Customer Reviews

An Ill Fate Marshalling

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This is a follow-up to Reap the East Wind. This book is where the Dread Empire story truly begins again. Many references to the earlier books will probably be frustrating this time for those who have not read the Dread Empire trilogy. The characters have grown from their trials, but this doesn't stop them from getting into new trouble. The battles are smaller and more personal, but no less serious for those involved. While each earlier volume is self contained, AIFM ends with a cliff-hanger that has never been resolved. The next volume has been written, but never published. Perhaps the success of Cook's recent books will lead to this series being reprinted and continued. These books deserve a wider audience!

This book is yet another gritty, well-written addition to the never completed second trilogy of the dark empire series. Counting the prequels, this is the 7th book published. It occurs almost entirely in temporal intersection with Reap the East Wind until the last 50 pages or so, but deals with many events which were only alluded to in the previous book and also regurgitates a number of events from East Wind from the viewpoints of other characters.

spoiler comment

i think the most powerful impact of the story is the incremental fall of bragi ragnarson from within. You can see his effort to avoid dealing directly with the threat from greyfells from within, and the path this puts him on.

The sequel to this novel, The Wrath of Kings, was completed in the late 80's but was stolen, along with Cook's documentary materials for dread empire, from his house and has never been recovered, so the unresolved conclusion to the story (the book ends with a few very large loose ends) may unfortunately be permanent. I wonder if Haroun (who vanished after killing 'O Shing and Friends' in Shinsan in All Darkness Met, edit - I realize haroun was apparently killed in All darkness Met 06/2007) would have played a role in the obvious set-up at the end of this novel.

This might be the first time cook did a novel which in great part regurgitated events in a prior novel from different viewpoints, but in this case it works well.

Aside - the construction of the game Ragnarson gambles his kingdom's treasury on is somewhat reminiscent of one of Cook's stated major influences, Jack Vance, who among other things excels at creating whole societies, customs, and even games out of whole fabric. One good example which reminds me of this sequence can be found in The Face, but there are many in Vance's writings.

First published back in 1988, this was for a long time the endpoint of Glen Cook's Dread Empire storytelling. The manuscript to the sequel was stolen, sales weren't great, and it all ended here - which was a tragedy, since it's a huge cliffhanger to be stuck on for a quarter-century.

The first two-thirds of Ill Fate Marshalling includes retelling of Reap the East Wind from different perspectives, adding things to that first story as well as showing what else was going on in the world. This is really well done, actually, for all it is unexpected.

The focus here is closer on King Bragi and Varthlokkur, showing the domestic turmoil going on Kavelin. Cook zooms in and out from "stuff happened that winter" to a close up scene full of gruff dialogue. The heart of this tale is Bragi's fall, bought about by his own failings - to confront his fears, to control his anger, to apologize to a friend. It's a long Greek tragedy you can always see coming, and more people than Bragi pay the price.

This is a great read, dealing in political intrigue and other nasty stuff. The game of Captures sounds all too believable, and it's a highlight of the book whenever it comes up. Finally, at last there is a sequal now rewritten and published, so we can see where all this goes.