The Unholy Consult SPOILER thread

[Hello World]

When did he say that there will be no Zeum in this book? I remember him saying that TUC (back before the split) will bring the whole world into play.

[Madness]

Reddit AMA.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Scott confirmed that there will be no Zeum in this book, and indeed there is none. Although he's also said we will see Zeum in force at some point, which I suspect will be in the Final Series.

Well, I'll be. Maybe it'll be as @Kalbear suggested and we'll get descriptions of how Kellhus's balls smells like myrrh.

[PapushiSun]

The new POV might be Koringhus' son.

[Darth Richard II]

Maybe the new POV IS his balls?

[redeagl]

10 hours ago, PapushiSun said:

The new POV might be Koringhus' son.

We did have like 3 pages from his PoV in TGO.

[Werthead]

Part 7 of the History of Earwa, covering the Great Ordeal.

Now working on the PDF version, which I'm going to run by Scott and Jason to see if we can get some more excitement for the series building.

[Madness]

16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Part 7 of the History of Earwa, covering the Great Ordeal.

Now working on the PDF version, which I'm going to run by Scott and Jason to see if we can get some more excitement for the series building.

Thank, Wert. Much appreciated :).

Also, I was looking forward to this one, I like your recounting.

[kuenjato]

Finished the re-read last night. This is the first time I've read TAE in one (relative) setting. Overall, TGO ranks sort of low, in reflection. I'm not really sure why. The editing is obviously "off" throughout the book (rife with missing and/or incorrect punctuation & flabby sentences), and the writing itself more obscure than previous volumes -- the battle of Dagliash, for example, was perhaps the most difficult to visualize of the entire series. While there are some really epic moments and interesting revelations, certain plotlines move glacial-slow (Momemn until the end, Ishual until the end). 

Hopefully TUC will be tighter. 

 

With that said -- I think a lot of the structure/clues for the metaphysics are found in this book, and with what Pat / Wert have said -- that not everything is explained -- I imagine the revelations given between TGO and TUC will provide a large (if not explicitly detailed) portrait of how things work and why.

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, kuenjato said:

Hopefully TUC will be tighter. 

IMO, it's not.

[Kalbear]

Also for what it's worth I largely agreed with Pat's review. TUC starts off with a real grueling stretch of prose that lasts way too long; it's like the most boring parts of Fellowship of the Ring, except talking about things Bakker would want to talk about instead of suppers and yard sales. It also lacks a particularly good payoff for said gruel, which is probably the worst part of it. 

The battle sequences are the best Bakker's ever done, and are reasonably clear (especially thanks to a provided map). There are lots of really cool things that are cinematic in scope and are gorgeous to think about. 

The character arcs - at least many of them - were really disappointing to me, and ultimately left me fairly unsatisfied due to their lack of resolution. Note that specifically: I'm not saying that the resolution was disappointing - I'm saying that they were left unresolved entirely. 

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

30 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Also for what it's worth I largely agreed with Pat's review. TUC starts off with a real grueling stretch of prose that lasts way too long; it's like the most boring parts of Fellowship of the Ring, except talking about things Bakker would want to talk about instead of suppers and yard sales. It also lacks a particularly good payoff for said gruel, which is probably the worst part of it. 

The battle sequences are the best Bakker's ever done, and are reasonably clear (especially thanks to a provided map). There are lots of really cool things that are cinematic in scope and are gorgeous to think about. 

The character arcs - at least many of them - were really disappointing to me, and ultimately left me fairly unsatisfied due to their lack of resolution. Note that specifically: I'm not saying that the resolution was disappointing - I'm saying that they were left unresolved entirely. 

Without spoiling, are we giving answers to some questions we have? 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Without spoiling, are we giving answers to some questions we have? 

Yes? Without knowing which ones you're wanting answers to, it's hard to say. There are certainly some answers, but there are a whole lot of questions that aren't answered at all, and even more questions raised.

In general, most of the overall story questions - not just the metaphysical ones, but the ones pertaining to major ideas - are not answered. 

I will say that your debate about whether or not Kellhus is in love is answered emphatically. I doubt anyone will like the answer they receive.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yes? Without knowing which ones you're wanting answers to, it's hard to say. There are certainly some answers, but there are a whole lot of questions that aren't answered at all, and even more questions raised.

In general, most of the overall story questions - not just the metaphysical ones, but the ones pertaining to major ideas - are not answered. 

I will say that your debate about whether or not Kellhus is in love is answered emphatically. I doubt anyone will like the answer they receive.

Well, not just in love, that he loves and has emotions and that they drive him to do all of this. For humanity and his loved ones.

[Hello World]

I guess the idea that this book would be any kind of resolution to the series was dropped when Bakker realized that he definitely intends to write the final series. He could have even made some changes when he made the decision to write a 3rd and 4th books in TAE.

[Kalbear]

I'll try writing an actual review. This shouldn't have any actual spoilers. 

Quote

 

Spoiler

The Unholy Consult is the long-anticipated ending to The Aspect Emperor and is the culmination of R. Scott Bakker's writing style and themes. If you have loved his works, his viewpoints, and his way of speaking this is him at his absolute best. He is deeply philosophical, has intensely interesting battle sequences that belong in the finest of large-scale anime extravaganzas, and gives occasional heartfelt sequences that leave you upset or hurt or even occasionally joyous. 

By the same token, Bakker has not reined in or even particularly dulled his larger excesses. Sequences of the book go on for far too long without any real payoff. Plot threads are left without anything like a payoff or are purposely unopened, stubbornly refusing to budge to the point that was seemingly promised. Disgusting swaths of story are laid bare, and the result (for me at least) was being simply bored by the magnitude of horror and depravity, wishing that they'd get on with it. Other aspects are brought in clumsily, and while I doubt these are retcons they do not feel particularly earned; there are at least 3 things that are similar to Theliopia's rape revelation that feel like they would have been far better placed earlier in books as setup, and instead feel like a just-in-time setup to pay off something that doesn't come.

The worst part to me is that a number of heavy PoV characters get basically nothing for their arc. Much of 'is this story good' revolved heavily on their getting to be the real heroes, or the real key pieces, or at least do something - but for most of them they remain entirely passive and get very little, left by the wayside while the real action commences. 

There are surprises aplenty that are actually reasonably well-telegraphed, though to my knowledge no one remotely guessed them. There are absolutely gorgeous sequences that will make most people very happy to read, cool sequences of fights that are incredibly fun and awe-inspiring. There are character beats that make you miss those characters and their voices and delight and how totally awesome they are, monologues of kickassery.

And the ending ends this series reasonably well, but it is an ending like Empire Strikes Back if that movie ended as Luke jumped into the air shaft. If that would be a satisfying conclusion to a story for you, awesome. It certainly was not for me as an end to a series.

When I reviewed TGO one of my fears was that much of the theorizing about the story would end up having little payoff, and the endless ruminating on small conversations among heavy lifters or the speculation on specific verb choices would simply have zero payoff. I am far more convinced about that theory at this point. This series has a lot of interesting concepts, but it is not particularly interested in exploring them or making them pay off later. If those payoffs occur they happen in some other series, perhaps, but after 7 books, multiple short stories and a lot of online asking and talking the most obvious conclusion is that this is simply not as deep a story as some would project into it. It is certainly the case that nothing in TUC proves this theory incorrect; there are plot payoffs, but not theme ones. Keep in mind that I still theorize about what might be a payoff and how cool certain things might be - and it's certainly possible that there will be amazing payoffs going forward. But if there are, it hasn't been realized yet.

But one must also take the other theory at heart: that this was considered to be a great payoff by the author, where he lays everything bare, and that this surface level of detail is really all there is here. Some answers are provided, but they are not particularly interesting answers and tend to be fairly, well, plain as far as they go. Most of the deep seated mysteries which are answered are answered by essentially one-word statements, which was not particularly satisfying.

Ultimately TUC is a fun story that suffers from forgetting major characters in order to provide near-perfect action sequences. It suffers from not having any kind of engaged editorial staff either; there are copy editing mistakes aplenty in the copy I had, as well as sequences that simply go on far too long with little narrative gain.

 

[Kalbear]

13 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Well, not just in love, that he loves and has emotions and that they drive him to do all of this. For humanity and his loved ones.

Ah, yes, you get an answer to that as well. 

[Kalbear]

41 minutes ago, Hello World said:

I guess the idea that this book would be any kind of resolution to the series was dropped when Bakker realized that he definitely intends to write the final series. He could have even made some changes when he made the decision to write a 3rd and 4th books in TAE.

It's a resolution to the series in the same way that Cabin in the Woods ended; it could totally end that way, and we'd be all 'whoa, bummer' and that'd be that. It wouldn't be very satisfying, but it certainly could be considered an ending.

[Hello World]

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

the same way that Cabin in the Woods ended

That was a great ending...

[Hello World]

Wait, so did TUC end in the same way that Cabin in the Woods ended... literally? Because you might want to edit that if it's the case.