Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths Reviews I'm a big fan of Glen Cook and have been since I was a know-it-all teenager, so whenever he puts out a new book, I eventually get around to reading it. Usually I love the thing, because I just enjoy the way the man tells stories. But even I have to say this book/series was difficult to get real excited about. However, since Cook wrote it, I finally gave it a try and was glad I did so.With The Tyranny of the Night, Cook takes us to a thinly concealed 13th century Europe. So thinly disguised I might add that I soon made a list of what fictional country was Italy, which was Burgundy, et cetera and kept up with the characters locations that way instead of the fictional ones. Sorry, I digressed there.In this fantasy world, there is a wall of ice in the north which is slowly crawling over humanity, reclaiming the land for the imps, demons, and dark gods who are (drum roll please) the instrumentalities of the night. The wise in the world theorize that this ice age is occurring because the great magical Wells of Ihrain, which the world's two greatest religions both covet and which correlates to Jerusalem in our world, are gradually drying up. Indeed, the glacier's growth is increasing, which suggests that the wells are accelerating toward their eventually demise. However, this lessening of their power has not kept the Patriarchs of the West and the Pramans, or the followers of the Written, from fighting several crusade-like wars for possession of them. As our story begins, a precarious truce holds sway over the world, but that all changes when Else, a young Praman warrior, and his small band of comrades are attacked by a creature of the night: a demigod to be specific. Too ignorant or too stubborn to just die, Else determines to fight back, and he does just that, using his ingenuity to cast down the undefeatable creature of the night. A victory which brings not great joy and accolades to Else but the eternal wrath of the night and the hatred of more human enemies. In fact, Else's immediate reward for his unexpected success is to be sent as a spy into the heartland of his people's mortal enemies - unto the Patriarchal city itself, leaving his family, his friends, and all he has ever known behind. There his mission is simple: weasel his way into a position of power and direct the attention of the western kingdom away from any war to take back the Wells of Ihrain.These ridiculous orders from his lord are accepted by Else as his duty, and he departs even though he has lots of unanswered questions. However, he soon finds that in order to survive he has to do more than pretend to be a westerner; he has to become one. Quickly, our hero is emulating his sworn enemies, eating their food even though it is sacrilege to his beliefs, casting aside his own spirituality, and even fighting and killing other Pramans. Submerged in this alter ego he has crafted, determined to do his duty even though it violates his every belief, Else begins to doubt the foundations of his life: faith, country, and family. If all that wasn't enough for poor Else to deal with, someone keeps trying to kill him too? But is it the night, or is it human enemies? Else doesn't know, and neither does the reader - at least in large part. But there is one thing everyone is certain off: once a man kills a god how can the world ever be the same again. And that is what Cook explores in this first book of the series. Hopefully, I did the book justice with that brief description. Please understand there are several characters who get considerable page time here - it isn't just about Else and his mission - and these separate stories do not always interconnect in any but a very remote way. So it can be very confusion to get everything straight in your mind when you first begin reading this novel. However, it's worth the effort and does grow on you. Now, I don't know if the growth is new hair on your bald head or fungus on your toes, but it is there nonetheless. But my bad jokes aside, give this book a try you might enjoy it.
The first of a new series by veteran fantasy maestro Glen Cook, Tyranny of the Night centers upon an elite soldier named Else, who's been sent by the potentates back home (i.e. the Holy Lands) to spy/sow dissent in the already-quarrelsome West. The names took a little getting used to, as did the world, but after about the first hundred pages I was fully immersed in the world and gleefully blazed through this one at top speed. As far as historical references go, I couldn't hazard a guess as to dates but think During the Crusades and also During That Part Where There Were Two Popes... there's intrigue of all sorts to be found in TotN, action, deadly sorcery... I could hardly ask for more, but Glen Cook delivers: killer Jews with Guns, melted faces, a little sex here and there. All-around, exactly what I want when i pick up a Glen Cook novel. If you haven't read the Black Company series, pick them up, but don't read them in order. Start with Bleak Seasons, read forward, then go read the earlier ones. With this series it feels like Cook starts at the same sort of high water mark that Bleak Seasons represents for that series and takes off from there. Plus there's vikings. Very very dangerous vikings. If you like your fantasy light and fluffy, you're looking in the wrong place-- Cook is dark and deadly and the text of TotN is dense, particularly in the beginning when he's setting the stage and identifying the players, but like I said you get used to it. Feminist readers may be a bit disappointed at a lack of notable female characters-- there are women in TotN--few and far between and tend to end up dead or in the background, but they're in there. Else thinks of his wife semi-regularly and there are a few other important female characters, but this is loosely set in the Crusades and in the words of James Brown, 'this is a man's world...' Altogether delightful, carefully crafted, the only complaints I have are with the binding and typsetting, really-- I read a first edition, and spotted four typos that I'm sure were not Cook's fault. And the spine didn't seem to want to hold up under normal reading conditions--- the book didn't fall apart in my hands but it felt like it was thinking about it. These are not Cook's fault, they lie with the people who make the physical object, and may be attributed to the fact that I was reading a first edition or might be indicative of a growing sloppiness in the publishing industry in general. Didn't detract too much from my enjoyment of the novel, but did keep it from getting that perfect score. Now eagerly wading into the next volume of the series...
What do You think about The Tyranny Of The Night (2006)?
Que dire ? Que dire ? C' est moins bon que la compagnie noire...Pourquoi ? Ben parce que le héros est moins attachant qu' un Toubib par exemple, mais aussi parce que le monde dans lequel il évolue est horriblement complexe. Glen Cook a voulu situer son histoire dans un monde proche du nôtre. On y reconnaît les religions (dèves = juifs ; pramans = musulman...), les pays, mais si on ne connaît pas un peu le moyen-âge européen du XIIème, XIIIème siècle, bonjour les dégâts ! L' écheveau politique et religieux est si emmêlé qu' on s' y perd parfois. Finalement, ce qui manque le plus dans ce roman, c' est une bonne carte du monde, Histoire qu' on s' y retrouve sans être obligé de se fier à ses souvenirs de fac...Espérons que les tomes suivants fassent oublier ces réserves, mais j' en doute...
—Mathieu
A straight-forward political fantasy by Glen Cook, this book had a huge cast and moved to a ton of different places and it was very easy to become lost and confused by all the names. Fortunately, perhaps, much of the geopolitics mirror medieval Europe and the Middle East (with all the names changed—probably to avoid all the emotional baggage if it had been set there) and once I made that connection it became much easier to keep track of everything going on. Not nearly as dark or depressing as the Black Company books, this was more of a romp with consequences and with a main character (as much as the book had one) who was engaging and a magic system that drew me in as well. So I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind coming back for future book in the series.
—Jacob Proffitt
I am a huge Glen Cook fan. I've read and loved all of the Black Company series. I've read and enjoyed quite a few of the Garrett P.I series. I constantly recommend those series to friends. I cannot recommend Tyranny of the Night to anyone. There are far too many names with screwed up pronunciations that are a huge burden this book has to bear. The story seems interesting, but the hurdle of names for people, places, religions, kingdoms, etc is just too high. I've read through 489 pages of this book thinking it will get better and the strange naming conventions would eventually click. It sadly did not.
—Nemlock
