Search results
Glen Charles Cook (born July 9, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction, known for The Black Company and Garrett P.I. fantasy series. Biography [ edit ] Cook was born in New York City. [1]
The Black Company is a series of dark fantasy books written by American author Glen Cook. The series combines elements of epic fantasy as it follows an elite mercenary unit, the Black Company, through roughly forty years of its approximately four-hundred-year history.
- Overview
- 2016 on The Coode Street Podcast
- 2012 interview with SF Signal
- 2011 video interview, Utopiales
- 2009 interview with Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
- 2006 interview with J. Buck Caldwell
- 2005 interview with Strange Horizons
- 2002 interview with Quantum Muse at Boskone 39
- 1986 interview with Larry Lennhoff
Glen Cook (born July 9, 1944) is the author of the Black Company series, along with numerous other fantasy and science-fiction novels.
He was born in New York, lived in southern Indiana as a small child, and later grew up in northern California. He started writing short stories in 7th grade. In high school he had several published in a school literary magazine, and also completed four years of Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). After graduating from high school he joined the United States Navy where he got much of his inspiration and distinctive voice for the Black Company series. He served eight years in the Navy and Navy Reserve, including time aboard destroyers and with a Marine Force Recon outfit as Forward Fire Control Observer.
He next attended the University of Missouri. He was one of the earliest graduates of the well-known Clarion Writer's Workshop in 1970, where he met his wife Carol. His 1985 novel A Matter of Time was a Prometheus Award Best Novel Nominee. He was employed by General Motors for 33 years. He has three sons and numerous grandchildren. He is currently retired and resides near St. Louis, Missouri.
In addition to the Black Company series, Glen Cook has written and published a number of other long running series, as well as several standalone novels and short stories. A list of these can be found at Wikipedia (external link).
•External link to podcast: Episode 264 (interview with guests Glen Cook and Steven Erikson by Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan; Friday Jan 15, 2016)Inspirations for One-Eye and Goblin
•External link to full interview: Evolution of the full series
Inspirations for titlesExplanation for longer booksPraise for Didier GraffetL’Autre Monde: Does the work of Didier Graffet on the Black Company influence your way to write now?Refusal to create a world mapDislike of omnibus format Opinions on the subtitles
Glen's answer here is in response to this question: "Were there any perceived conventions of the fantasy genre which you wanted to twist or break when you set out each Black Company series?". His answer seems to indicate that the subtitles, such as "#th Book of Glittering Stone" and "#th Chronicle" did not source from him.
•Internal link to full article: 2006 Glen Cook interview
Popularity in the armed servicesPraise for Green Ronin's RPG•External link: Origin of the first novel cover
The handful of Black Company-related answers from this interview with Larry Lennhoff sheds much light on Glen's writing process after the publication of The White Rose. The interview appeared in issue #37 (August 1986) of Twilight Zine, a quarterly published by the MIT Science Fiction Society and edited by Janice M. Eisen.
•External link:
- 5 min
Cook is the brains behind The Chronicles of a Black Company. The series follows an elite mercenary unit through its adventures for several decades of its history. The series was such a success that it went on to become a cult classic, especially among service men and ex-service men.
Glen Cook bibliography - Wikipedia. List of complete works by American fantasy fiction author Glen Cook . The Black Company. The epic fantasy series features a band of mercenaries known as the Black Company. Books of the North: The Black Company (May 1984) Shadows Linger (October 1984) The White Rose (April 1985) Spin-off novels.
Glen Cook has 227 books on Goodreads with 532598 ratings. Glen Cook’s most popular book is The Black Company (The Chronicles of the Black Company, #1).
He is best known for his Black Company. Glen Cook was born in New York City, lived in southern Indiana as a small child, then grew up in Northern California. After high school he served in the U.S. Navy and attended the University of Missouri. He worked for General Motors for 33 years, retiring some years ago.
