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Cook, Glen

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

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(1944-    ) US author who began his sf career with orthodox stories like his first, "Song from a Forgotten Hill" for Clarion (anth 1971), edited by Robin Scott Wilson, and with the sf novel The Heirs of Babylon (1972), in which an authoritarian religious government takes over in the Post-Holocaust era. However, he soon became best known for his high Fantasy, especially the Dread Empire series, beginning with A Shadow of All Night Falling (1979), which was notable for its concerted military set-pieces, moderately complex plotting, violence, and a sense of undue haste – he has been exceedingly prolific. His succeeding series are usually fantasy. The more significant of these include the Chronicles of the Black Company, beginning with The Black Company (1984); the Book of the South, beginning with Shadow Games (1989) and set in the same world, as is the Glittering Stone sequence beginning with Bleak Seasons (1996); and the P I Garrett sequence of humorous fantasies, starring a Chandleresque private eye named Garrett, and beginning with Sweet Silver Blues (1987) (all titles take off from those of John D MacDonald's Travis McGee books). Of his singletons, A Matter of Time (1985), a Time-Travel tale starring detective figures, and The Tower of Fear (1989), a strongly plotted fantasy, are the most notable. Cook is a writer of considerable energy but little patience; along with David Drake, he remains one of the relatively few writers of military fantasy whose sympathies are strongly with the grunts and the sergeants, and his storylines reflect a suspicious dis-ease with the officer class, and with those who instruct the officer class from safety. [JC]

Glen Charles Cook

born New York: 9 July 1944

works

series

Dread Empire

Starfishers

Black Company

Darkwar

  • Doomstalker (New York: Popular Library/Questar, 1985) [Darkwar: pb/Barclay Shaw]
  • Warlock (New York: Popular Library/Questar, 1985) [Darkwar: pb/Barclay Shaw]
  • Ceremony (New York: Popular Library/Questar, 1986) [Darkwar: pb/Barclay Shaw]
    • Darkwar (San Francisco, California: Nightshade Books, 2010) [omni of the above three: Darkwar: pb/Raymond Swanland]

P I Garrett

The Instrumentalities of the Night

individual titles

collections and stories

  • An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat (San Francisco, California: Night Shade Books, 2009) [coll: Dread Empire: hb/Raymond Swanland]
  • Winter's Dreams (Burton, Michigan: Subterranean Press, 2012) [coll: hb/Raymond Swanland]
  • The Best of Glen Cook (New York: Night Shade Books, 2019) [coll: most stories linked to various series above: hb/Raymond Swanland]

about the author

links

previous versions of this entry



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