A Fortress In Shadow: A Chronicle Of
The Dread Empire by Glen Cook
It Is Wonderful, But It Is Not New.
Once a mighty kingdom reigned, but now all is chaos. In the vast reaches
of the desert, a young heretic escapes certain death and embarks on a
mission of madness and glory. He is El Murid - the Disciple - who vows to
bring order, prosperity, and righteousness to the desert people of Hammad
al Nakir. After four long centuries, El Murid is the savior who is destined to
build a new empire from the blood his enemies. But all is not as it seems,
and the sinister forces pulling the strings of empire come into the light.
Who and what lies behind El Murids vision of a desert empire?
Personal Review: A Fortress In Shadow: A Chronicle Of The
Dread Empire by Glen Cook
I reread the Dread Empire prequels recently in this omnibus volume, and
the only bad thing I can say is that average book size used to be quite a bit
shorter (200 pages or so) when Cook was writing much of his stuff in the

80's. This would apply to the shadowline trilogy, the darkwar trilogy, and
other stuff as well.
Cook provides a fair amount of backstory for Haroun, Bragi Ragnarson,
and Mocker as well as introducing El Murid (referred to in third person in
the original trilogy) and describing much of the early conflict between
Haroun and El Murid and illustrating how Bragi and Mocker came into
contact with Haroun.
This story tell of the appearance of a fervent religious leader who first
takes over his own native areas, and begins to export his crusade into
smallern westernized kingdoms. It isn't hard to figure out the archetypes
for this conflict are in the near and middle-east in contact with central and
western europe in what I best gather to be the early middle ages, but, as in
other Cook works which draw heavily on real-world historical situations and
cultures, it becomes more backdrop than a story-driving force. Several
battles are described, the early role of the Star Rider in the conflict in
Hammar al Nakid is illustrated (this isn't a spoiler - it happens on like page
3 or so), and overall you are left wishing there was more.
Epic Military Fantasy doesn't get any better than this, in my opinion. I think
it is wonderful Night Shade is putting much of Cook's out-of-print work back
in print, and cannot recommend this series highly enough.
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