Glen Cook was born on July 9, 1944, in New York, NY. He worked in a variety of jobs prior to his retirement in 1998. Cook is best known for his "Garrett" series and for his "Black Company" series. Critics note that he features the "common man" more centrally than most SF and fantasy writers.

Glen Cook was born in New York, NY on July 9, 1944. He graduated from the University of Missouri in 1965 and worked a number of blue-collar jobs for General Motors before turning to write full-time. Cook's first published work was The Heirs of Babylon, published in 1972.

It was during Cook's time working for General Motors that he began writing The Black Company (published 1984), the first of the Chronicles of the Black Company, a gritty fantasy series of novels and short stories that chronicles the adventures of an elite mercenary company. His other series include the Garret P.I. series, a set of detective novels set in a world of fantasy creatures, and the Dread Empire fantasy series.