Glen Cook’s Black Company series coming to TV.

Alternate title: I always liked you, Eliza Dushku.

IM Global Television has announced development on The Black Company, an adaptation of Glen Cook’s books, a fantasy series with Eliza Dushku’s Boston Diva Productions and David Goyer’s Phantom Four.

 Boston Diva Productions optioned the ten-book epic action fantasy series, as well as the forthcoming book, Port of Shadows, which falls between Book 1 and 2 in the series and will be published by Tor Books in 2018. Dushku (Dollhouse, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) will portray the pivotal role of the dark sorceress, “The Lady.”

I’m more of a fan of Glen Cook’s Garrett PI series, but I’m not upset at all that they’re doing a Black Company show. Guess Game of Thrones was useful for something, after all.  …Huh.  Go figure.

Moe Lane

PS: Mind you, I don’t know where they’re going to show it. Neither does anybody else, I think.  Oh, man, I’m going to have to go reread the series now; I remember liking it, but I don’t remember whether it’s suitable for anything besides pay cable.

10 thoughts on “Glen Cook’s Black Company series coming to TV.”

  1. Loved that series, but it started getting really surreal there once the Siege of Dejagore got going. I’m not sure the medium can really handle all the abstracts and flashbacks at that point, but by then they’d be sevenish seasons in, anyway…
    I think it could reasonably be kept PG-13. But the trees and flying whales might be obnoxiously CGI.

    Loved the Garrett P.I. stories, but didn’t read beyond Lead Skies for obvious reasons. (OK, not so obvious to those who haven’t read the books. Lead Skies wasn’t so much a story as a deus ex machina of “and they all loved happily ever after” combined with a loving goodbye to all of the characters in the series. Picking it back up after that seemed cheap.)
    Man, I need to read Old Tin Sorrows and Dread Brass Shadows again.

    1. “Loved that series, but it started getting really surreal there once the Siege of Dejagore got going.”

      I’d say it was a fair bit surreal before the guy becomes Unstuck in time.

      However, as someone else said, you have enough material before they go down South for several seasons.

  2. Whether it’s suitable for anything besides pay cable? I’d guess no.

    Granted, a lot of the stuff that happens isn’t described in graphic detail. And a lot of it flew over my head when I was young and naive. And there isn’t a lot of nudity. But The Black Company are not nice people.

  3. Black Company thrashes the Game of Thrones 6 ways from Sunday anyway. Awesome news.

    Now, if only we can get a Malazan Book of the Fallen, and get that Monster Hunter International movie off the ground. THEN we’re cooking with gas.

    1. Eh. Malazan peaked at Chain of Dogs.
      By the time it became an authorial tract against capitalism and Christianity respectively, it was just jumping the shark.

      1. OK. Never took it as either, myself. Though it does involve his theory on the development of religion as things go on. But I don’t think one would go heavy into that in a series anymore than they are likely to chase down the braid-pulling for a WoT series.

        Memories of Ice is better than Deadhouse, IMHO. The end of MoI is the last time a book made me weep. And Bonehunters was very good. And as for the last books: Sentient Raptors, FTW. Well, unless Quick Ben is involved, then he simply trumps everyone.

  4. I think I read the first one…not bad, but too many books in the series for me to stay interested. But, Glen is a nice guy and I am happy for this to happen to him

    1. It’s actually not bad in that respect, because it isn’t so much a long series as a trilogy, followed by a standalone, followed by a trilogy, followed by another trilogy.
      The sections are pretty well self-contained, so setting it aside and coming back for another bite at a later time isn’t a big deal.

      1. I guess I could state it more simply as separate stories in the same setting, sometimes featuring The same characters.

  5. Would have preferred Garret, PI, but will take the Black Company. I wonder if the producers realize just how long the series is?

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