Alex James's Blog: AlexJamesNovels Blog - Posts Tagged "r-scott-bakker"

Sorcerer-thinker Drusas Achamian hopes to find the home of the mind-reading Dunyain to learn the past of Aspect-Emperor Kellhus Anasurimbor who conquered the Three Seas and … let’s not forget … stole Achamian’s wife! On the trek to Ishual, he’s accompanied by his daughter, who is a spitting image of his wife and a constant reminder of his resolution to undo Kellhus.

There are mysteries on the trek, and the band is one of unsavoury characters headed by the unflinching murderer that is Captain Kosoter, who seems invincible and who none dare cross. Captain Kosoter has a hold over borderline-insane ancient sorcerer Cleric – who isn’t that bad really when you’re on his good side. Cleric holds a pouch full of black powder the band are addicted to and ritually consume, ‘Qirri’, but they don’t actually know what it is.

Much of TWLW follows Kellhus’ ‘Great Ordeal’, which is an army on a path to prevent a future apocalypse, from the point of view of king-without-a-backbone Sorweel, who never knows if he’s loyal to his dead father or whether he should just fit in and do as he’s told by his conquerors. He’s an intentionally weak character among the god-like Anasurimbor family and their immense army, composed as it is of what R Scott Bakker likes to call ignorant or prideful ‘men’, but who I think of as blabbering fools who aren’t keen on listening. The progression of the army and its encounters were fun, but not when they were from the point of view of the said blabbering fools!

It’s an engrossing book of immersive characters and situations in an endless flow of excellent material. However manipulative, heartless, violent, pathetic, despicable or flawed the characters are you can’t help but enjoy reading their trials and how weak, small, and vulnerable they feel in an overwhelming complex world. Do they put their loyalty or belief in this god or the other one, in this ruler or the other? I’d say TWLW was better than its predecessor The Judging Eye. TWLW puts you straight into the action, and doesn’t let go. There is always something happening. I’m anxious to read the next!

(Contains spoilers of previous books in the series – does anybody state this?)

R Scott Bakker’s series
The Great Ordeal (TGO) is the third book in the second series of R Scott Bakker’s apocalypse-based fantasy series, and he’s an author I’ve been reading for many years. If you’re new to his works, the word ‘grim’ comes to mind. None of these books are for the faint hearted, in particular TGO. The fantasy world is one of warring peoples, showing extreme cynicism and hostility towards one another, in general, and when peoples are united against a common foe it would be too light hearted to use the word ‘co-operation’.

The Great Ordeal
TGO is set in the second series, Aspect-Emperor, at a time when the great host are marching north to circumvent a second apocalypse foreseen by Kellhus Anasurimbor, the Aspect-Emperor. Kellhus decreed they had to eat their enemy for sustenance – the monstrous and lusty Sranc. The masses of enemy no longer look formidable, and the men conquer with eagerness, roasting them on fires, making jokes; and showing the usual disregard one can expect. Quite apart from the physical act of devouring, this brings out strange behaviours in the characters that aren’t really resolved. There are questions raised about Kellhus’ holiness, and how his generals can be happy with Kellhus’ doubt.
As with all of author R Scott Bakker’s books, there are a whole host of other things going on: a witch bent on killing the Anasurimbor family, a demon child, the immortal Nonmen switching allegiances, the truth behind the mind-reading Dunyain, and the advent of a Second Apocalypse. At their best you have an immensely rich world with intelligent characters surviving the most inhumane things, and at their worst you have factions, subplots, and confusion: meanings within meanings within meanings.

Praise
As with all of the books in both series, I was addicted. With abject horror, I had to know what would happen next. What would the truth be? Would this character die? My favourite character is the sorcerer Drusas Achamian. He has a balanced view on things, despite his weariness, and his awkwardness and frailty are oddly absurd in the cruel world. He’s every bit as human as the reader – I’d hope – swinging in extremes of emotion and taking vantage where he can. And let’s face it, we must feel sorry for him by now. He’s been beaten, witnessed horrors in the First Holy War, had his woman taken from him and impregnated by the super-human Kellhus, and then he’s betrayed again in the last book.

Criticism
It’s Sorweel, again, my least favourite character, the king-without-a-backbone. Whereas in the last book I took objection to his uncertain loyalties and his indecisiveness, this time I felt he was completely absent of personality; he was a pair of eyes digesting past characters and structures and sometimes the irrelevance was a bit much. This time the author has done something else clever with him to get around the weak character. That being said, the description and atmosphere was amazing in these scenes.
I wasn’t too excited about the travails of the lesser characters in the great host and their feats of masculinity and daring. And I did feel the end of the book was a bit choppy. I didn’t know exactly what was happening and of its relevance; it went by quickly, though on the other hand, it was extremely exciting.

Conclusion
I would have liked to have rated TGO more highly being part of one of my favourite series. There were engrossing chapters and then ones noted above that I wasn’t as keen on where I felt disconnected from the story. Overall, I did enjoy the book thoroughly for its addictive quality, and I will be reading the next!

'Some souls are broken in such a way as to think themselves whole,' he said. 'The more they are flawed, the more they presumed their own perfection.'

'And he wondered why it seemed all the same, lies and confession.'

'To match a wicked foe abomination for abomination was to whisper in his ear while he slumbered - for the righteous were no more potent than when they were ruthless also.'

The Unholy Consult (TUC) is the final book in author R Scott Bakker's series about the second apocalypse, which came after the first, strangely, if it came at all. My goodness, will it come? It's a series I've been reading since I first ventured into libraries to search for new reads, and stumbled upon the first book, The Darkness That Comes Before. It's grittier and darker than most fantasy reads you'll come across, reminiscent of ancient times fused with religious portent that'll put you in mind of prophets, war, pestilence, and this thing called 'Men'.

Many readers may well find parallels between R Scott Bakker's work and other great works such as JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Frank Herbert's Dune. Readers familiar with the series will be no strangers to the tone, themes, characters, and writing style that are author R Scott Bakker's marvel weapons cast against our helpless minds, causing fits and jerks of reading ecstasy. Just reading the first few chapters again was enough to get me into a frenzy of reading addiction. Holding the book, hours on end, absorbing my attention, would give me a bad back. Eventually, common sense prevailed and I sat this biblical tome on a stool, in the absence of a podium.

The Aspect Emperor series

TUC compares well with other books in the series. There are two series in the larger 'series' of works: The Prince of Nothing trilogy, comprising three books, and following it, covering a period of time about twenty years later, The Aspect Emperor series. Much of the overarching story is character focused, but sometimes it's about the tribulations of Men, a military ordeal, or historical feats of glory. There is the oft-ridiculed philosophical sorcerer Drusas Achamian, who at one point in the series became an outcast wizard after everything was taken from him by the real mystery of a character, Anasurimbor Kellhus, whose skills at reading into human intention and motive make mere children of people. Endowed with numerous sorcery powers, Kellhus also formed the Great Ordeal, a huge host of men soldiers of many lands, to invade the Consult, those who caused the First Apocalypse. In TUC it's hard to know whether the Consult is only an assortment of leftover technologies, sorcerers, and monsters, or if it really poses a danger to Kellhus.

The Unholy Consult

At numerous times during the story, we're shown that Kellhus is walking on thin ice: many want him dead. The gods themselves rail against him. Yet it's hard to believe after what we've seen of his abilities that he'll ever be killed.

Fans of the original Prince of Nothing trilogy will love this book. There is that feeling of a war camp with all kinds of personalities in it: desperate sorcerers, wretched children, suffering families, prophets, kings, and traitors.

This series is not for the faint hearted, and TUC is no exception. It’s arguably the most depraved book in the series/you may ever read!

The conclusion was fantastic, in depth, and brimming with atmosphere and action. It answered many, but perhaps not all, questions about the significance of characters, institutions, and past events.