Winter's Dreams is an anthology of some of Glen Cook's short stories that was published back in 2012 by Subterranean Press. I had the good luck to spot and purchase it in the period when I first read Cook's Black Company series. I was so impressed with him I pretty much bought anything with his name and Raymond Swanland's art on it, and it would be mine as soon as I could type down my dad's Visa numbers.
It took me a long while to get around to this one because I always planned on reading it immediately after the Darkwar trilogy. But there's always another story you want to read and so it kept on being delayed. It was on my to read lists for... oh, say pretty much seven years now... wow. Ok, well I finally finished both Darkwar and all the short stories in Winter's Dreams. And I'm glad I finally got around to it.
There are 14 tales here and they're pretty much all worth a reader's time.
In Song from a Forgotten Hill, through the eyes of a man trying to keep his family safe, we are shown a near future version of America where the nation's long-standing racial tensions have led to several escalating destructive events that have plunged the country back into a very present and violent racial divide. Through his first-hand account we are reacquainted with the bigotry and senseless hatred of the people that were left over after the big progressive cities had been wiped out.
What does a good man do when the only men left to face are the bad ones?
Glen Cook is mostly famous for his fantasy series, and this one then came as much of a surprise to me. Near future dystopia isn't really what I was expecting. It wasn't that long and race politics aren't something that touch me much, isolated as I am, and pretty much all of what I've seen of its heinousness has come to me through American news and the internet. So in short, I was all set to breeze through this, prepared to put it quite low in the list of the book's stories, but of course, it didn't turn out that way. This one was quite touching and very memorable. Maybe because it was so unlike the things I usually read.
In And Dragons in the Sky we follow two undercover agents as they embark as technicians on a spaceship en route to a crippled deep-space vessel. As they are pretty much immediately spotted and yet kept on because the crippled vessel needs to be repaired as soon as possible, they begin to suspect that some big event must be in the offing.
This was rather a complex story set in the Starfishers Universe, and in fact might lie at its very basis. The plot here is actually the one that ended up being a large part of book 2 of the Starfishers trilogy. I can't remember a lot of the trilogy as I breezed through a lot of fiction in a very short time back then, but the story here is pretty good, although Cook dumps so much information, terminology and concepts on you that it can be a little overwhelming. After a while I began remembering some things, which made me slightly itchy to re-read the trilogy.
I ended up quite liking this one as well. Cook has a penchant for cool names and having a very diverse cast in all of his novels and short stories.
Spoilers for the Story and Neal Asher's Gridlinked
Appointment in Samarkand is not even a page long and as it is fucking strange and almost nonsensical I suspect it's part of a larger story or has a tie into one of Cook's existing series but i'll be buggered if I know which one.
Oooor... it is a comedic little endeavour, following the world's oldest man who keeps death at bay by eating garlic cloves. Pretty funny actually, if you look at it this way.
Sunrise is a pretty cool little sci-fi story yet again showcasing Cook's talent for off-the-cuff engaging world-building. We are introduced to a city on the brink of annihilation, about to be wiped out by a combination of a planet's glacially slow revolution and a sun that really is quite a bit too close for comfort. Restrained as she is by the mad cult of the Sun God, forbidden from seeking salvation outside of the city's boundaries, a young woman tries to enlist the aid of her immortal lover, who, as so many of the city's drug-enabled immortals has grown too lethargic to care about self-preservation.
Wikipedia states this one is part of the Starfishers universe but I'm not sure I found anything to slot it in there. As it is, the planet's completely isolated from the rest of the universe, to such an extent that any history claiming to pertain to humanity's time before their existence on this planet is considered heresy. There's not much room to slot this one with the rest of Starfishers then.
In any case; the Starfishers universe mostly really served as the drawing board to explore any sci-fi ideas that Cook might've had, leading to a bunch of standalone short stories that, while existing in the same setting, don't ever really come close to overlapping. A few names here and there maybe, but still quite good. Which means, that probably yeah, this one fits in there, even if nothing explicitly points to it.
The Devil's Tooth is probably my favourite story in here as it is a grim and dark sword and sorcery tale set on earth in the age of the sun's dying. And through try as I might I didn't really see anything indicative of technology masquerading as magic, as is common with these types of stories. It really reads more as a modern day grimdark tale, way ahead of its time, than as a homage to the Dying Earth or something.
We follow a lone swordsman as he quests to discover the whereabouts of the strange country of Moon. To find the knowledge he seeks he must first fulfill a task set by an infamous sorceror, to find and bring back The Devil's Tooth, a legendary dagger rumoured to grant eternal life upon the one who wields it. The Swordsman's journey is fraught with peril. But which one is the more dangerous; the planet's insidious plant-life, or the greed of those who know about his quest and search the dagger for their own ends?
I really enjoyed this one, and it's honestly rather a shame that Cook didn't write more stories set in this world. I was immediately engaged with his creations here; there was a very dark feeling to the setting, and the variety in enemies, both humanoid and otherwise was quite interesting. The main character himself, though fairly limited in characterization still showed some depth to him that made him different than what you'd normally expect. He is of course capable; of violence and in survival, but what makes him stand out from the run of the mill of sword and sorcery protagonists, is that his prime motivator isn't greed but rather that he is driven to discover the secrets of this world that is about to expire, just for the sake of his own curiosity.
In the Wind is another sci-fi story which is part of the Starfishers universe, which at this point seems to be quite a bit bigger than I first thought it was. This one takes place after the events of the trilogy, as we see one of its main characters, and incidentally, the same one from the And Dragons in the Sky short story, albeit later in life and in a different position.
The main character here is a glider pilot stationed on the world of Camelot. One of many charged with taking down the world's native flying Whale and accompanying Manta population as their migrations begin to interfere with a powerful corporation's vested interests.
We are essentially reading an extended statement of his time in the flying company, in which he takes particular care to focus on a particular pilot, one that became a hero and who brought about a major change in the planet's fate. There's a few observations thrown in here and there, from an outside party. It's quite an intriguing look at this glider company and its battles, as we see how financial concerns of a corporation tend to come before cheap human life. It's riveting to read about the slow attrition of Jaeger Gruppe 13 as it fights its battles, all the while knowing that doom is in the offing. It is Cook at his best, again.
The Recruiter takes place in, would you believe it, the Starfishers universe, and gives a little insight as to how earth in the year 3000 might look. Poverty and crime walk hand in hand and there is no end to the suffering. Overpopulation has made earth into a cess-pit of depravity and violence. We follow a so-called 'recruiter' as he goes about replenishing stock in whatever is needed the most at the time; brains, bodies, or even wholesale individuals to ship offworld.
I found shades of Altered Carbon here, though I'm a little vague on the technology Cook implements to perpetuate human identity beyond the initial host body. A very bleak little tale, but as it shows life on the once greatest of the universe's planets, now turned the absolute worst, it is very much welcome. A great addition to the world-building.
The Seventh Fool is unfortunately the worst short story in this collection.
It is however profoundly consequential, in that its main character seems to be the prototype for Glen Cook's later fan favourite Mocker, from the Dread Empire. This is the same Mocker that also inspired Steven Erikson's creation of Kruppe.
That's a very big shadow cast from a very short little tale.
We follow our protagonist as he arrives in a city where there is an election going on for the council of seven fools. Seizing the opportunity he comes up with a scheme to get rich quick by trying to dupe one of the contenders for the position of the seventh Fool. It is obvious that Cook wasn't too pleased with the tale himself, or at the least that he though he could do better, as it pretty much is the prototype for some parts of Mocker's storyline for A shadow of All Night Falling.
Ponce is a charming little tale about a ten-year old and his very special dog. We see their peculiar relationship from the point of view of the father, who worriedly, and more than a little confused, looks on as he sees his boy gain knowledge of mathematics well beyond what is common for his age, or even what they teach in school. The boy claims that the dog teaches him, and looking at the dog's hellishly blue eyes, the father can as well believe it.
It's a pleasing little tale for most of it, though by the end you'll be reminded that it's always unwise to become invested in Cook's characters as he has a tendency to ruthlessly cut their lives short.
Quiet Sea Belongs in the Starfishers universe again.
And though it's an interesting enough tale, it suffers a little from having a muddled conclusion. It might fit closer in to the main trilogy, which would explain its ending a little, or it might just be that Cook never finished it in a satisfactory manner, I'm not sure.
It's another one of those conceptual tales. This one's about a planet dominated by oceans, to such an extent that there isn't a shred of land to go around. We follow a disabled fisher and his crew as they make their way to one of the areas where a spot of land resurfaces every few years, in order to construct more ships for the population. A man claiming to be from Old Earth, who fell out of the sky years and years ago in a construct made of metal, and who, though pretty much useless to most labour on board the ships, nonetheless tries to help out where he can.
It's an odd little tale, because I can't quite pin down how to describe it. A slice of life story maybe.
This reminds me that Cook always did have the knack for opening a window on an ongoing history, showing his readers whatever he wanted, and that after a while, he would sometimes just close it again, without all too much ceremony.
Speaking of Ceremony, Darkwar takes place entire generations after the titular ceremony at the end of the Darkwar Trilogy (book 3 is called 'ceremony'). It is a nice little bit to read after the trilogy, but it does indeed seem as if it influenced the creation of a trilogy rather than that it could be used to book-end that same trilogy, as it doesn't have much of a conclusive ending.
There were obviously some intriguing ideas here that needed to be explored, and the trilogy did do that, but the short story itself ends on a somewhat perilous status quo, not very satisfactory in itself. The tale acknowledges that at its end there is still danger here, but, it just doesn't really go anywhere. Warnings are pointless if an escalation or containment of that danger isn't further explored.
Also... at this point...might this, and the Darkwar trilogy, also fit into the Starfishers universe, or does it fit with the Dragon Never Sleeps? There are some elements here that, to not have the Darkwar universe have some sort of connection to Cook's other sci-fi stuff, being so all-too-compatible with those series without ever coming even close to compromising the concepts, the world-building and storylines inherent in them, would be a bit of a missed opportunity.
But I can't be sure. Starfishers was a long time ago, and I haven't yet read The Dragon Never Sleeps, though the back blurb of the latter did indeed point to that possibility.
Enemy territory probably slots into Starfishers as there's mention of 'Old Earth', the way it is described in Starfishers, but this one pretty much confirms my theory that the Starfishers universe was a way for Cook to experiment with his sci-fi ideas. It doesn't much fit into the Starfishers universe so much as it's a series of diary entries by a genetically engineered soldier-monkey. It's a bit of a huge concept to just throw into any universe, is what I'm saying. The story is fairly conclusive, even though it ends in a bit of an in medias res.
Cook pretty explicitly tries to address some of the consequences that crop up with military service and what one does with Veterans once the conflict ends, and as you might expect, there are some fairly bleak scenes.
The Waiting Sea is somewhat of a horror story. Over the course of 40 years we follow the life of a man and his fear of the alluring voices he hears at sea. From his time as a guard on a ship that is ambushed in the second World War, to an afternoon at the beach with his wife and kids, an outing on a boat and a spot of marlin fishing, the voices insinuate themselves to him and him alone, begging him to join them in the deep blue. Where first they only inspired fear, the man has begun to find that of late, his fear has vanished and become to be replaced with other emotions.
Some metaphor inherent here. I don't like to say it at all, but there might not be any fantastical elements here, and rather just a death wish walking hand in hand with a traumatized psyche to conjure up images of dark blue salvation. Or.... maybe the sea is just a malignant bastard.
And then finally, lastly, at the end, after all that has gone before, right, if you will, at the back of the bus, we find our titular tale; Winter's Dreams.
This one's a pure homage to Vance's Dying Earth, with a cabal of battily-named and powerful wizards, scheming in a slightly ludicrous manner amongst themselves, where the powerful look on in bemusement as the up and comers try to do them some terrible harm. There are odd people in power, who nonetheless probably have more intrigue up their sleeves than their weak outward manner would suggest. There are various strange myths and even stranger creatures, a cool landscape and varied environment, which gives a very obvious sense of history to the planet, as if it's been through some stuff let me tell you.
The cover art does indeed depict a scene from Winter's Dreams. Raymond Swanland is again spot on.
There are dinosaurs, and the wizard in the art is our main character, poised at the bow of an airship as he makes his way to the rendez-vous point where he expects to, Hercule Poirot-like, to unmask the perpetrator who's stolen the king's daughter's, named Winter, her dreams.
A fun little tale, but again, this one could've used a slightly extended ending.
A fun collection, though you'll be hard-pressed to find it these days. Those who are a bit miffed that they didn't get a chance to pick it up, that they didn't get to read some of Cook's short fiction; I'm sure that at least a number of these will be found in The Best of Glen Cook, which'll be out by the end of this year.
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Incidentally; as a little bit of an afterthought: I'm reading Slaughterhouse 5 right now, and I can see Cook giving homage to it in a few of the stories with every exclamation of 'so it goes', though Cook uses it here for a wide variety of tragic events rather than just as the punctuation for death that Vonnegut employed it for.
Slaughterhouse 5 only got published because of the Vietnam war, because of the anti-war sentiment on the rise at the time, so I can see that novel being of particular influence on Cook, who wasn't shy about inserting his own war criticisms in pretty much everything he wrote. Lovely little coincidence that I'm reading these back to back.
And, another coincidence; I also read the Old man and the Sea this month and Cook homages that in the Waiting Sea. Fancy that, I'm on a roll.
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