The Good Guys, The Bad Guys, and All Great Reads

Image via Amazon

If you haven’t been living under a rock you are likely familiar with a new sub-genre of fantasy/scifi novels sweeping the internet and tantalizing readers all over the world. I am of course talking about LitRPG. The premise is simple: Literary Role Playing Game novels combine the conventions of computer RPGS (such as Baldur’s Gate, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and Pillars of Eternity to name some recent ones) up to and including all the stats, items, abilities, quests, and gameplay that have become a catchall for fantasy gaming fans around the world.

The sub-genre has been steadily gaining steam since the early 2010s, but I believe one of the best examples has been the work of Eric Ugland. His “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys” series are already up to 17 books and still going strong. The novels possess a strong cast of characters, an expansive world with lore and mechanics reminiscent of the games mentioned above, and viscerally portrayed magic and actions scenes that grip you and don’t let you go until you have finished the newest book eight hours after it was just released (and yes, I am speaking from experience…multiple times). So if you are interested in new fantasy novels, and/or the LitRPG sub-genre, I cannot recommend these two series more highly as a way to get your feet wet. Trust me, if you pick up one of them, you will soon find yourself in the deep end of LitRPG.

BOOKS

1. One More Last Time (The Good Guys #1): “A ruined life. A broken heart. He thought it was the end, and his gun sat ready to make sure. But an oddball offer from his only friend comes at the literal last second. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he finds himself sucked into iNcarn8, a game claiming to be a whole new life. Now as Montana, the larger-than-life tank warrior, he has one more last time to get his life right.”
2. Heir Today, Pawn Tomorrow (The Good Guys #2): “Montana’s new life in Vuldranni, the medieval fantasy game world he lucked into, isn’t quite the tranquil extended fishing trip he’d been hoping for. But you gotta admit, he’s doing pretty well for himself. Now he’s Montana Coggeshall, heir to a dukedom. If he can get his crew to Osterstadt and claim it in time.”
3. Dungeon Mauling (The Good Guys #3): “Just when Montana thought he had life in Vuldranni figured out, the rug is pulled out from under him. He’s alone once again, but now he’s in the crosshairs of the man who would be emperor, and a whole host of people are counting on Montana to provide a safe haven for them. Montana has one hope of actually completing his quest of forming a dukedom: he needs to bust Nikolai out of prison. A prison that no one has ever escaped alive. A prison whose only exit is little more than rumor and probably doesn’t even exist — through a sentient dungeon, hell-bent on causing torture, inflicting pain, and extracting the ultimate price: life. Montana and his hirðmen are down to their last chance. So they get themselves arrested and enter Osterstadt prison. Can the Good Guys do good by going bad?”
4. Four: The Loot (The Good Guys #4): “Montana Coggeshall, duke of Coggeshall, defeater of dungeons, he of far fewer intelligence points than is probably recommended, is finally ready to start building his dukedom. He just needs one more thing before he can leave Osterstadt: a few hardworking friends to join him on this adventure. Well, and some lumber. And nails and whatnot. And enough food to get through the winter. And probably some more gold. All Montana needs before he can leave Osterstadt are some friends, some building materials, food, and money. But he did promise to retrieve some magic texts from a cemetery for Emmeline. And he really should try to help the lost little boy who keeps following him around. And all the undead in that basement crypt aren’t going to re-kill themselves. Maybe Montana’s taken on a few too many side quests.”
5. Dukes and Ladders (The Good Guys #5): “When Montana first started playing in iNcarn8, his new game life, he just wanted to be one of the good guys for a change. But despite his impressive stats and incredible heroics, even his followers are just plain scared of him. Trouble keeps pouring down Montana, even in the remote, supposedly safe holding he’s building into his dukedom. All that will have to change if Coggeshall is going to survive. Walls go up and homes get built, but Montana can’t shake the feeling that none of it will be enough to keep out the problems of the Empire. Or the world of Vuldranni.”
6. Home, Siege Home (The Good Guys #6): “Montana Coggeshall is feeling the squeeze — and not just because of his new leather pants from the goddess Eona. His little safeholding in the ruthless world of Vuldranni is under siege. On both sides. At the front is Lord Caticorix, a grade-A Imperial flunkey if there ever was one. He’s clearly ridiculous, but the army he brought with him might not be. Plus they’re bent on blocking Coggeshall from getting any food or supplies from the outside world. And at the back are the ursus, the larger-than-life bear people who’ve traditionally called this valley home. They’re none too pleased with Montana for taking in a few ursus refugees, and would like the 400-lb Goldilocks and her followers out of their house now, thankyouverymuch. Battles are brewing, and the entire town is being held hostage. And despite all his strength and ability, Montana needs to do some serious training to get Coggeshall out of this. There are actual stakes this time — children could starve, his friends have gone missing — and Montana’s not sure he has what it takes to save everyone. This video game world is starting to feel way too much like reality.”
7. The Bare Hunt (The Good Guys #7): “As usual, Montana Coggeshall is hell-bent on doing what’s right, even if what’s right isn’t exactly what’s wise. So he embarks on a quest to vanquish the corrupted ursus, a threat so large they could destroy the entire world of iNcarn8. Does Montana head out after months of training for cold weather conditions, amassing an army, and strategizing with his top aides? Not really. It’s more like he just walks out of his holding one day with a guide and the members of his hirð. They’re just a bunch of angry teddy bears, right? Montana is acting on pure instinct, tinged with a healthy dose of rage. He’s stripped bare, and soon finds himself without food, supplies, a key magic weapon, or even his most loyal friends. Still, he continues. Montana Coggeshall is on the hunt.”
8. Eastbound and Town (The Good Guys #8): “Freshly respawned. Far from home. All alone. Up until now, Montana’s journey really only went one direction: up. But now he’s back at square one, stuck on top of a mountain with only the most basic gear to help get him back to Coggeshall. It’s going to be a loooong walk.  But not a boring one. In one of LitRPG’s most legendary medieval fantasy road trips (and also possibly the only one), Montana encounters a pack of just-this-side-of-feral wolf people; a town straight out of the Wild West – complete with heavy-handed sheriff; a lion desperately trying to take down a colossal fish monster; ancient cursed ruins; and a giant flying frog. Eastbound & Town is an epic story full of combat, loot, and achievements. You better believe Montana is loaded up and truckin,’ and gonna do what they say can’t be done. Hit the road with Montana today!“
9. Four Beheadings and a Funeral (The Good Guys #9): “We join Montana, recently returned from an impromptu study abroad trip, a bit wiser, a bit broader in perspective, and a lot freaked out by the once-dead person who’s currently in his bedroom. Possible zombie sightings aside, he’s finally ready to take his job as Duke seriously. And just in time too — not only are the politics of the capital rapidly closing in on Montana’s little valley holding, but there are also goblins to negotiate with. Plus, that cult threatening to take the lives of his citizens. Montana will have to pull off the impossible — walk amongst the highest levels of Vuldranni society to influence world politics, and slaughter a few goblins in the process.”
10. East, Slay, Love (The Good Guys #10): TBD February 25, 2021!!

1. Scamps and Scoundrels (The Bad Guys #1): “Just yesterday, Ben was a petty criminal getting by on fleecing New York’s one-percenters. Today, he’s got a new face, a new name, and a new world to navigate. And Ben’s thinking maybe this time around, he’ll use his skills at disarming and deceiving to help out people other than himself. Maybe. Watching a medieval City Guard fight off a 20-foot-tall ooze that crawled up from the sewers will make you think twice about life decisions. Tomorrow, he’ll need to save a girl, steal a crown, join a guild, and most importantly, convince an innkeep to make a decent bacon egg and cheese.”
2. Second Story Man (The Bad Guys #2): “’Has your life here been so difficult? You seem to fail upward at every opportunity.’ So says Careena, the hag teaching Clyde Hatchett how to use magic. It certainly doesn’t feel like that to Clyde, who’s still got a day job scraping mud (at least he hopes it’s mud) out of monster pits, and whose “thieves’ guild” is more concerned with baking cookies than with protecting him against a rival gang. He keeps accumulating roommates – like a freed sex slave and a retired paladin – who make him nervous, but for very different reasons. And let’s not get started on the mimic that’s taken up residence by Clyde’s shower, or the supposedly-tame grimeling in his closet… And yet even with all the annoyances, distractions, and occasional death threats, Clyde’s found himself at the center of a massive conspiracy to kill the Emperor. He’s the only one with proof that could save the man, and take down an entire network of corrupt nobles, evil slavers, and power-hungry despots. Clyde really hopes Careena is right about him – the fate of the entire Empire depends on it.” 
3. Skull and Thrones (The Bad Guys #3): “Clyde Hatchett: last man standing. Well, he’s the last elf standing. It’s confusing not being human anymore. But being the only living member of the Biscuit’s Union has its benefits. No need to take on shifts baking cookies, for one. No one telling Clyde what to do. No one… You have been offered a quest by the Biscuit’s Union: Rebuild the Guild Reform the guild by having at least eight (8) members in good standing by the end of one (1) week. Reward for success: survival of the guild, unknown, XP Penalty for failure (or refusal): the death of the guild Yes/No Okay then. So in order for any of the work Clyde’s put in to matter, for any of the numerous deaths he’s gone through to count, he has to keep the guild going and remain its leader. Which means he’s got a busy week ahead of him. 7 Days. 8 Guild Members. Countless Problems.”
4. War of the Posers (The Bad Guys #4): “It could all be over before it even begins. Clyde Hatchett and the rest of the Skull & Thrones better play their cards right — otherwise their newly-formed guild will fall in a war with the Iron Silents, the overpowered immortals fond of spawn-camping and well, anything that puts them ahead. So much for resting on laurels, huh? To keep his dreams alive, and his newfound family safe, Clyde is committed to do whatever it takes. His usual thieving tactics are all well and good, but this time he’ll also throw magic, his ties to the prince, and even a few kobolds at the problem. He just hopes it’ll be enough.”
5. Seas the Day (The Bad Guys #5): “Kidnapped and sent sailing by his own girlfriend. Clyde Hatchett hadn’t planned on running away to become a pirate — that’s just what happened. Now he’s on a seaside mission far from Glaton, desperate to find the only mage capable of freeing Clyde from the corpse-king taking over his body. Get ready for a nonstop joyride full of secrets, betrayal, loot — and mermaids! Oh and on the way, Clyde will have to rescue his tjene’s sister from marrying a murderous slave owner. The winds of ill-fortune may be blowing directly at Clyde, but our down-on-his luck rogue assembled the best team in the business to help him succeed: a libertine swordsman who keeps getting arrested, a mohawked captain whose crew is perpetually on the brink of mutiny, and a salty old seadog who’s very nice and has a lot of… well, he’s very nice, and that has to count for something, right? Add Hellion the mimic and Grim the little grimeling to the mix, and there’s no stopping this dream team. Not even the mermaids.”
6. High Gloom (The Bad Guys #6): “It all comes down to this: kill or be corpsed. Clyde Hatchett has known he’s had a corpse-king inside him, slowly trying to take over his body and raise an army of undead for a while now. And while that may seem like a rather, um, urgent matter to attend to, it’s only now, after being forced out of Glaton by his best friends and then having to rescue someone’s sister from a bad marriage, that he’s actually in a place to deal with it. And he better deal with it quickly, since his entire left hand is starting to look like it belongs to the Crypt-Keeper. But Gloomguard, where the mage Clyde needs lives, operates on a completely different plane than anywhere else in Vuldranni. Everyone is out for themself, and there’s no such thing as doing a favor. So in order to even talk to the mage, Clyde must embark on a series of preposterous quests he doesn’t have time for and isn’t guaranteed to survive.”
7. Back to One (The Bad Guys #7): TBD August 12, 2021!!

This article contains some affiliate links to LitRPG books that serve as amazing introductions to the sub-genre. If you choose to purchase these books via my affiliate links, you will help support my writing and research at no additional cost to you.

An Overview of Fantasy, Some of Its Sub-genres, and Book Recommendations to Get You Started

Image Source: Pixabay

In my earliest years, I was a stereotypical jock in training. All I cared about was being outside, running through the woods abutting my parent’s property. I was an avid fan of soccer, baseball and cross-country running. Anything to escape the boring indoors.

Then the first Harry Potter book came out in America. You know the one I am talking about. An eye-catching cover and all those illustrations at the start of each chapter. My parents got it for me to try to get me to read more. It worked. Before I knew it the book had sucked me in and I was never the same. From that point on there was hardly a week that passed that I wasn’t up to my eyebrows in a book. Every break I had, every trip to practice or a game, there was a book in my hand to pass the time.

Fantasy quickly became my favorite genre to read. To me, it just seemed like these kinds of books had the most creative plots, the most interesting characters, the most powerful plots. In the years since I first picked up that Harry Potter book, I have read many, many works of Fantasy across a number of sub-genres. For the most part I have enjoyed them all. You, dear reader, might have a desire to read a work of fantasy as well, but you might not know where to get started. Perhaps you have already read some fantasy but you are looking for a change of pace. With that in mind, I have broken down a number of sub-genres of fantasy in the paragraphs to follow, and at the end of each are a number of novels that represent that type of fantasy. Before we begin, however, it is important that you have a sense of where fantasy literature comes from.

In the history of literature, the supernatural and magical have been around since the beginning. The Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh was chiseled in stone almost four thousand years ago. An epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, it tracks the adventures of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, as he seeks fame and eternal life. Stories without counting since this earliest surviving work have included tales of the gods, monsters, and magic in the mythologies and folklore of cultures from all over the world since the earliest days of mankind.

Fantasy, regardless of sub-genre, is grounded in the magical with no true basis in reality. Many of these types of fantasy contain their own tropes or themes that regularly appear in each new generation of stories. It should be noted that, sometimes, a work of fantasy might be placed in multiple sub-genres based upon opinion or perspective. You might disagree with those I have included below as examples of specific sub-genres. I ask that you look past this and instead see each work as a potential foray into a new

Fables

Image Source: Pixabay

Fables tend to be short fictional stories, often written in prose or verse, that feature anthropomorphized animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature, in order to illustrate a particular moral lesson which sometimes may be added explicitly as a pithy maxim or saying at the end of the work itself. Though this type of fantasy writing is short, by focusing on a specific moral they can be a powerful way to both learn or teach something new.

Recommended Works

1. Aesop’s Fables: Includes twenty classic fables, such as “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs.” Also includes illustrations to bring these creatures to life!
2. Favorite African Folktales: Edited by Nelson Mandela, this volume collects thirty-two tales from all over Africa that illustrate lessons about such things as obedience or the dangers of the wilds. Interestingly, some of the stories are almost as old as Africa itself.
3. Panchatantra: First recorded 1500 years ago, this is a collection of fables originally created as a means to teach several young princes vital lessons for life.
4. Jatakas: Birth Stories of the Bodhisatta: One of the oldest collections of stories in the world, presenting lessons on giving, restraint, renunciation, wisdom, strength, acceptance, truthfulness, resolve, kindness and equanimity.
5. Animal Farm: A modern classic written by George Orwell, its setting of a farm in the midst of a revolution illustrates how a struggle against tyranny can result in something far worse.

Fairy Tales

Image Source: Pixabay

Fairy Tales are a type of folklore that specifically feature creatures like dwarves, dragons, elves, fairies, giants, goblins, griffins, or witches (to name a few), and usually tend to gravitate around magic or enchantments. Generally speaking, Fairy Tales do not contain more than superficial references to religion nor do they focus too much on actual places, people, and events. It is from stories like these that we get the well known phrase, “Once Upon A Time…” Interestingly enough, some of the earliest fairy tales date back to the Bronze Age, more than six thousand years ago.

Recommended Works

1. Fairy Tales: A Beautiful Collection of Favorite Fairy Tales: A children’s book of Fairy Tales, it contains eight stories aimed at surprising and delighting children, and serving as their first introduction to fantasy stories.
2. Hans Christian Anderson’s Complete Fairy Tales: Some of the most popular tales of Hans Christian Anderson, such as “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Princess on the Pea,” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
3. Five-minute Stories: Over 50 Tales and Fables: Another great introduction of Fantasy to kids, included in this book are more than 50 east-to-read stories to introduce your children to many new fantasy worlds!

Epic Fantasy

Image Source: Pixabay

Epic fantasy generally is set in an alternative, fictional and often massive world complete with history, mythology, races, ideals, cultures, and more. What is important is that the rules that govern this world are internally consistent. Often this means the story is set in a magical environment with rules to a certain extent to make events consistent, and generally the plot follows a single hero or group of heroes as they attempt some grand undertaking. The plot itself often has a partial focus on the heritage or nature of the heroes involved in the story, with many examples of them being presented as an orphan or an unusual sibling with an extraordinary talent for magic and/or fighting. Struggles against evil forces often tend to be the main focus of the central plot as well. This type of fantasy has generally been my favorite to read, as I enjoy the massive scale and how the events that take place in the plot can have such far reaching impacts on the worlds in which the stories take place.

Recommended Works

1. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit(4 books): The books that are to a significant degree responsible for the development of modern epic fantasy, the plots of which would have a large impact on many writers over the past several decades. If you thought the movies were amazing, the books are even better.
2. The Wheel of Time Series (15 books): One of the greatest works in epic fantasy, it follows the exploits of the reborn messiah of the world who is destined to stop the Dark One from breaking free of his prison, though in the process of doing so he may destroy the world. An amazing series, you could spend weeks going through the ~12,000 pages and 4.4 million words of this story.
3. A Song of Ice and Fire (5 books): Another modern contribution to epic fantasy, the story covers the events of a dynastic struggle along side a fight to prevent a genocide of all the living. Though there are many similarities with the HBO series, the plot does diverge a bit and it is possible the series will have a different ending once the final novels are published.
4. Stormlight Archive (3+ books): A newer epic fantasy still in the process of being written by the master who finished The Wheel of Time series, Brandon Sanderson. The result of over 10 years of planning, writing, and world building, the first book opens with a tale that will likely rival The Wheel of Time by its completion.
5. The Name of the Wind (3 books by completion): Slightly different than the books listed above, though all the better for its take on the genre. To me this is one of my favorite works of fantasy due to its poetic brilliance and evocative imagery. The characters and their motivations are so real you can almost touch them. Honestly any words I might type will fall short of doing this series justice.

Low Fantasy

Image Source: Pixabay

Low Fantasy is the opposite of epic fantasy. It is generally very realistic and only contains a few elements from the fantasy genre. When magical phenomena are encountered by the stories characters, their first reactions tend to be shock, surprise, or wonder given their previous lack of knowledge. Indeed, sometimes the fantasy elements involved are often just enough to blur the boundary between what is real and what is psychological or supernatural.

Recommended Works

1. Harry Potter (7 books): The books that got me started on the path to reading in my adult life, the Harry Potter series had me dreaming that I too would one day receive an owl inviting me to learn magic in England. Sadly that did not happen, but the magic in the words of these novels still stick with me to this day. The movies themselves are amazing as well.
2. The Indian in the Cupboard (5 books): A series of stories about how, through the use of a magic skeleton key from his grandmother, one young boy is able to bring a little plastic Indian toy to life.

Sword and Sorcery

Image Source: Pixabay

Sword and Sorcery is related to epic fantasy to a significant degree, but where it diverges is the consistent focus on sword-wielding heroes in their personal battles through life, rather than world-shattering events. There is sometimes an element of romance present as well. This sub-genre I am not as familiar with, though I did really enjoy the stories about Conan the Barbarian

Recommended Works

1. Conan the Barbarian: A classic work of fiction originally written in the 1930s, this collection covers 17 works about the greatest barbarian in english literature.

Historical Fantasy

Image Source: Pixabay

Historical Fantasy is fantasy engaged with a specific time period and setting, most often the Middle Ages though other eras have seen some focus by authors as well. Elements included in the typical Middle Ages works include monarchical governments, feudal social structures, warfare based around medieval weapons, organizations, and strategies. The magical creatures in stories of this nature are often specific to the time period and location in which the plot is based.

Recommended Works

1. The Powder Mage (3 books): set within a world where mages control gunpowder and bullets, a general must defend his country from both war and insurrection. A unique blend of magic and technology, and well worth the read.
2. The First Law Trilogy (3 books): According to the Amazon blurb (which I think touches on how great this series is), the books deal with murderous conspiracies, old scores, and how the differences between hero and villain are often just perspectives.
3. Outlander series (4 books): a historical fantasy that follows the life of Claire Randall, a former WWII combat nurse, who journeys back from 1945 to 1743 to live in a Scotland torn apart by war and conflict. A bit more romance than you might be used to, but I really enjoyed how it meshed with the historical events in which the main character finds herself. So successful has this series been that it has turned into a Starz original series.
4. The Complete Instrumentalities of the Night (4 books): I debated placing this in the epic fantasy section, but given the historical overtones related to the period of the early crusades I ended up placing it here. In this series, politics, religion and whole kingdoms collide in their pursuit of dominance over a Mediterranean-esque world similar to our own during the 13th century. One of my all-time favorites by one of my favorite authors, Glen Cook.

Dark and Grimdark Fantasy

Image Source: Pixabay

Dark and Grimdark Fantasy is known for its unsettling themes, these types of stories often combine elements of fantasy with horror, with the aim of sparking terror in the reader. Overall the setting or elements in works of this nature tend to be gloomy and aim to spark dread in the reader or characters. The best of these works will often present main characters that have the characteristics of both heroes and villains, ultimately forcing the reading to decide how to categorize them at the end of the story.

Recommended Works

1. Annals of the Black Company (10 books): One of my absolute favorite series by Glen Cook, the main characters in this series are hard mercenaries who will do anything to get the job done while surviving, even if it means enlisting with the forces of an evil empire. All the characters are grey, and despite all the bad things that happen, I still couldn’t help rooting for Croaker and his allies.
2. The Broken Empire (3 books): A series about a prince who loses his throne and sets out to reclaim it and his revenge against his father. These three books see a main character that has both good and evil within him struggle to rise from bandit, to king, to emperor. A great read.
3. Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories: A series of fantasy stories by H.P. Lovecraft that served to reinvent the horror genre in the 20th century. In these stories, our world is presented as a outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe.

LitRPG

Image Source: Pixabay

LitRPG or Literary Role Playing Game is a relatively new literary genre that combines the conventions of RPGs with fantasy novels, though it has been used in works of science-fiction as well. For a work to be categorized as a LitRPG, a core component of the story must include games or game-like challenges, as well as visible RPG statistics and information such as levels, character traits like strength and intelligence, and loot or items that increases or decreases the strength of the characters thereby making it easier or more difficult for them to overcome the challenges included in the plot. The majority of books in this sub-genre are published as ebooks, all of which I have either purchased for my Fire HD10 tablet or read via Kindle Unlimited (most recently mostly the latter as a lot more of these books are being self-published lately).

Recommended Works

1. Challenger’s Call: Downfall and Rise (4+ books): The novel begins with a broken hero who is engages in virtual reality RPG games as a way to cope with the pain of his injuries from a freak accident. Only one night he wakes up in a world just like the game his father helped design. What follows are his efforts to save seven worlds in the care of a beautiful woman in multiple bodies from the monsters and men who would take and destroy all.
2. First Login (The World Book 1) (5+ books): One of my favorite litrpg/gamelit series, this story follows the exploits of Jason and his friends as they make the transition to playing The World in Full-Immersion Virtual Reality in an attempt to become full-time professional gamers. Epic in scale and containing a great plot, the author himself says that he has tons of ideas for this storyline and will likely go beyond 10+ books. I highly recommend it.
3. The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Book 1) (7+ books): The first book of litRPG fiction I read and what sparked my passion to absorb everything written for this sub-genre. While playing an online game, Richter is tricked into entering a world of great danger and even more opportunity. From his first day, Richter must learn of the dangers The Land presents and come up with ways to survive, even thrive. A chaos seed, Richter has the possibility to attain great power, and he is going to need it. Definitely one of my favorite all-time series.

There you have it! An overview of fantasy and some of its sub-genres, as well as books that I enjoyed reading and that you might wish to pick up to gain more exposure to these kinds of stories. I wish you all happy reading!

This article contains some affiliate links to books that I recommend as initial journeys into specific sub-genres of fantasy. It is my hope that, even in reading one, you will become hooked on a whole new realm of reading. If you choose to purchase these books via my affiliate links, you will help support my writing and research at no additional cost to you.

The Black Company: A Dark Fantasy Series You Should Not Miss

 

Image Courtesy of Tor/Forge Blog

Growing up I was lucky enough to begin delving into reading fantasy right as the Harry Potter novels were being written. J.K. Rowling’s books taught me to love the magic of fantasy. To enjoy the clever spells, how magical culture could be cleverly integrated into the everyday world of the non-magic. They taught me to appreciate the fantastic creatures and people who have preserved their ways of life in, what seems to me, to be ever shrinking areas of the world. Most importantly these books instilled within me an everlasting appreciate of fantasy novels and stories in all their shapes and forms.

That being said, as an adult, it is sometimes hard to enjoy Harry Potter for what it was to a younger me. Given my profession, I pay a lot of attention to darker world events, such as incidents of terrorism, the possibility of war breaking out, and to what degree human rights are under threat in any given country. At some point, I dont know exactly when, I decided to give Dark Fantasy novels a try. Not much clicked with me, until I came across the work of Glen Cook.

At the tender age of 25 I came across a dogged-eared copy of The Black Company, published in May of 1984. A combination of epic fantasy and dark fantasy, it follows the doings of an elite mercenary unit as it abandons its employer, called the Syndic of Beryl, and instead enter into the employment of a dark wizard called Soultaker who is under the control of an evil Empire to the north led by the beautiful and deadly Lady. In the pages to follow Croaker, the main character and source of the novel’s viewpoint, exposes us to some of the most horrible events and people one might expect in a fantastical medieval setting. Without giving too much away, the reader is exposed to war crimes, assassination, intrigue, dark battles, and some of the worst motivations to which a fictional character might adhere. Uniquely, it also shows how individuals and groups will compromise on morals for the sake of survival. There are many shades of grey in this novel and those characters that live within it.

I bought each brand new omnibus once I could, and I eagerly devoured them all. Even though I have Kindle Unlimited, which I use to read the thousands of different kinds of fantasy books on Amazon for the small price of a monthly subscription to the service, I have still opted to buy the physical copies of each of the books. There is just something about holding these works of dark fantasy in your hands that makes the words and plots have that much more weight. To be that much more real. Moreover, I have recently learned that The Black Company is well on its way to becoming a TV show with Eliza Dushky playing the part of the Lady, perhaps as a result of how successful Game of Thrones was for HBO. Needless to say I am very excited for the prospect of see the words in the books coming visually to life.

If you want to experience the gritty magic that is The Black Company series, check out their books:

1. The Chronicles of The Black Company: Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead. Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more… Includes: The Black Company; Shadows Linger; and The White Rose
2. The Books of the South: Marching south after the ghastly battle at the Tower of Charm, the Black Company is hounded by shadowy figures every inch of the way. The game is on: the Company versus the Shadowmasters, deadly creatures that deal in darkness and sorrow. When hope dies, there’s still survival. And there’s still the Black Company. Includes: The Silver Spike; Shadow Games; and Dreams of Steel
3. The Return of The Black Company: Taking place in part during Dreams of Steel, told from the point of view of Lady and sharing the events surrounding Murgen. She Is The Darkness marks the halfway point in the Books of the Glittering Stone in the Books on the Black Company. Includes: Bleak Seasonsand She Is The Darkness
4. The Many Deaths of The Black Company: Following disaster, the survivors regroup in Taglios and set out to free their comrades. In the second book of the volume, Croaker, who is no longer dictator of Taglios or Captain, resumes his old role as Annalist of the Company. Sleepy is now Captain, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. But when the Company’s old adversaries try to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls, the Company is brought to the edge of destruction. Includes: Water Sleeps and Soldiers Live

This article contains some affiliate links to books that I recommend that you read as part of the Black Company series or to enroll in Kindle Unlimited. If you choose to purchase these books, or sign up for Kindle Unlimited, via my affiliate links, you will help support my writing and research at no additional cost to you.