The Black Company

I’ve just re-read Glen Cook’s Black Company series, and it struck me that somebody should option this and make an HBO mini-series out of it.

Basically, the Black Company series is something as unusual as straight fantasy with the usual sword and sorcery elements, but written from the perspective of grunts with a definite world-weary Vietnam vet kind of feel. The series is divided into three main parts, and the parts that would make a great mini-series would be the first and third books, with elements from the second book thrown in for continuity. What you would end up with is Lord of the Rings meets Saving Private Ryan–the plot of the first three books is pretty meaty with ample Huge Visuals, including the battle at the Tower of Charm featuring a quarter of a million soldiers backed by relentless sorcery pyrotechnics, but it is also rich in cynicism and has a complete refusal to look at people as good or evil, just all the shades of grey in between.

If this could be made faithful to the feel of the books, not cutting down on the grey misery of soldiering and liquid morality that sets the series apart, it would be a classic.

I’m thinking James Gandolfini as Croaker…