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Glen Cook
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An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat: Stories of the Dread Empire Hardcover – 23 Jun. 2009

by Glen Cook (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 121 ratings
Glen Cook has been heralded as the godfather of modern heroic fantasy; his influence on the genre is unquestionable. But long before Garrett, P.I., before The Instrumentalities of the Night, before The Black Company, there was The Dread Empire... The Dread Empire, a gritty world of larger-than-life plots, nation-shattering conflict, maddening magic, strange creatures, and raw, flawed heroes, all shown through the filter of Cook's inimitable war-correspondent prose. The Dread Empire, spanning from the highest peaks of the Dragon's Teeth to the endless desert lands of Hammad al Nakir, from besieged Kavelin to mighty Shinshan, the Empire Unacquainted with Defeat, with its fearless, masked soldiers, known as the Demon Guard...
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  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Night Shade Books
  4. Publication date
    23 Jun. 2009
  5. Dimensions
    15.24 x 2.11 x 22.86 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    9781597801409
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1597801409
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Product description

About the Author

Glen Cook is the author of dozens of novels of fantasy and science fiction, including The Black Company series, The Garrett Files, and The Tyranny of the Night. Cook was born in 1944 in New York City. He attended the Clarion Writers&; Workshop in 1970, where he met his wife, Carol.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1597801402
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Night Shade Books
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 23 Jun. 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781597801409
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1597801409
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 590 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 2.11 x 22.86 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 121 ratings

About the author

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Glen Cook

Glen Cook

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Glen Charles Cook (born July 9, 1944) is a contemporary American science fiction and fantasy writer, best known for The Black Company fantasy series.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Harmonia Amanda (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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4.4 out of 5 stars
121 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Manly Reading
    4.0 out of 5 stars Short fiction in the Dread Empire
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 April 2011
    Format: Paperback
    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.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Joseph Gersky Jr
    5.0 out of 5 stars o
    Reviewed in the United States on 19 February 2025
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Item arrived as advertised,
    Thank you.
    Regards,
    J.G
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  • Daring Dewback
    4.0 out of 5 stars Harder than a Steel Edge
    Reviewed in the United States on 13 January 2016
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    An Empire Unacquainted with Defeat collects 10 Glen Cook's short stories from the 1970's and early 80's. These stories all take place in the world of the Dread Empire. For anyone who is familiar with this Black Company series, these stories should look familiar, for the ideas and tones of these tales would coalesce into his Black Company novels.

    The stories vary in tone and engagement. Some are harder toned than others, some more mythic, and some more engaging. Almost all fall clearly under the sword and sorcery milieu, with their gritty feel, petty quarrels, ambiguous protagonists, and rampant, unbridled, and unapologetic sexism.

    The collection opens with "Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat" (1980). In this dreadfully dull and unengaging tale, a soldier from the Dread Empire hangs about with farmers while seeking a new life. I found this the single least engaging story in the book, and also the longest. Once past it, I found the remaining stories far more engaging and gripping.

    "The Nights of Dreadful Silence" (1973) is a Bragi Ragnarson story. A wizard has been promised a payment by the king of his own daughter, but the king refuses to honor his word. Bragi stumbles into the argument on the wizard's side, and trickery ensues.

    "Finding Svale's Daughter" (first appearance) is a fairytailish story. To be honest, I had to skim this story to remember anything about it. It's competent, like oatmeal. Its very palatablility renders it unmemorable.

    "Ghost Stalk" (1978) is the first of the Vengeful Dragons stories. The Vengeful Dragon is a terrible ship, full of horrible crew, who do horrible things (trigger warning, especially terrible things to women), and meet their doom due to terrible magics. This, and the following Vengeful Dragon stories, make an excellent set. This story is also noteworthy for having the genetics of the Black Company running through it.

    "Filed Teeth" (1981) is as close to a Black Company story you can get without actually putting a label onto it saying, "the Black Company." Although set in the world of the Dread Empire, it could easily be ported to the North. All the elements that would come to set the tenor and tone of the Black Company are laid out right here. Of all these stories, this is the only one which I had read in my youth, having received "Dragons of Darkness" for Christmas.

    "Castle of Tears" (1979) is a Ragni Ragnarson story. This time, he goes looking for a legendary object to save a princess.

    "Call for the Dead" (1980) is the second Vengeful Dragon story. Continuing where the first story let off, the damned crew are "rescued" by a wizard from a black throne. Motifs here will reappear in the Black Company's southern adventures.

    "Severed Heads" (1984) is a story of vengeance where not a single word is wasted. It's a damned tight story, from beginning to end, and shames every other tale in this collection. This story also requires a trigger warning. If you can keep going, then do.

    "Silverheels" (1981) is another fairytale like story. A man, a talking pony, and a talking kitten have quite an adventure in very few pages.

    "Hell's Forge" (first appearance) is the final Vengeful Dragon tale. The crew is summoned by yet another evil wizard for more evilness, only to learn that any deal with the Vengeful D. crew is a bad, bad, bad deal.

    All in all, I found the collection both satisfying and enlightening. I really do need to read more sword and sorcery.
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  • Mike B
    5.0 out of 5 stars Old Works by Cook Worth the Read
    Reviewed in the United States on 11 September 2009
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    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.
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  • Charles H. Rose III
    5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the best fantasy books ever written!
    Reviewed in the United States on 1 February 2016
    Verified Purchase
    One of the best dark military fantasy series I have every read. I am a fan of both high and low epic fantasy, and have been reading it for over 40 years. From Tolkien, through Kaye, to Erikson and beyond. I like to think I have read all of them. Glenn Cook was one of the all time masters of the genre, and the empire series captures Cook at his most creative, working with very human characters in extremely unreal situations. The cynicism of vietnam era authors bleeds through, but his belief in human nature, the value of love, and the commitment of friends to one another are always there, running through the pages of his story like a bright thread. He takes the common man and shows how he can rise when the time is right. He also reflects back to us our own world through the lens of fantasy, allowing us to relearn some universal truths without being slapped in the face by them. If you call yourself a fan of fantasy you MUST read these books - they will not disappoint!
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  • BTH
    4.0 out of 5 stars A must for the Glen Cook or Dread Empire completist
    Reviewed in the United States on 2 May 2012
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Of the ten stories, four of the shorter ones (30-some pages total) feel like they would have been right at home in "Tales Before Tolkien". Even though two of them feature Bragi, their place in the Dread Empire is kind of like that of the stories in the "Book of Lost Tales" that didn't make it into the final "Silmarillion". One of the four apparently wasn't even first published as belonging in the Dread Empire. Your opinion of them will probably depend on how well you like proto-fantasy or northern European folklore.

    Another three longer ones are a sequence of pirate stories whose themes would fit well in a Robert E. Howard collection but don't depend on the Dread Empire setting for much more than place names. That said, I certainly enjoyed them.

    The other (just under) half of the book has three stories of the kind I was expecting in a book set in the Dread Empire. None of them deal with the principal cast of the novels... except as Cook notes "The world of the Dread Empire is, of course, the most important character of the series". The book opens with an exceptional story of Shinsan and the west. Another is a solid story of Hammad Al Nakir (Cook writes that it is "one of my favorites of everything that I've done."). Finally, there is one that features a cast of mixed background in the aftermath of "All Darkness Met". This last one had a few moments that had a bit of a different feel for the Dread Empire... almost like a faint hint of the four short stories I mentioned above was in the air.

    For a Glen Cook fan (shouldn't everyone be?) the chance to see some of his evolution as a writer makes it worth it on its own. For everyone else, though, there isn't really one unifying theme or fantasy subgenre to tie it all together and it seems like it would lead to an very uneven reading experience. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if the book had been divided into three subsections based on type of story.

    (Edit: After (re)reading some other short story collections I returned to this one for a second pass. It holds up well and I raised my rating from three stars to four.)
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