The Silver Spike
Glen Cook
313 pages
published in 1989

Glen Cook is a fantasy writer with quite a dedicated following, but who never quite hit the big time the way Robert Jordan or George R. R. Martin did. He used to be a worker on a car assembly line and wrote several of his novels in between assembling cars. Apparantely the work was easy enough to give him time to think and slow enough he could write in between cars.

Glen Cook has written several fantasy series, of which the most famous are his Garret P.I. series, about a private dick in a somewhat atypical fantasy city and the Black Company series, about a band of amoral mercenaries getting involved in the battle between Good and Evil. The Silver Spike is part of the latter series, though only sideways related to the main storyline.

The Silver Spike takes place after the first story arc of the Black Company series, focussing on several of the characters who did not join the Company on its further adventures. It's definately not a stand alone adventure, you've need to have read the first four Black Company novels first. As such it's hard to tell much about the plot, without spoiling these earlier books. Suffice to say that if you've read these, you know what the title refers to and what the central macguffin is.

The narrator is a new character, Philodendron Case, supposedly a minor member of the Black Company left behind when the company itself went south. He gets more or less drafted by Raven, Darling and Silent (important characters from the earlier books) to help tie up some of the loose ends left behind by the Company's departure. Complications ensue.

The Silver Spike is written in Cook's customary dark, cynical style. It's not as good as the main Black Company's books, but still a worthwhile read if you liked them. Don't start this if you haven't read any of the others yet.