Persuade me to read The Darkness that comes before

[Weeping Sore]

If you love penises and hate women but want to prove that you love women and not penises by raping them (women, that is) then this series is for you.

[Cold Hands warm heart]

Wow, that's an angry judgement.

[Weeping Sore]

Wow, that's an angry judgement.

Oh, my judgement is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Bakker's obviously brilliant and impressive in many ways. Not a waste of time in terms of philosophy/metaphysics, psychology, and world-building.

The sexual violence is troubling, though. His admiration of the female form seems utterly unconvincing compared to his love of the phallus. I've got nothing against homo-eroticism per se, far from it, I just don't like my man-love mixed with woman-hate.

ETA: (as below) maybe we're talking a narcissistic onanistic fixation rather than a homo-erotic one.

[David Selig]

Don't do it, I gave up after the prologue and a few pages of the first chapters of the first volume, it was that bad.

[Tears of Lys]

I admit it. I'm a Bakker fan. As a woman, this probably disqualifies me from being a member of the sex. :dunno:

As for the OP, read it or don't read it. But if you don't read it, you won't be able to appreciate the humor in threads like these, which is quite funny I might say.

My Second Apocalypse books are on my bookshelves right alongside the Dune books and hold a similar place in my heart (alongside the eye.)

[sologdin]

as it happens, the two series belong together on your shelf because the RSB and dune are not separate! PoN picks up where dune 6 leaves off--as though we do not know who marty & daniel and the starship Ithaca really are! (that way, there are no sequels by the son.)

[Ayx]

You should read it, its extremely good series, one of the very few where subsequent books are stronger and stronger as series is progressing.

To give the counterexample, Brian Sanderson work has the opposite effect on me, the first book pools you in with world-building and mysteries, but subsequently the story fizzles and becomes a bit lame (Ie Words of Radiance, or Mistborn trilogy).

2nd apocalypse pulls you in, and not only does not disappoint, but once you get to the 2nd and 3rd books you get that giddy feeling that author was saving the best for the last, that all of previous stuff was just a preview.

The writing is ponderous, and a bit pretentious and philosophizing, but it works for what books are trying to do. The best I can describe it its Homeric. Books give you the sense of being an observer to the very history being made.

There are huge battles with many larger then life figures performing heroic deeds, and sorcery/magic is not used very often. Unlike other epic fantasy where there ppl throwing firebolts and spells every other page, or Sanderson's work where everyone is flying around like some crazy buzzsaw Yoda, sorcery/magic in 2nd apocalypse is a serious business. So in a few instances where readers finally get to see it, it is worth the wait and the build-up.

Anyway, yes you should read the books. People here have Bakker overload and mock these books often, but they do it out of love, and probably frustration of Unholy Consult being delayed .

[Rhom]

Anyway, yes you should read the books. People here have Bakker overload and mock these books often, but they do it out of love, and probably frustration of Unholy Consult being delayed .

They hate because they love.

[sologdin]

that kinda rationale is very cnaiur. in hating the text because it made you love, do y'all also pound the earth with your fists, stab holes with your knives, and fuck them?

[Rhom]

that kinda rationale is very cnaiur. in hating the text because it made you love, do y'all also pound the earth with your fists, stab holes with your knives, and fuck them?

Only in the spring when the ground is still nice and soft.

[YellowDogJen]

Aw man, I forgot that death comes swirling down! I forgot that ever are men deceived. Ah, good times. After four-and-a-most books I'm pretty confident* in my decision that The Second Apocalypse and my reading brain just don't have matching story lego, but I do miss it sometimes.

*"But what is confidence? It is the bird buffeted by the winds of the desert. It is the sranc driven by its wants, unknowing and uncaring that it is not its own master. It is the man who thinks he is in love. Man man man! Long parable! Ever are men deceived!"

Speaking as a lapsed fan of the series -- who was never mentally swift enough to keep up with a lot of the next level philosophical stuff that is integral to its special place in fantasy -- I'd say you should definitely give it a try. [And definitely get beyond the prologue, which a lot of people seem to find leaden even though it has some bad ass moments.] The world is intricate, the plot twisty and epic and sprawling with lots of cosmic mystery as well as earthly political / military stuff. The writing is kind of faux-archaic and heavy, but its a tone Bakker brings off very well; it gives the setting and the events a sense of graveness and heft, I find. There are images from the series that are still with me -- Bakker does first rate body horror and writes a mean apocalyptic dream.

Where things ended up not working out for me is that I realized that Earwa, the world in which the series takes place, could explode and I would not care. Because it is a shithole. Please do not misunderstand me: It is an intricately, often stunningly, thought-out, fascinating shithole freighted with epic drama. But a shithole it remains. Bakker is using the fact that Earwa is a shithole to ask questions that I'm sure are very interesting, but I'm just not willing to commit the mental energy to exploring them as played out on such an unrelentingly dour stage. The characters who inhabit this shithole are complex and interesting, but I feel profoundly alienated and detached from most of them. [Also the women. Good lord. I know the series has reasons for what it is doing here; I'm just not personally convinced it brings them off, and am also a little confused as to what might be accomplished by doing so. But smarter people than me have devoted many pixels to this.] I am interested in what is going on, sometimes intensely, but I am not emotionally gripped the way I am with some other series.

There are sorcerers and huge armies and conniving politicians and creepy hellish crow-people. It is vast and brutal and complex. And it contains the line "death came swirling down." Try it! It's awesome! But it can also be dry and a little bit alienating -- though no more so than Dune, I don't think.

:agree: I've read 5 I guess - through the Judging Eye or the White Luck Warrior, whichever is later - and I realized the struggle, the slog of it all, just wasn't worth it to me. Not fun for me. Maybe I'll re-read sometime and fall in love, but at this point, Kellhus and I are through.

[Callan S.]

Oh, my judgement is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Bakker's obviously brilliant and impressive in many ways. Not a waste of time in terms of philosophy/metaphysics, psychology, and world-building.

The sexual violence is troubling, though. His admiration of the female form seems utterly unconvincing compared to his love of the phallus. I've got nothing against homo-eroticism per se, far from it, I just don't like my man-love mixed with woman-hate.

Writers only ever write about things they love?

[The Prince of Newcastle]

I've started reading this.

I hate everyone's name and every place name. Having just put the book down 20 seconds ago, I couldn't tell you a single place or character name.

It's like Dany in Essos. Everything sounds the same.

I will persevere but srsly, what's wrong with calling your characters Dave and Trev?

[The Prince of Newcastle]

Jesus Christ these names piss me off.

I read a name... Is it a person? A place? An organisation? It's too hard to keep track. The first 50 pages have just been walls of text with utterly meaningless names all over them.

[Francis Buck]

I will persevere but srsly, what's wrong with calling your characters Dave and Trev?

Because it's lazy and boring as shit?

Honestly even though the names were confusing at first, it was probably one of the things that intrigued me most about the series early on. Especially because, for the most part, it's not just random fantasy name generator bullshit. Different cultures and languages actually make sense with their names. There's a method to the madness.

[The Prince of Newcastle]

I'm gonna read it all. I like it, I'm just sick of having to write things down already.

Too many names and places and organisations just thrown at me within the first 2 chapters.

I loved the prologue though.

And I like my man Achamian so far.

And I get that (so far) the consult may be infiltrating the thousand temples (religious order) in order to declare a holy war on the only people who could stop them? Fuck it I'll just read it. I guess if the other wanted everything explained at this point he would have done so.

[Jo498]

The names suck (even the list of names in the end sucks, because it is never clear beforehand what counts as "first name" so one has to look at two places). Some of them are built systematically, others aren't. It is very hard to guess the pronunciation (Are Cs before "e" and "i" "soft" or "hard"? Or are they all silent ones like in Cnaiür...) and the ümläüts make no sense, so I think they are tremas. But these would not be necessary most of the time, so it is just a silly mannerism.

I am through with the first book now and I am not overly impressed. It's intriguing enough to make me order the next one, but overall it this one is definitely flawed (on its own which is all I could say now it is nowhere close to AGoT). It does not get going for more than two thirds in, it feels altogether not very well organized. The prose oscillates between genuinely atmospheric (e.g. the first prologue, IMO), archaically mannered and pretty ordinary, but teeming with rather ridiculous metaphors and similes (the domes of the huge buildings in Momnen are like "black bellies" in the night air! Wow!). When he tries to be pathetic or archaic he often cannot keep this tone. In an important scene at the Nansurian Court one of the "Great Names" uses "fucking" and "thrice-damned" in one sentence. Either let a guy talk like a modern hard-boiled or like Feanor, but not like this.

I may be in the minority, but I also think that uber-badass-ninja-mentat-jesus-characters suck.

I wonder if it's the fault of the first Matrix movie or probably some sophomoric superhero comic book... But I have now encountered the silly plucking-arrows-from-the-air-trope (either by stopping time or by being REALLY fast) for the third time in a few years.

Abercrombies "Eaters", especially the one in Best served cold, Moers' "Wolpertinger" in "Rumo" and now Kellhus all do sth like plucking arrows. And Abercrombie and Bakker are supposed to be "gritty and realistic"??? ROTFLMAO

[Happy Ent]

and the ümläüts make no sense, so I think they are tremas.

The tremas are diareses, not umlauts. (Bakker uses the same conventions as Tolkien in anglicising names from his made-up languages.)

Like, say, Fëanor.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

Newcastle, I felt the same way reading TDTCB. The names and new info didn't bother me, it was all the Kelhuss "greatness". But, I stuck through and the following books are much better and keep you wanting more. Just hang in there, you'll get hooked. I'm also with you on Akka. He was the sole reason I stuck with the story, really enjoyed his character.

[Darth Richard II]

You know, its entirely possible that some people may just not like TSA.