<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Glen Cook, an acclaimed author whose signature style blends dark fantasy with sharp, realistic dialogue and film-noir sensibilities, is best known for his nine-volume Black Company series, chronicling the exploits of a band of hard-bitten mercenaries in a world dominated by mad gods and scheming sorcerers.

Born in New York City in 1944, Cook grew up in Northern California and began writing in 1967. He graduated from the University of Missouri and attended the Clarion Writer’s Workshop in 1970. Cook also spent time in the U.S. Navy, serving with the Force Recon unit of the Third Marine Recon Battalion. His military experience can be clearly seen in his depictions of the characters and situations portrayed in The Black Company, published in 1984. Written from the viewpoint of Croaker, the company’s surgeon, the book vividly depicts the struggles of soldiers in the trenches, fighting at the behest of higher powers whose motivations are only dimly understood.

In addition to the Black Company series, Cook has also written a series of popular fantasy detective stories, written in the same vein as the hard-boiled detective novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The series protagonist, a human named Garrett, is a cynical private eye in a fantasy world replete with elves, gnomes and other well-worn fantasy clichés. Written with more tongue-in-cheek humor than the Black Company series, the Garret Files are full of sharp action and snappy dialogue, but maintain the dark, often bleak tone that pervades Cook’s other works.

Other, lesser-known works written by Cook include the Starfishers SF trilogy, the Darkwar fantasy trilogy and the standalone novels The Swordbearer and The Tower of Fear. A new novel, The Tyranny of the Night, was published in June 2005 and is the first volume in a new series chronicling the political and religious struggles of a world that is an analog to late Medieval Europe and Arabia.