The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook

The Tyranny of the Night: Book One of the Instrumentalities of the Night
Glen Cook (http://us.macmillan.com/author/glencook)
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC (http://www.tor.com/)
First Published in 2005
ISBN 13: 9780765345967

I keep picking up Glen Cook books out of habit after the Black Company series and as a consequence everything I read by Glen Cook is compared to the Black Company. I am a fan of the three first books of the Black Company, but to be honest the following six books in the series became a bit too complex with all its religious aspects. To me The Tyranny of the Night is a reverse experience compared to the black company.

It starts out with a rather complex political/religious set-up and then become more and more focused on the story (or the story becomes more focused). It took some effort to overcome the complexity of the first part of the book, but eventually the story got hold on me. Having said that, the complexity is impressive and it builds a very intriguing environment for the story. The writing style, characters, plots, and details are, to be honest, more than I can take in. But never mind the feeling that it is a wee bit over my head, because the writing is impressive with its consistency, fluency, and dialogs that feels natural.

Captain Else Tage (or Piper Hecht) is the main character in the story. His actions in the beginning of the book
set in motion events that will eventually threaten the status-quos between humans, gods, and demons. Tage’s journey is also a very personal journey where he, through his role as a spy, looses himself in the military role for his master’s enemy.

There are some few parts of the book that does not really get me engaged though; the main one being Shagot and Svavar journey. It is just depressing, ugly, and somewhat short of my expectations for Norse inspired mythology and culture. Perhaps I am not very objective regarding this, but I don’t see much impact on this book from their participation.

Even though it is not necessarily easy to grasp the complexity the characters are solid and some of the things I enjoyed with the Black Company series are present here as well. Bottom line for me is that “The Tyranny of the Night ” shapes up to be a very good introduction to the series.