I saw Glen Cook at the 2006 World Fantasy Convention
in Austin Texas, where he was a Guest of Honor.
At the time, I simply couldn’t understand it. I’ve read Science Fiction and Fantasy (SF&F)
all my life. At the time, I had been
reading “Locus Magazine,” the monthly magazine that reviewed the SF&F
literary market, for over ten years. Yet
I had never heard of him. Glen Cook:
Guest of Honor? He couldn’t be that
important, could he?
As the World Fantasy Convention is geared toward published authors, few sat in on more than one panel discussion, and many didn’t even snag a seat.
Yet because he was a Guest of Honor, Glen Cook sat in on several, giving
attendees his opinion on the various topics being discussed. Often one of his fellow panelists would turn
toward him and say, “You know, Glen, I’ve read some of your Black Company novels, and I really enjoyed them,” as if wishing to go on record that he, and that series, were significant. But when I saw Glen Cook at his table in the
dealer’s room, the books arrayed before him sported not the dark, ominous artwork of the Black Company series, but lighthearted scenes featuring an overcoat-clad detective.
How could he have written that many books in a series without my having
heard about him? I wondered. When my
wife bought Sweet Silver Blues, the first installment in what I came to learn
was his Garrett P.I. series, I asked her why she had purchased it. After all, the organizers had given each of
us a bag of books at registration, and we would have to pack them into our
suitcases for the flight home.
“It just looked fun,” she told me.
As I’ve followed the SF&F literary market over the
years, I’ve begun to realize that no reader can possibly stay on top of
everything that’s out there. The
publishers put out too many titles each month, and bookstores play it safe by
buying multiple copies of the latest offering by top selling authors, and a
smattering of anything else that seems different enough that it might become
the next big thing. Even older,
established authors find that bookstores carry no more than a small percentage
of their available titles. Consequently, lots of
authors go unnoticed, and book reviewers who promote authors who constantly attempt to challenge reader’s expectations through their fiction only perpetuate this trend. The longer
I study the market, the more confounded I am by this approach. For most readers aren’t looking to have their
expectations of Fiction challenged or overthrown each time they pick up a novel. They’ve worked hard all day, or spent too
many hours studying. They want an escape
from reality, not literature that will place additional demands on their
already fatigued brains and bodies.
After my wife read Sweet Silver Blues, the first Garrett
P.I. novel, I read it too. I wasn’t won
over by it. The novel combines two
normally separate genres, the High Fantasy novel, with its fantastical
creatures, swordplay, and magic-wielding sorcerers and witches, with a Mystery
novel featuring a stereotypical hardboiled detective. Cook’s minimal description of Garrett’s world
prevented me from envisioning his Fantasy world. His characters, variations on traditional
trolls, elves, and dwarves, prevented me from taking the overall mystery plot
seriously. Yet as is sometimes the case,
that isn’t the end of the story.
Sometimes you discover a particular author before you’re ready for him,
and sometimes the authors that prove important to you are different from those
the reviewers say you should care about.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you why you should care about Glen
Cook’s novels. Or at least why I do…now.
Dragon Dave
