fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviewsGlen Cook The Black Company 3. The White RoseThe White Rose by Glen Cook

The final entry in a trilogy requires something special. In fantasy, that usually means finding godly machinery and amassing armies that will face each other on some distant, volcanic plain while a small band of covert heroes pull off a daring, one-in-a-million scheme.

However, up to this point, Glen Cook’s Black Company series has stood out for its noir atmosphere more than its epic company of mercenaries. Surprisingly, in The White Rose, Cook sacrifices his hard-boiled narrative for an epic fantasy storyline. It’s a daring, one-in-a-million scheme.

But it pays off.

Certainly Cook wastes no time trading in the noir for the epic: The White Rose opens in the Plain of Fear with Darling, now the White Rose and a general of her own unusual armies, pitted against the armies of the Taken, a group of elite sorcerers who serve the Lady. They are ruthless, centuries old, and their magic is immensely powerful. Thankfully, the White Rose has the power to nullify magic. The monsters in the Plain of Fear are supernatural and unpredictable, but they are also powerful and they form an alliance with the White Rose against the Dominator and his Lady, who each seek to restore an ancient empire of evil.

Cook’s final entry of The Black Company: The BOoks of the North consistently feels like a classic, archetypal high fantasy. Archetypal stories can invite authors to focus on broad details, but Cook is clever enough to pay attention to the little things. There are many fine details to applaud in The White Rose, but perhaps my favorite part of this novel (and the series) is the characters’ names. When a grizzled man and his dog, Tracker and Toadkiller Dog, show up, readers will hopefully be invested enough in the series to enjoy these names for all they’re worth.

Names are very important in the Black Company’s world. If someone can discover the Lady’s name and speak it, she will lose all of her magical power. Consequently, all sorcerers go to great lengths to keep their childhood secret. All of them are hiding their true identity, which is why much of The White Rose consists of trying to find out the true name of the Lady.

Unfortunately, Raven, Cook’s lone wolf, has messed up his search. So it falls on the other members of the company to figure things out. It’s a one-in-a-million chance that they’ll work out the puzzle of the Lady’s name in time to save The White Rose’s daring band of heroes — not to mention the world — but it does make for an enjoyable fantasy novel and a satisfying conclusion to the first trilogy in what is now recognized as a classic fantasy series.

The Chronicles of The Black Company — (1984-2000) In January 2005, Glen Cook said “I have two more, A Pitiless Rain and Port of Shadows, planned for the future, but I have a bunch of other stuff I have to do first that’s under contract. It will be several years before a new Black Company novel comes out.” Publisher: Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her…

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  • Ryan Skardal

    RYAN SKARDAL, on our staff from September 2010 to November 2018, is an English teacher who reads widely but always makes time for SFF.