The Tyranny of the Night: Book One of the Instrumentalities of the Night

The Tyranny of the Night (2005) is the first fantasy novel in The Instrumentalities of the Night series. The Wells of Ihrian are dying down and the Night is receiving less food. The Ice around the edges is creeping inward, squeezing humans into the warmer lands. In this novel, on the Plains of Judgment, Captain Else Tage of the Sha-lug is confronted by a bogon arising from the Night and improvises a killing weapon using a mobile cannon, silver coins and gravel. The bogon is destroyed, leaving behind only something like an obsidian egg. At that moment, the Instrumentalities of the Night begin the slow process of searching for the godslayer. Else carefully takes his company to the coast and signals a warship to pick them up. Although the ship can take some of the men and their booty, the others have to march to the nearest base. Else accompanies the booty back to Dreanger. There he is given another assignment. Gordimer the Lion and Er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen send Else to the West to spy upon the Bothans and to create disruption. Disguised as the returning crusader Sir Aelford daSkees, Else sails to Runch on the Isle of Starlirhod, where someone tries to kill him. Then he sails to Sonsa, where someone else tries to kill him. In Sonsa, Else is recruited by the local Devedians in defense of their quarter. Although he is their token general, Else can do little more than caution the Deves against overconfidence and provocation. When the big invasion of the quarter comes, his major contribution consists of wielding the portable cannon filled with godslayer shot against the Bothan sorcerers. In this story, further north, six soultaken warriors are brought before their gods and given a mission. Only their leader Grim is party to the details, which he receives in his sleep. They are deposited upon an old battleground in the southlands, where they find weapons and gear. They join with a southern army heading in the right direction, only to be ambushed by the enemy. After the killing and looting is over, the Soultaken retrace their path, still looking for the godslayer. Else is now Piper Hecht, a mercenary from Duarnenia. He falls into the company of a group of young men hoping to find lives of adventure as mercenaries. Although quickly disillusioning them of their thoughts of adventure and romance, Piper becomes their mentor and implicit leader. When they find a recruiter outside Ralli, Piper stays with the group as they join the Brotherhood of War and later becomes captain of their company. Pincus Ghort is a career mercenary who also joins the newly formed unit. He too becomes a captain, for few have had prior experience. Ghort can always be depended upon to suspect the worst of any situation. Osa Stile is a former Sha-lug who was selected to be a spy prior to Else's mission. Although he is almost twenty years old, he still appears to be only eleven due to Er-Rashal's magic. He is spying for the Bothan Emperor as well as for Gord

Miss this one at your own peril. This is like Cook's usual output, gutsy, in your face, no nonsense story telling from the point of view of the guys who do the dirty work. In this tale, we experience the world through the eyes of Else the Shalug, in a world where magic is still a factor, and where "instrumentalities," mostly unseen atrocities, still haunt the night looking for prey, usually the human kind. Else, with his deadpan view of the world, works his way through a series of insane episodes and Chaotic adventures, endig up in an unlikely place, while all the while serving several different masters at different stages of political intrigue. Along the way, we meet the usual rogues, along the lines of Hagop and Otto in The Black Company, and the inevitable older woman with interesting abilities. As other reviewers have said, it is a bit challenging at the start. But what others are not saying, and this is a key point, is that as the book picks up speed, so does your interest, as the plot lines start to merge into an unexpected finish. Cook, like others in the genre, such as Jack Chalker, likes to toy with the idea that Gods are just people from other dimensions whose powers are more of a hindrance than a gift. And this one is no exception, as the element of folly and blind ambition leads to an interesting set of consequences. I'm looking forward to the next installment, although Croaker, Murgen, and The Lady will always be number one in my Cook-Book. It would be nice to get one more installment of The Black Company, where things are not left so disheartening.

Glenn Cook is something of a marvel. There are few fantasy writers who have maintained the output he has and done it consistently well. His stories range from space opera to the battlefield and even detective fiction with no noticeable degradation of writing skills. He manages to maintain several different styles and narrative voices so that no one would mistake Croaker of the Black Company for Garrett of TunFaire. He is noted for gritty writing that often echoes the Viet Nam war and dark city streets, and he spends as much time on character development as most writers do on their plots. So in one sense The Tyranny of the Night is struck from the same mold as the tales of the Black Company. In a world where the powers of magic - the Instrumentalities of the Night - contest with religious powers that are every bit as corrupt and powerful as is the medieval church. Religion and politics are the great dividers, and looming in the distance or the great walls of ice that threaten to bury the human world forever. This first volume introduces us to a number of characters who will play key parts in the volumes to come. A special services warrior named Else who carries out clandestine missions for the warlord of the kingdom of Dreanger is sent into the lands of the West to observe the inner political conflicts and keep the powers there focused on battling each other rather then mounting a crusade against the west. To Else's surprise he is wildly successful. So successful that he rises steadily in the ranks of the very people who might plot against the Empire. And in the ranks of the people who plot against them. Inevitably, he must deal with the issue of biting at least one of the hands that feed him. Caught up in the same struggles is Brother Candle an adherent of the Maysalean heresy who appears in the End of Connec to try to stop the Patriarch at Brothe from purging the country of all sinner and unbelievers. And two Andoran warriors, Shagot and Svavar, are resurrected by their ancient gods to track down and kill Else, who has found a way to destroy them. Threaded among these main stories are countless other characters who give this story the remarkable density which sets is aside from the current taste for pure action. This is a book intended for the reader who relishes finely grained detail, although there is plenty of action as well.

As many other "critics" have already belaboured the throwing of the reader into the deep end of the pool for the first hundred pages or so and the lack of maps and glossaries, I'll skip all that. Anyone who has trouble with these missing crutches or the need for mental athleticism should try reading the original "Dune" series by Frank Herbert or Steven R. Donaldson's "Chronicals of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever". While no one could twist intrigue better than Herbert, or plumb the depths of sacrifice and cynicism further than Donaldson, what Glen Cook brings to "The Tyrany of the Night" is the very thing "Dune" and "Covenant" lack, the perspective of real people. Herbert spools mountainous coils of often archane "history" and weaves layer upon layer of deception and intrigue, but he does so with the dispassionate omniscient view of a kid with an ant farm. Donaldson's characters while passionate, frequently display a morbid self-absorbsion that often makes one scream for Prozac. But Cook's characters have the gift of life, they toil, sweat, think, feel, piss and moan, bitch and jest just like the rest of us. They are the anchor these other authors failed to find. The human frailty and power of these characters both heroes and villains makes their story accessable and their strange world real. The humor and world weary cynicism of his characters is the hallmark of Cook's genius. Even when we don't like a character, we still care enough to be curious about their fate and even moved by the pathos of their end. This is the start of a great saga.

Okay, first off I admit I'm an old fan of Cook from the first trilogy and the first Garret book and through the Black Company. No other writer has a better grasp of the front line warrior's attitude: bloody, brutal, confused as hell eternally pissed off at and wary of Gods and Kings and Sorcerers. He has a wonderful grasp of the confusion of war and how chance deals with the best laid plans. And how the grounded cynicism of soldiers can humble the most grandious of nobles. This is the beginning ground work of a grand epic I believe. He lays down the structure and without maps (maps would be nice) takes us into a wholly new universe of magic and old nasty gods and men and women just trying to deal with the hand they get. It is up close and funny and vast in scale. And he throws out some of the best zingers and hilarious observations of human nature out there. Nothing is sacred but life and love. It will take some patience and an aquaintanceship with how Cook operates would help, but by the time you get to the end you will be cursing because it will be some time before you get to hear the rest of the story, dammit. This man is a master. No-one, Erikson, Jordan, Feist, does epic sword and sorcery better. No bs here just a hell of a fun read. Bring your brain.