Never Dead Ned was never much of a soldier. In fact, he was never very good at anything other than dying, and even then he never stays dead for long. Unfortunately for him, Ned's boss has him assigned as the new commander of the Legion's worst infantry — Ogre Company.
As he tries to get comfortable, dark forces (and the zany antics of his men) conspire to make his job so much harder.
In the Company of Ogres is the second novel written by A. Lee Martinez (Gil's All Fright Diner), a Comic Fantasy novel published in 2007.
In the 2013 anthology book Robots versus Slime Monsters, one of the stories — "Wizard Bait" — is set after the events of In the Company of Ogres starring the minor character Glunkins the Roc-riding Goblin.
In the Company of Ogres contains the following tropes:
- Army of Thieves and Whores: The titular Ogre Company are all employees of the Brute's Legion who were Reassigned to Antarctica for being the bottom of the barrel. The fact that Ned has to whip them into shape in a year lest his boss eats him is the Inciting Incident of the story.
- Bad Boss: Ned's boss Tate is a gryphon who has a habit of eating employees who displease him in any way. Since Ned never stays dead for long, he tries everything in his power not to piss him off, not wanting to see how he'll wake up post (
or mid) digestion. - Being Evil Sucks: The Mad Void is a demon so powerful that it destroyed its own home universe and a few more afterwards. From the way the Red Woman describes it however, it did this after its own loneliness and ennui drove it mad (hence its name), with further implications that it could have allowed itself to be imprisoned in a mortal body because it didn't care enough to stop it.
- Immortality Hurts: Ned retains most of the scars and injuries that kill him, only healing just enough to keep himself alive. It's made clear that this situation isn't ideal, his whole body riddled with scars and one of his arms barely works anymore.
- Resurrective Immortality: Ned isn't so much "immortal" as he's being looked after by a witch with resurrection magic at her disposal, routinely appearing to resurrect him after Ned's bad luck does him in.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: The reason why the Red Woman goes to the trouble of resurrecting Ned every time he dies is because he is the mortal vessel of the Mad Void, a universe-destroying Ancient Evil that could potential do that to their world should it ever escape.
