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Mar 20

Look, I have a flower.. I told you I have sensitive side!

Art direction: Right, I want this cover to scream EVILLLLL! Have a cloaked dark figure drawing a pentagram with a big nerd fantasy dagger. Have you ever been LARP’ING? Just like that!

Thanks to CSA!

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 4.73 out of 10)
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9 Responses to “Black Company”

  1. Nix Says:

    That figure is plainly meant to be Soulcatcher, who wears a morion with face-concealing guard at absolutely all times. Every sentence Soulcatcher speaks is spoken in a different voice, so even its sex is unclear. (That’s not exactly what Soulcatcher is trying to hide, though.)

    Hugely powerful (one of the Ten Who Were Taken), hugely dangerous, somewhat insane, and very wrapped up in the plot. As one of the most capable sorcerers alive Soulcatcher definitely does not need to draw pentagrams to wreak havoc, but it’s a fairly quick graphical way of saying ‘magical’.

    (And, yes, they all have noms de guerre like that, to hide their true names, often descriptive but not always (for instance there’s no evidence that Croaker, narrator of the first four books, croaks especially much). The names are wonderful, especially the names of the Ten: Bonegnasher, the Hanged Man, the Howler, Nightcrawler, Stormbringer, Moonbiter… nothing says ‘evil empire’ like that sort of horrible name. They’re ridiculously overdone, yes, but that too is by design. It just doesn’t become clear what the design is until the end of the first book, or possibly the third.)

  2. CSA Says:

    I quite enjoyed this series. I picked them up probably close to 10 years ago on a hoilday to the US. I only read/bought the first 3 when i was over there but i remember thinking they were enjoyable.

    I’ve never seen them (or any other Glen Cook) books in any UK bookshops, but they were short and fun to read and had pretty dark characters (but likeable) aswell.

    awful covers though. super cheesy.

  3. JustinLeego Says:

    “Croaker” could be an allusion to dying, as in to “croak it”. Would that make any sense with regard to the series’ narrator?

  4. CSA Says:

    Croaker was groups medic/doctor if my memory servers me right. I guess croaker would be appropriate given his daily dosage of handling death.

    I can barely remember anything about the story though to be honest.

  5. Nix Says:

    And you learn something new every day. You’re right, that’s obviously the origin of Croaker’s moniker, and I’m feeling a right idiot now for not spotting it earlier.

  6. BigFire Says:

    Glenn Cook wrote the first Black Company novels and others while working at a GM plant where every 1.5 minutes it requires his attention. He thus have plenty of time to write the novels.

  7. A.R.Yngve Says:

    “Welcome to this evening’s edition of Won’t Glen Cook, Can’t Glen Cook! Tonight, our special guest Soulcatcher will learn how to bake a Necromancer Surprise…”

  8. FeärofMusïc Says:

    This is actually the least horrific cover out of the early edition first four books in the series. I love this series, but only discovered it thanks to a very insistent friend who refused to let me reject them without actually reading one first. He brought them over to my house and left them, and then refused to take them back until I gave them a try.
    And thus did Charles Baughman triumph over the art director to earn Mr. Cook ONE new fan. Yeah, a good writer don’t need no good cover to move books. No sir, not at all.

  9. GSS noob Says:

    Luckily the later covers are better — not LARPy.

    Glen is also a book dealer who has sold me quite a ridiculous number of books — though, oddly, none of his own!

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