Customer Reviews

An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat (Dread Empire)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an long time fan of Glen Cook's work with the Black Company and the Garrett Detective series, I was excited when Night Shade Books began releasing old works by Mr. Cook, including his Dread Empire series. As it would turn out, I loved the Dread Empire as much as the other world Cook has created. This last book, An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat, is a bit different in that it is not a continuation of the epic story line in the Dread Empire, but a collection of short story works within that world.

Before each new story the author also includes some thoughts as to the story being told such as where it first appeared and some history of himself in those times as he was writing it. Maybe I'm just a bit of a homerish fan of Cooks, but I really enjoyed this book and there are some great small stories that could have easily bloomed into bigger stories. Some of them also cross over into the time line of the main Dread Empire saga and were pretty neat to add to the flavor of that world.

If you are old fan of Glen Cook and have missed this or the Dread Empire series I highly recommend it. If you are new to reading Cook's work try it out as well as the Black Company and Garrett Detective novels.

This is a nice collection of short stories set in the world of the Dread Empire, although previous exposure to other Dread Empire volumes is not necessary. At most about half the stories "depend" on being Dread Empire, and only to the extent of adding to the story if you know a little about it.

Cook is better known for his Black Company and Garrett PI novels, but he shows here that he can work in short fiction as well.

The best stories are "Filed teeth", "Soldier of an Empire Unacquanted with Defeat", which is almost a novella, and the first Vengeful Dragon tale. All of the contents are well worth reading though.

Simply put, these tales are fun, if a little dark. Here's hoping NightShade gets around to publishing a 4th Dread Empire collection.

For me, these books finally gave substance to Fantasy Fiction. It wasn't the Thud and Blunder of Conan or Gor. It was interesting, developed, 'real' characters working against insurmountable odds. And, trust me, the Shinshan are as bad a bunch off dudes as you will find. The Military SF aspect is realistic. The diplomatic intrigue is well thought out. The magic system works and is internally consistent. A good read of an interesting story well told.

A fantastic and imaginative collection of short stories. Wide variety of themes, colorful characters. Cook breaks the standard molds of fantasy writing while fully utilizing the same comfortable tropes that we've come to identify with the genre.

I have been a fan of cook for the past couple of decades. For me, this book was great because it finally pulled together some of his short fiction that I was unable to track down when it was coming out. The stories themselves were pretty good and they reminded me how much I enjoyed his dread empire series. I especially liked the tales of the Vengeful D., Severed Heads and the namesake An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat.

I'm an admitted Glen Cook fan but even I found this collection thin. The stories are for the most part well done. Especially good are the A Soldier of an Empire Unaquainted with Defeat (of a Dread Empire centurion on the run from his past) and Rolling Heads (not sure if that's actually the title, but the story of the young woman rescuing her son). The stories of the crew of the Vengeful Dragon are much weaker.

If you are a collector of Cook's work, this is definitely for you. If you are looking for an introduction to his work look elsewhere.

These novels are not all of the same caliper but they are all interesting to read.