Water Sleeps is the eighth novel in Glen Cook

Glen Cook

Glen Cook is a contemporary American science fiction and fantasy author, best known for his fantasy series, The Black Company. Cook currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri.-Biography:...

's ongoing series, The Black Company

The Black Company

The Black Company is a series of fantasy novels by author Glen Cook. The series combines elements of epic fantasy and dark fantasy as it follows an elite mercenary unit, The Black Company, through roughly forty years of its approximately four hundred year history.- The Books of the North:#The...

. The series combines elements of epic fantasy and dark fantasy

Dark fantasy

Dark fantasy is a term used to describe a fantasy story with a pronounced horror element.-Overview:A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down. Gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Both Charles L...

 as it follows an elite mercenary

Mercenary

A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...

unit, The Black Company, through roughly forty years of its approximately four hundred year history.

Plot summary

Cook brings the latest cycle of the Black Company saga to a major climax, as disaster survivors regroup in Taglios and set out to free their fellow warriors held in stasis beneath the glittering plain. They arrive just in time for a magical conflagration that will reveal the bones of the world and the history of the Company.

Water Sleeps is set with most of the leadership of the Company in Stasis, while the remaining company fights a guerilla war. The company is both pitted against the last remaining Shadowmaster, Soulcatcher, a Sorceress of epic power, and the subtle machinations of the sleeping Goddess of Death and her Deceivers.

Major Themes

Water sleeps, but Enemy never rests. The major theme in this book is that the biggest enemy is one's own mind. War is waged most effectively in the enemies mind. This book was written with the Vietnam War in mind, before the Iraq and Afghanistan war, but seems to have technologies seen on current battlefields.