Rating: 
Summary: This was a pleasant surprise
Review: I bought this book on a total whim, as I had heard good things about it. I am now thanking every diety i can because i did. This book basically addresses every complaint i have ever had about Fantasy literature. The bad guys, while evil aren't really that different then the good guys, Everyone on all sides are essentialy at eachothers throats, and very few characters have god-like power. Basically this series is all about shades of grey. The closest thing Ihave read to this would be Dragon, by Stephen Brust(one of the taltos novels). If you want straight up heroic fantasy, this is not your book, but if you want something deeper, read this TODAY.
Rating: 
Summary: an ok read, but...
Review: ... I understand that his characters were mercenaries. However, I truly dislike, Glen Cook's casual treatment of rape in this book. I will read no more books of his because of it.
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get any better than this
Review: Before I get into this review, let me say the following to those who've commented that Glen Cook is no Robert Jordan: Thank goodness! Some might find Cook's writing style sparse, but as a reader, I find 8-paragraph descriptions of bedrooms to be insulting. Cook doesn't waste your time with frills. There isn't a single sentence in this book that you can get away with skipping. I just finished reading The Black Company for at least the tenth time. Every time another installment in the series comes out, I start with The Black Company and work my way through the entire series. Not out of worry for preserving plot continuity (you really can pick the series up anywhere without being too lost), but because they're just that good. Coming to Cook straight from Robert Jordan, I was originally thrown off-balance by the dark nature of our protagonists. But I soon realized that that's just about the whole point of the series: you can't divide the world into "good" and "evil." We *want* to believe the Black Company to be the good guys, but we just can't. We *want* to believe the Lady to be the ultimate evil, but it turns out that she's not. Cook doesn't waste words with his character development, but these people are real in a way that most other fantasy characters aren't: you can't pin them down. Nobody is either purely good or purely evil. The plot is weak. But only in the sense that every plot involving an empire and a rebel is weak. Let's face it: we've seen that all before. There's an empire? And there's a rebellion against the empire? Not really ground-breaking. But the sub-plots (Soulcatcher vs. Limper, for example) add a breath of freshness that keeps the story from growing stale. A final word to the Jordanians out there: If you're looking to start reading about the Black Company, don't start with this novel. I'd recommend starting with either Bleak Seasons or She Is the Darkness (both of which feature a different narrator and writing style). They're far from the best of the series, but many people find them a more comfortable read.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark and Foreboding, But Not What I Expected
Review: The Black Company is a tightly knit band of mercenaries that are not in the least bit softhearted. They do what they have to in a world that's overrun by evil. Now the Company has been hired by one of the Lady's minions, Soulcatcher, to do her bidding. Their job is to aid her in her fight against the Rebel. The story is told by Croaker, the Company's doctor and historian. As with any novel told in first person, the plot is limited to what the storyteller knows. So if Croaker is left out of something, or doesn't know the reasoning behind something, then neither does the reader. I wasn't thrilled with the book, but neither did I dislike it. I found myself not knowing if the Lady was Evil or Good, whether the Rebel was Evil or Good, or if both of them are Evil. And if both of them are Evil, then who's Good? I was a little confused about parts of the story, and short of re-reading it, I probably will remain so.
Rating: 
Summary: Military action in a fantasy setting
Review: Military action in a fantasy setting The Black Company is not for the softhearted. They're a hard-core mercenary unit and whatever honor they may have had in their long-history has been all but lost (Put it this way, at least they draw the line at killing children). Now it's all about getting a paycheck and take it from a former soldier the military jargon and attitude is down pat. Ya' gotta love that. It takes a few chapters to get used to, because you get most of what's going on from the conversations. Croaker, the medic and the keeper of the companies' annals tells the whole story. There's a few writing flaws and a little too much sorcery going around for my taste, but there's enough intrigue and plot twists to keep you hooked. Also this is the first book, I hear the other stories are even better.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent ideas, mixed execution
Review: I went into this wanting to love "The Black Company" -- a number of friends I greatly respect love and praise it, and on the surface, it sounded like my kind of book: It's not another phonebook-sized transparent "Lord of the Rings" clone with a naive hero destined for great things facing the grim forces of ultimate darkness. And that's what I got, and what I like about "The Black Company." The book instead revolves around a professional mercenary company in the service of ultimate darkness (or penultimate darkness, if you want to be precise about such things). There's little romanticism here, and what little there is ends up being sneered at by the characters in the book. We also don't get a long build-up with a central character's journey from either bucolic bliss or mysterious origins as an orphan (both of which can be found in enough bad modern fantasy tales to turn anyone's stomach), but instead are thrust fairly quickly into the war between the evil goddess The Lady and the wizard-led rebel army in the north. In a way (and this is the only way "The Black Company" resembles the oft-repeated stylings of Tolkein), this is like reading a novel version of some of the notes from "Unfinished Tales," wherein we see what the bad guys were doing during "The Lord of the Rings." Right. So, good ideas, no question. Unfortunately, Cook works so hard to go against the grain of today's truly awful fantasy mainstream that he ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater: "The Black Company" is terribly underwritten, on two fronts. First, Cook eschews the naming style most fantasy novels feature, which can best be described as pounding a keyboard randomly and using what results as a name in the story. No clunky "Drizzt" or "Belgarion" here. Instead, members of the Black Company typically take on nicknames when they join the company, especially as many of them are hiding from their pasts and would like to have their real names die forgotten. Croaker, the company's doctor and "annalist" who records their history, is the narrator of the novel. And that's OK. Company members One Eye, Raven, Goblin, Silent, Elmo and the Captain all are memorable, as are the names of the Ring-Wraiths, er, Chosen, including Shapeshifter, Soulcatcher, the Limper and so on. Unfortunately, Cook doesn't know where to stop: the South has the warring factions of Red and Blue, there are the Jewel Cities of Beryl and Ruby, the Lady is fighting the Rebel, who are in turn led by the Twelve and their generals, including Whisper and Harden. It quickly goes from good idea to conceit to flat-out trite. Someone as clearly gifted as Cook should have realized when enough was enough and mixed in some other sorts of names at some point. Less noticeably, but perhaps even more frustrating, is that the first person narrator (the aforementioned Croaker) doesn't share everything he knows with the reader. Sometimes it's because Croaker himself doesn't know (and doesn't care) why the Company is doing what they're doing. And that's fine. That's realistic, especially for military life. But when we're told "I understood now," it'd be nice for Cook to go ahead and let us know why something happened, especially when it was of apparently monumental importance. Frustrating and avoidable. Like I said previously, I'm not someone who wanted "The Black Company" to be "The Wheel of Time" -- quite to the contrary. And I've been told that subsequent novels in this series are better than this first volume. But I'm not a reader who is interested in plowing through a few hundred or thousand pages of multiple novels waiting for the good parts to come along. So I'm probably not going to pick up the rest of this series. "The Black Company" isn't an awful book -- which puts it head and shoulders above most fantasy bestsellers -- but it's still not good enough. If any of this sounds like you might have the same sort of reaction that I did, pick this up from the library before putting down hard-earned money for "The Black Company."
Rating:
Summary: A different direction for fantasy
Review: I first read The Black Company about two years ago. I loved it from the start and have convinced a number of my friends to give it a try. What surprised me was the divided responses I received from them after they'd finished it. About half of them loved it, the others ranged from ambivalence to disgust. I don't get it! Perhaps it is because the book lacks the epic scope that has, for some reason, become almost synonymous with the fantasy genre. The Black Company is NOT epic, the purpose of the book is not to flesh out and then explore a complex fantasy world. Rather it is a dirty closeup of a mercenary group and of the means by which they survive. The main draw is in its gritty intelligence. These are characters that use subterfuge and wit rather than brawn. Cook manages to convince the reader that these truly *are* experienced proffesionals. Also, the hackneyed premise behind so many other fantasy novels (that of the naive group, chased by evil) is discarded. Glen Cook describes a world where the characters must navigate in shades of grey, where they must make the best choices they can. I appreciate the lack of rigid good versus evil conflicts. It is a quick and enjoyable read which rejueventates a stagnating genre
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Summary: Not your usual Fantasy...Dark and Action-Packed
Review: Some may have a problem with the fact that THE BLACK COMPANY is told from the viewpoint of characters with a somewhat evil background, but I found it to be totally refreshing. After so many fantasy novels with trite "goody goody" characters that rot your teeth, Glen Cook, creates a very unique group of mercenaries that have their own code of honor and rich history. Admittedly, at first, I was confused by the strange feeling of being in the trenches with the soldiers, instead of the royal gardens with the king, but soon after I really enjoyed Cook's realistic characters. Think of how many soldiers fight in the epic wars almost all fantasy novels include. How many authors actually describe the soldiers feelings and reasons for their choice of joining the ranks of good or evil? All in all, this book and the whole series, is a fun and gritty read with tons of battle scenes. It is a definite needed break from some of the recent attacks of gigantic fantasy sagas. One of the most amazing things about the book was that I felt that I knew the characters without being told all that much, instead I was able to pull from the characters' actions all I ever needed to know. To me that is the mark of wonderful storytelling.
Rating:
Summary: I don't get it
Review: As other people have noted, this book, and the series it begins, are a sort of underground fantasy cult classic. But I just don't get it. To me the novel seemed directionless and confusing, the world in which it takes place not very well defined. Unlike novels by some of the giants of fantasy - Tolkien, Goodkind, Jordan - I didn't feel like I could grasp the characters or their world.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best out there
Review: When i first saw this book at my local bookstore i thought that it was one of those Darth Vader rip offs. Boy was i wrong, this book is a prime example on the old saying "Never judge a book by its cover." This book is about a mercanary group called the Black Company who are pretty much the best soldiers out there. Its a pretty dark book, not like the other books out there where you find really good guys versus very evil bad guys. In this book there is no totally good or totally evil person. You have bad guys versus badder bad guys, basically there is no line between good and evil. The characters are original, the plot is original, and overall this book is a refreshing dose of something new. This is an excellent read, and i would reccomend it to anybody whos looking for something that isnt stretched or wornout like the mainstreem epic fantasy where there are only slight variations of plot and characters.
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