- For the character with the same name, see Raker
Raker, a short story (or "novelet"), is the first published piece of media in the Black Company series. It was published in the August 1982 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which was 2 years before the appearance of the first novel, The Black Company. In the magazine, "Raker" is actually classified as a "novelet" in the table of contents. The magazine also contains one other novelet and seven short stories. A trimmed and otherwise slightly rewritten variation of it became the third chapter of the first novel.
The most significant difference between the "Raker" short story and Chapter 3 of the novel is the omission of surplus expository background details in the novel. The short story notably contains a large paragraph outlining the backstory of the Dominator, the Lady, and the Taken. Whereas, in the novel, this contextual information is spread out in prior chapters.
