The Black Company is Glen Cook's ongoing series, The Black Company. The books combine elements of epic fantasy and dark fantasy as they describe the dealings of an elite mercenary unit, the Black Company, with the Lady, ruler of the Northern Empire.
Before there was Black Company, there was the Dread Empire, an omnibus collection the first three Dread Empire novels: A Shadow of All Night's Falling, October's Baby and All Darkness Met.
The very title of Sweet Bird of Youth is one of ironic pity. The two chief characters - a raddled has-been actress from Hollywood, seeking to forget her present in drugs and sex, and her still handsome masseur-gigolo, who has brought her to his hometown in the South, believing that through her money and faded glamour his gaudy illusions may yet come true - are the reverse side of the American dream of youth. Yet as they work out their fate amid violence and horror, there is nevertheless a note of compassion for the damned.
