Bakker LIII - Sranc and File

[.H.]

14 hours ago, Rhom said:

So its A Feast For Crows and Crabicus is Brienne on a travelogue to show us how shitty war is on the little people?  But with more rape and more phalluses?

I love the series.  I even liked TUC (I know... I'm a heretic...) but I have no interest in that.

Well, I don't know by any stretch of the imagination.  I don't have access to any information not public.  That was just my summation of a hunch I had, inarticulately put.

I'd actually think that the idea of the story would be something of an answer to the question: what happens to a formally untrained Dûnyain in the wild.  If we (correctly or incorrectly, I don't know, I am not smart enough to actually be a literary critic) view Blood Meridian as a bildungsroman, then we could imagine that Bakker's version, set against the seeming parallel of a brutal, harsh, violent Eärwan North and the brutal, harsh, violent American West.  I don't think violence or rape is the story, nor it's effect on "people" but rather what does little Crabby-boy make of all of it.  Not to mention, Blood Meridian is nearly (I think) as much about The Judge as it is about the Boy.  Who takes that role?  I don't know, or if there even would be one (I'd think there has to be).

Is that a good idea?

Do I know something you guys don't know?  Not at all, I could be 100% wrong on all of this and in all probability, I am.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I don't know that BM is a bildungsroman at all.  We know almost nothing about the mind of the kid.  We see only his actions.  I think of a bildungsroman showing the formation of the person.  BM is almost the anti-bildungsroman, we see nothing of the kids interior or feelings or any personal development at all.  There is that Wordsworth line in the first chapter about a propensity for violence and (paraphrasing) "the child being the father of the man". 

In fact the kid shows us almost nothing of what he makes of the world around him, he's more of a witness to the human capacity for violence.  

------

We literally just read seven books of Blood Meridian set in Earwa.  I have no interest in reading Bakker actually trying to ape it directly.  He's already beat that horse  to death about a dozen times  in different ways.  Kellhus is the closest character to the Judge (despite the obvious Skin Eaters / Glanton Gang nod with Cleric as the Judge and Kosoter as Glanton -- one of the Skin Eaters even mentions finding Cleric perched on a rock in a wasteland just like the Priest's story to the kid about how they found the Judge).  

My barf comment was basically just expressing a distaste for that being how Bakker would choose to go with the story.  

[Darth Richard II]

Speculation at this point seems kind of pointless as it's clear by now Bakker has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

[Darth Richard II]

12 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I wish that I could just trash this statement.  I wish...

Yeah, I may sound like a Bakker hater but I honestly liked them all up til TUC. Nothing really pisses me off more then when it turns out all the hints and uh, layers of revelation, you've been pouring over were just the author making shit up on the spot. There's a series the ended similarly but I can't make my brain think of it right now.

[Gronzag]

6 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah, I may sound like a Bakker hater but I honestly liked them all up til TUC. Nothing really pisses me off more then when it turns out all the hints and uh, layers of revelation, you've been pouring over were just the author making shit up on the spot. There's a series the ended similarly but I can't make my brain think of it right now.

Lost?

[Darth Richard II]

9 hours ago, Gronzag said:

Lost?

That's a great example, but it was a book series I was thinking of, although I still can't remember t. :/

[Dora Vee]

Dark Tower?

[Callan S.]

Bible?

[Lutarez]

Did he say anything about TUC ? His thoughts, sales, reception, future etc

[jurble]

Battlestar Galactica?

[Kalbear]

On 2/25/2018 at 1:25 PM, Darth Richard II said:

That's a great example, but it was a book series I was thinking of, although I still can't remember t. :/

I still think Ilium/Olympos is the closest shittiest comparison, but at least that HAD a conclusion that was planned - just not a particularly good one overall. 

[kuenjato]

12 hours ago, Lutarez said:

Did he say anything about TUC ? His thoughts, sales, reception, future etc

Other than the Reddit AMA and some conversations on SA (Second Apocalypse board), where he blamed piracy for his sales issues, I think he's been pretty quiet overall. He's alluded to the fact several times that his career has sort of stalled out, and there was a fan-led campaign at one point to just get the last (2) books printed.

The fact that he hyped TUC as having all these revelations over several years really burnt some of his fans, myself included.

 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah, but that fan led campaign turned out to be complete horseshit.

On 2/25/2018 at 4:33 PM, Dora Vee said:

Dark Tower?

Ha, no, that's not really a great comparison though cause King always admitted he was just making shit up as he went.

[Darth Richard II]

Another thread bumped my memory.  It was the Hyperion books by Simmons. If you think the answers in TUC were disappointing, well I advise against giving Simmons movie these days since he went full Alex Jones, but if you really need disappointment there is always the library.

[Darth Richard II]

Not to go full caustic, but I feel right now that in a decade no one will even remember that these books exist, which is a shame regarding the first three.

[Dora Vee]

I'm not so sure about that. Despite the TUC disaster, they have many great strengths and honestly, they are a step above most fantasy. 

 

And really, Bakker is the only one who made me rage quit the way I did. That's not something I'll easily forget. brr...

[kuenjato]

8 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Not to go full caustic, but I feel right now that in a decade no one will even remember that these books exist, which is a shame regarding the first three.

I think the SF/F intelligensia will keep them alive, if barely.  For example, Book of the New Sun was not a best seller, but survived due to its literary and philosophical merits. --- Not saying that RSB = Wolfe, just that works that have unique stature tend to be preserved by the gatekeepers (which, in this case, will be aging SF/F bloggers).

[lokisnow]

Based on neuropath and the last two books of aspect emperor, I’m not sure he’s a very talented writer, both are fairly badly written and suffer from the same repetitious Tourette’s. Both feature a cast who all have the same internal POV, with the same EAMD hangups (also present in the atrocity tales where the barbarian thinks exactly the same way with the same terminology that kellhus uses). 

rather, he had an extraordinarily talented editor at overlook for the books that turned out solid. That is to say, additional evidence indicates not that the books were well written but that they were well edited.

[Hello World]

4 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

He's probably not even through the first half of his career as a novelist yet.

I think that's a stretch considering his non-Earwa books, Neuropath and DotD, bombed in term of sales and Penguin decided to drop his TSA series before TWLW was published (even though they published TWLW) so his fantasy could not have been selling all that well anyway. It's true that Bakker got some visibility recently with the Grimdark magazine stories but even those weren't good. Bakker already has a PhD and a life to work on, he may decide to cut his losses at some point. Maybe publish the next 2-3 TSA books and move on.

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

Based on neuropath and the last two books of aspect emperor, I’m not sure he’s a very talented writer, both are fairly badly written and suffer from the same repetitious Tourette’s. Both feature a cast who all have the same internal POV, with the same EAMD hangups (also present in the atrocity tales where the barbarian thinks exactly the same way with the same terminology that kellhus uses). 

To echo a review I read of one of his books a long time ago, Bakker is a one-trick pony and the last few books and short stories made it all the more clear to me.

[Darth Richard II]

Ha this is what happens when I post half awake. I may have come across a TAD more bitter then I actually am, but watching this and other threads on other sites dedicated to Bakker slowly die, plus with the next series publication in doubt, I dunno. His AMA and blog do not help either.