March 2007 - glencook-fans - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Glencook-fans] Offtopic: mystery author
by Grim213＠aol.com 25 Mar '07

25 Mar '07

That sounds like a scene in "Forever War", by Joe Haldeman. ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.

2 1

Offtopic: mystery author
by Stacey Harris 24 Mar '07

24 Mar '07

A question not directly related to Glen Cook: My brother is asking for help in identifying a book he read years ago: It's hard SF of the space-battle variety, akin in spirit to "Passage at Arms" (which is why I thought of this list as a possible source for someone who might recognize the book). They key point my brother recalls is that of a warship in interstellar flight seeing a mysterious "shadow" on its sensor screen. The ship's officers can't tell if it's an equipment glitch or an actual enemy; it appears to move with them as if it's tracking them, but maybe it's an artifact of equipment failure. As the plot develops, it turns out it's an actual enemy ship. And that's all I can tell you about the book. Anyone recognize this trope? Steve/Stacey

2 1

Gaming categorization flaws [Glencook-fans]
by Michael Hodum 21 Mar '07

21 Mar '07

Judging from the majority of examples in the novels, I have found the categorization below to be heavily flawed. " Amateur (Raven) Low Level Professional (better than Raven, less powerful than company wizards) Professional (One Eye, Goblin, Silent, and Tom-Tom) Good Professional (Smoke) Great (The Circle of 18, New Taken) Great with Experience (The Ten Who Were Taken) Extremely Great (Dominator, Lady) " Harden, merely "Great" and placed on the level of non-entities like Scorn and Blister, was able to freeze three Taken during their frontal, offensive charge: the Hanged Man, an effective battle mage as seen earlier in the initial carpet attack; Stormbringer, vastly powerful as we all know; and Soulcatcher herself. Only one thing stopped Harden from scattering the brains of these 3 Taken: the action of unseen Shifter. Raven is not the amateur we think he is. He kills Raker, the first or second most dangerous and respected member of the original eighteen in the Circle. It would be foolish to think that he did not use considerable magic in this effort, perhaps a powerful concealment spell, as someone in the Circle isn't likely to be dispatched by some talentless thug who sneaks up behind him with a dagger. One-Eye built a spear that utterly destroyed an ancient "Extremely Great" sorcerer Kina, when forces of considerably greater power were only able to trap her. Sure, it took him extra time to craft it, but consider the leftover time the entrapping powers had after imprisoning Kina in the plain castle. A group of lesser light mages summoned a tree that still keeps an ancient Dominator underground. And of course, nearly any fool who stumbles upon a true name can use it to wholly disarm a demigod. None of these are exceptions: interactions like these are the norm in the Black Company microcosm. Understanding this, it appears rather useless to try to force any kind of gaming paradigm onto the type of fiction that Glen Cook has written here. None of these categories hold fast in any significant way. -Mike PS- did anyone receive my previous post? ------------------------------- Michael R. Hodum Gardens Area R.A. - Claver Hall '06-'07 Honor Council Ext. 3510 "... for among the simple pleasures of life must be counted the happiness of bringing good news to a grateful recipient." - Arnold H. M. Lunn (A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter Claver) -------------------------------

4 3

Starfishers/Passage at Arms
by brookeawheeler＠netscape.net 20 Mar '07

20 Mar '07

I just finished /Passage at Arms/. Excellent book, but now I have a question. Several years ago, I read the Starfisher books, and I seem to recall something about the Ulants in those books. "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is also briefly mentioned in /Passage at Arms /and I seem to recall that as well from Starfishers. Help me out here, folks... Am I confused, or does /Passage/ take place in the same universe as the others? Hopefully someone has read these more recently or has a better memory than me. :) TIA. -- --==From the mailbox of B. Wheeler==-- BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts...)

13 26

GlenCook Wiki & the Black Company
by Michael Hodum 16 Mar '07

16 Mar '07

1. Is anyone here involved in the GlenCookWiki? For those who don't know, it is an alterable encyclopedia of Glen's fiction. It needs more attention but quite a bit is already fleshed out. http://en.glencook.org/index.php/Main_Page It's the sort of thing that would benefit from a few visits from each of us every once in awhile, editing and adding as we see fit. (My handle there is Rook Fasthands.) 2. My first post here on the fanlist was during summer 2002 (under the name Welly). In it, I tracked down the 10 original Taken & the Shadowmasters and proffered a small theory about them. A good debate followed, primarily between me and David Ainsworth. David rejected the theory in favor of viewing it as an "indeterminate possibility", and since then --it was just about 5 years ago-- I came to agree with him: the theory is quite possible yet unlikely to be true. As such, although Nightcrawler, the Faceless Man, and Moonbiter may have been lost suspiciously in the North, and their bodies were never found by Otto and Hagop, they likely were not the 3 slain would-be-shadowmasters that Uncle Doj mentioned (those 3 in my view now were more likely to have been unnamed foreigners who accompanied Longshadow). 3. Starting back in August of 2001 there was a discussion about the most evil character in the Black Company series. I agreed (and still do) with someone who said that Croaker was the most evil of all: he knowingly orchestrated the destruction of a shadowgate, enabling the shadows of the plain to flood in and torture an entire world of people to death. The Dominator may have cruelly leveled provinces and kingdoms, but he never brought an entire world to the very brink of destruction. Anyone have any thoughts on this? 4. I am having trouble navigating the archives at http://mailman.xmission.com/lurker/list/glencook-fans.en.html. How do I find the posts between August 2004 and now? how far back do those archives go? I found a different listing that had really old archives UP TO Aug 2004, but that archive simply ends there. 5. The last digest I got was August 2004 (digest #288). Was there a change of hands or something after that point / a lacuna of posting? -Mike ------------------------------- Michael R. Hodum Gardens Area R.A. - Claver Hall '06-'07 Ext. 3510 "... for among the simple pleasures of life must be counted the happiness of bringing good news to a grateful recipient." - Arnold H. M. Lunn (A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter Claver) -------------------------------

1 0

Re: [Glencook-fans] Passage at Arms rereleased
by maserati＠speakeasy.net 16 Mar '07

16 Mar '07

Well, I'm out fifty bucks [1], thanks. Much. Really. I only have one copy of PaA and it's getting battered. I think I'll make a point at retail and get Sung in Blood next time I'm in Borders. [1] been meaning to pick up a regular edition of the Dread Empire omnibus > -----Original Message----- > From: Steve Chew [mailto:schew@interzone.com] > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 05:13 PM > To: 'Glen Cook: Science Fiction/Fantasy Author' > Subject: Re: [Glencook-fans] Passage at Arms rereleased > > > I saw on Amazon that Passage at Arms has been rereleased by > Nightshade Books. I've already bought the Dread Empire chronicles > that they put out and I may have to pick up a new copy of Passage. > > Steve > > > _______________________________________________ > glencook-fans mailing list > glencook-fans(a)mailman.xmission.com > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/glencook-fans >

1 0

Re: [Glencook-fans] New Glen Cook book
by maserati＠speakeasy.net 16 Mar '07

16 Mar '07

> -----Original Message----- > It reminds me a bit of the back-story on discovering the remains of the > Dominator & Co. that forms a continuing alternative plot-line in the 2nd > (?) of the Black Company books, though it ends up better integrated with > the main plot line than Raven's chronicle does. > That's the story told in "The Silver Spike", one of my favorite books by any author.

1 0