveiled, and new world gained and lost...all at a...
The tale again comes to us from the pen of Murgen, Annalist and Standard Bearer of the Black Company, whose developing powers of travel through space and time give him a perspective like no other. Led by the wily commander, Croaker, and the Lady, the Company is working for the Taglian government, but neither the Company nor the Taglians are overflowing with trust for each...
"Let me tell you who I am, on the chance that these scribblings do survive.I am Murgen, Standard bearer of the Black Company, though I bear the shame of having lost that standard in battle. I am keeping these Annals because Croaker is dead., One-Eye won't, and hardly anyone else can read or write. I will be your guide for however long it takes the Shadowlanders to force our...
Croaker has fallen and, following the Company's disastrous defeat at Dejagore, Lady is one of the few survivors-determined to avenge the Company and herself against the Shadowmasters, no matter what the cost. But in assembling a new fighting force from the dregs and rabble of Taglios, she finds herself offered help by a mysterious, ancient cult of murder-competent, reliable,...
After the devastating battle at the Tower of Charm, Croaker leads the greatly diminished Black Company south, in search of the lost Annals. The Annals will be returned to Khatovar, eight thousand miles away, a city that may exists only in legend - the origin of the first Free Companies. Every step of the way the Company is hounded by shadowy figured and carrion-eating crows. As...
Embedded in the trunk of the scion of the godtree, it contains the essence of the maddest of the Ten Who Were Taken.The Dominator. Defeated by the Lady and cast from this world, all that was left of him was a foul trace of lingering evil. But the graveyard that was once the Barrowland contains more secrets than dead. All who would possess the power of the Dominator are drawn to...
She is the last hope of good in the war against the evil sorceress known as the Lady. From a secret base on the Plains of Fear, where even the Lady hesitates to go, the Black Company, once in service to the Lady, now fights to bring victory to the White Rose. But now an even greater evil threatens the world. All the great battles that have gone before will seem a skirmishes...
Mercenary soldiers in the service of the Lady, the Black Company stands against the rebels of the White Rose. They are tough men, proud of honoring their contracts. The Lady is evil, but so, too, are those who falsely profess to follow the White Rose, reincarnation of a centuries-dead heroine. Yet now some of the Company have discovered that the mute girl they rescued and...
Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find...
The ongoing war between Humanity and the Ulat is a battle of attrition that humanity is unfortunately losing. However, humans have the advantage of trans-hyperdrive technology, which allows their climber fleet, under very narrow and strenuous conditions, to pass through space almost undetectable. Passage at Arms tells the intimate, detailed and harrowing story of a climber crew...
The Fortress on the edge of the galaxy was called Stars' End, a planet build for death, but by whom? It lay on the outermost arm of the Milky Way, silent, cloaked in mystery, self-contained and controlled, tantalizingly close to the harvesting Starfishers. If they could gain control of that arsenal, the Starfishers need never fear the Confederation's navy nor the forces of the...
Starfish: Treasure troves of power. They were creatures of fusion energy, ancient, huge, intelligent, drifting in herds on the edge of the galaxy, producing their ambergris, the substance precious to man and the man-like Sangaree alike. In deep, starless space the herds were protected by the great harvestships of the Seiners, or Starfishers - the independent, non-Confederation...
The vendetta in space had started centuries before "Mouse" Storm was born with his grandfather's raid on the planet Prefactlas, the blood bath that freed the human slaves from their Sangaree masters. But one Sangaree survived - the young Norborn heir, the man who swore vengeance on the Storm family and their soldiers, in a carefully mapped plot that would take generations to...
Piper Hecht’s secrets make him dangerous, but his skill and his reputation put him in danger — from his enemies, who fear what he might do, or who want revenge for what he has already done; and from his friends, who want to use his military gifts for their own purposes. His sister Heris and his living ancestor Cloven Februaren, the Ninth Unknown, have made Hecht part of their...
It's cold. The wells of power are weakening and the forces of Night grow strong. The gods are real, and still have some power, mostly to do harm. The Instrumentalities of the Night are the worst of these. Piper Hecht, born Else Tage, survived a battle with the Instrumentalities. Now he's Captain-General of the armies fighting a crusade for Patriarch Sublime V. Intrigues swirl...
Welcome to the world of the Instrumentalities of the Night, where imps, demons, and dark gods rule in the spaces surrounding upstart humanity. At the edges of the world stand walls of ice which push slowly forward to reclaim the land for the night. And at the world's center, in the Holy Land where two great religions were born, are the Wells of Ihrain, the source of the...
Garrett uncovers the dark side of the fantasy city TunFaire, where no-one is to be trusted especially beautiful woman. When a pack of gorgeous woman knock on his door, Garrett knows it’s too good to be true. The leader of the group is Alyx Weider, the daughter of the largest brewer in town. Her father and friends are opening a new theater in TunFaire and the lovely ladies are...
In TunFaire, a city of gorgeous women, powerful sorcerers and dangerous magic, the beautiful, criminally insane daughter of a comatose crime boss has some lascivious designs on private investigator Garrett-who now has to figure out why everyone is suddenly after him.
Anyone else would have learned by now: when trouble comes knocking, don't open the door. But there's a reason why Garrett's still in the P.I. business after all these years-he's not one to learn his lessons. Maybe that's why he lets himself get roped into being a bodyguard for Kip Prose, an obnoxious kid being threatened by creatures that can't quite be described. But before...
Riots between humans and trolls, elves, and other non-humans have plunged Tunfaire into near chaos. Garrett finds himself pulled into the game when a powerful gang of human rightists tries to shake down his employer?and ends up caught in a conspiracy of hate that pits man against? everybody!
There are some new gods in the town of TunFaire, but temple real estate on the Street of Dreams is at a premium. So the big gods on the block issued a challenge-find the "key" to the one temple still available. When two rival pantheons try to hire Garrett, he knows he is in for it.
When the former mistress of the now-defunct king hires Garrett to find her missing teenaged daughter, the human detective gets more than he bargained for in a world full of suspects, sex, and corpses.
Blood soaked blades had been taking their toll among the luscious lovelies in Garrett's home city of TunFaire. And though Garrett could be as civic-minded as the next guy - unless the next guy was Captain Block of the Watch - the private eye wasn't sure he really wanted to take on a serial killer psycho who did too good a carving job and never left any of the blood behind....
Everyone wants to find it — a treasure so rich it makes even a hard-boiled detective like Garrett nervous. It's the legendary Book of Shadows, made of brass and holding secrets no mortal was ever meant to master?and Garrett must make sure no one ever has the chance to work its spells on an unsuspecting and unprotected world.
A corps of corpses was what it seemed Garrett had committed himself to find when Blake Peters turned up to reclaim some overdue favors. Someone was trying to kill Peters' boss, wealthy, retired General Stantnor, in a most lingering, painful, and maybe poisonous way. And Peters wanted Garrett to keepithe general from becoming a ghost of himself. But Stantnor's mansion held a...
Slaying Beauty. She was tall, blonde, and offering Garrett a fee that was irresistible to take a case that seemed open and shut. But in a town of elves and humans, thugs and swindlers - a place where magic and religion could prove an all-too-potent mix - Garrett had learned to take a long, hard look before nodding yes. And when, soon after this damsel in distress had departed,...
The Stormwarden's children have been kidnapped and Garrett, P.I. is on the case. But caught between the bewitching beauty of a half-elf and the fearsome power of a horde of ogres, Garrett has to think twice before sacrificing all for a fortune in gold-after all, even in this enchanted land, he's only human.
It should have been a simple job. But for Garrett, a human detective in a world of gnomes, tracking down the woman to whom his dead pal Danny left a fortune in silver is no slight task. Even with the aid of Morley, the toughest half-elf around, Garrett isn't sure he'll make it out alive from a land where magic can be murder, the dead still talk, and vampires are always hungry...
The empire of the title is Shinsan - The Dread Empire. The soldier is Tain, disillusioned with his past life and seeking peace and a new identity. But the difficulties of leaving one's past behind are insurmountable and Tain must finally accept what he is-a soldier of an empire unacquainted with defeat. For those of you who have read and enjoyed Cook's wonderful Dread Empire...
"Narriman was ten when the black rider came to Wadi al Hamamah. He rode tall and arrogant upon a courser as white as his djellaba was black. He looked neither right nor left as he passed among the tents. Old men spat at his horse's hooves. Old women made warding signs. Children and dogs whined and fled. Makram's ass set up a horrible braying. Narriman was not frightened, just...
"With dawn a hundred doves unfurled their varicolored wings upon the quiet sea, fluttering nervously. The waves ran gentle now, but during the night the earth beneath the deep had groaned and shaken like a brunwhal in its death throes. Ahead lay deep blue water, cool Fenaja water from the arctic, but Rickli sensed no danger. They would reach the Pimental Bank before noon....
"It seemed we had been aboard the Vengeful D. forever, madly galloping the coasts from Simballawein to The Tongues of Fire. We looked toward land with the lust of stallions for mares beyond a twelve-foot fence. But our barrier was far less visible. It consisted solely of Colgrave's will. "Going to the Clouds of Heaven next time I hit Portsmouth," said Little Mica, bending over...
Set in the aftermath of a great war involving the Dread Empire. "Our first glimpse of the plain was one of Heaven. The snow and treacherous passes had claimed two men and five animals. Two days later we all wished we were back in the mountains. The ice storm came by night. An inch covered the ground. And still it came down, stinging my face, frosting the heads and shoulders of...
"The figure wore scarlet. It had a small, hairless skull. Its face was as delicate as that of a beautiful woman. A rouge colored its lips. Kohl shadowed its eyes. Zodiacal pendants hung from its earlobes. Yet no observer could have sworn to its sex. Its eyes were dosed. Its mouth was open. It sang. Its song was terror. It was evil. Its voice stunk with its own fear. Its lips...
Rejecting the advice of the wizard Varthlokkur and spymaster Michael Trebilcock, King Bragi Ragnorson of Kavelin joins Chatelain Mist's coup against the Dread Empire. Ragnorson dangles the fate of his nation in the jaws of his foes, refusing to see that his one true enemy may be himself.
It has ended. It begins again. In Kavelin: Lady Nepanthe's new life with the wizard Varthlokkur is disturbed by visions of her lost son, while King Bragi Ragnarson and Michael Trebilcock scheme to help the exiled Princess Mist re-usurp her throne — under their thumb. In Shinsan: a pig-farmer's son takes command of Eastern Army, while Lord Kuo faces plots in his council and a...
The holy wars had begun, his family was slaughtered by bandits. He was abandoned to die in the desert – but he survived, with the help of his god, and became El Murid, the Disciple. Against him rides Haroun ben Yousif, High Prince of sorcery. Their war will soak the desert with magic, and with blood.
At empire's end war is not all hell. Mocker finds old friends in the halls of death, and Nepanthe new lovers in the fields of blood and bone. The war-child wields the sword of truth: the Star Rider's dread secret is at last revealed. And so it ends. Though "end" is but a wizard-word for new beginnings.
Cradled in swords, the war-child comes October. When the leaves turn blood and the wind turns bone: a time for doings dark and strange. The princess bears a child to the winged thing and the cries are heard far beyond the peaks of Dragon's Teeth, at the end of the world's Beginning, where Nepanthe and Mocker wait for the war that wizard's dread.
Across the mountains called Dragon's Teeth, beyond the chill reach of the Werewind and the fires of the world's beginning, above the walls of the castle Fangdred, stands Windtower. From this lonely keep the Star Rider calls forth the war that even wizards dread, fought for a woman's hundred-lifetime love. A woman called Nepanthe, princess to the Stormkings.
Was she their savior or a deadly menace? Now grown to her full psychic powers as Most Senior of the witchlike silth, Marika made a daring plan: to set solar mirrors in space that would end the Winter of the World, heralding a new age for all. Then her old enemies, the rogue tradermales, raised up a champion against her, an alien power that threatened to destroy all that she had...
The power in her mind brought young Morika at last to the great Maksche Cloister, where her already precocious silth witch-like powers could be honed to an awesome mental weapon. To the tradermales fell the skills ot science and technology, while the female silth dominated the world with their mastery of the black arts. In the uneasy tradermale-silth truce, there could be no...
The Grauken Wakes. It was the dormant, loathsome instinct possessed by every beast of Ponath. An innocent pup of the Degnan Packstead, Marika thought it was just a tale to frighten the young. Then the Grauken-possessed, cannibalistic nomads swept down from the far north - and the winter of death began. Marika's pack now has to fight for its life - even if it means calling upon...
A short story collection. Glen Cook is, of course, best known for his enormously popular series fiction, which includes the Garrett P.I. and Dread Empire sequences, as well as the internationally acclaimed Chronicles of the Black Company. Readers familiar only with this aspect of Cook's career will find a great many pleasures-and an equal number of surprises-in his vibrant new...
The City of Qushmarrah is uneasy under the rule of the Herodians short, balding men whose armies would never have conquered the city had not the great and evil wizard Narkar been killed and sealed in his citadel; had not the savage nomad Datars turned coat and sided with the invaders; had not some traitor opened the fortress to them. Not many would welcome the return of the...
Forged on the anvil of death, imbued with the souls of its victims and bearers, the sword had chosen Gathrid. In his hands, it would taste blood and cleave its own path through war, seeking vengeance for mortal-and immortal-treachery. A very weak boy finds a sword (actually, it is the other way around) which gives him physical strength and ways for vengeance. The rest of the...
"Cantanzaro sang as he walked along the road to Antonisen. Occasionally, he glanced back, smirked. The road remained an empty, meandering scar of brown on springtime's green. The Maniarchs of Kortanek hadn't yet picked up his scent. Then he frowned. He had been compelled to flee without the Jewels of Regot. He grinned again. The thousand gayly colored spires of Antonisen...
For four thousand years, the Guardships have ruled Canon Space - immortal ships with an immortal crew, dealing swiftly and harshly with any mercantile houses or alien races that threaten the status quo. But now the House Tregesser has an edge: a force from outside Canon Space offers them the resources to throw off Guardship rule. This precipitates an avalanche of unexpected...
Protector Jerhke has kept Shasessrre peaceful for hundreds of years. After his brutal murder, his son Rider tries to discover his father's murderer. Rider is helped in his search by his companions, as they battle against the agents of the mysterious Kralj Odehnal. But the murderous dwarf turns out to be an introduction to greater terror, as they match wits with Shai Khe, the...
"We were trapped in a world where tomorrow was yesterday. The fire had come three times and gone, and now we were back where our fathers had been a hundred years ago. There were some — "Toms," I've heard them called — who went into slavery as if it were their birthright, but there were also those who fought and died rather than hoe in some redneck's field. Most of those who...
"It's quiet up there, riding the ups and downs over Ginnunga Gap. Even in combat there's no slightest clamor, only a faint scratch and whoosh of strikers tapping igniters and rockets smoking away. The rest of the time, just a sleepy whisper of air caressing your canopy. On patrol it's hard to stay alert and wary. If the aurora hadn't been so wild behind the hunched backs of the...
"In this frenetic, quick-shift, go, drop-your-friends -possessions -roots -loyalties like throwaway containers age, heroes, legends, archetypal figures are disposable: as brilliant and ephemeral as the butterflies of Old Earth. One day some researcher may wrest from Nature a golden, universe-changing secret, some brave ship's commander may shatter the moment's enemy, be a hero,...
May 1975. St. Louis. In a snow-swept street, a cop finds the body of a man who died fifty years ago. It's still warm. July 1866, Lidice, Bohemia: A teenage girl calmly watches her parents die as another being takes control of her body. August 2058, Prague: Three political rebels flee in to the past, taking with them a terrible secret. As past, present, and future collide, one...