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Prince of Nothing


lordofavalon

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Absolutely read it. It is a medieval-fantasy with a crusades feel to it. If you made a Tolkien, Lovecraft, Howard, Martin stew it would taste similar, but Bakker is his own man. Very original stuff in a day when such a thing is difficult to find.
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[quote name='lordofavalon' post='1745007' date='Apr 4 2009, 18.48']wow.. lotta love here. guess i'll give it a chance.


how does it compare to WoT, aSoIaF and Farseer/Tawney man?[/quote]


I would say better than the WoT and Farseer/Tawny Man, but not as good as aSoIaF.

Hope you like it, Bakker really is a great author (I hope you're interested in philosophy, his works are grounded pretty deeply in that).
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I was nearly put off by the prologue, when Kellhus fainted because he saw new types of trees, but I got into it eventually.

Let's see, some stuff to know that might mean it's not for you: It's a very dark setting, some terrible stuff happens in the books, and Bakker's philosophy background shines through, so if either of those things bother you, you've been warned. It's also a First Crusade analogue; I remember some people thinking Bakker stuck too closely to the timeline, but since I only had general knowledge of the time period, it wasn't one of my complaints. When I loaned the first book to my brother, he couldn't get into it because he struggled with the names, but he also has dyslexia, so it was more of a problem for him than most people; I was unphased, but my background's in Classics, which made many of them easier to read. There's been a debate on the board about the way he writes women.

It can be hard to get into initially, but with those caveats, I'd recommend it.
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[quote name='lordofavalon' post='1745007' date='Apr 4 2009, 17.48']wow.. lotta love here. guess i'll give it a chance.


how does it compare to WoT, aSoIaF and Farseer/Tawney man?[/quote]

it's a great series. I would say it's better than WoT and farseer but not quite as good as asoiaf but fairly close. It's in my top five fantasy series.
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[quote name='TheEvilKing' post='1745188' date='Apr 4 2009, 23.03']Easily better than WoT. About on par with Farseer/Liveships - very different type of novels though. Obviously not as good as ASOIAF.[/quote]

It may not be as good as ASOIAF (IMO it's a very close call; I'd give Bakker the edge in worldbuilding and prose, Martin the edge is dialogue, characterization, and general readibility). But 'obviously' not as good? What is obvious about it?

I would rank it above Hobb; I would consider Hobb very good, but not quite at the level of Martin or Bakker.

I haven't read Jordan so I would not be able to compare that, but it does seem that Bakker is much more highly regarding among hardcore fantasy fans (by hardcore fantasy fans, I'm referring to people have fantasy blogs, who write a lot of posts on fantasy message boards, and who have apparently read everything in the genre under the sun). But Jordan sells a lot more books, so perhaps he appeals more the casual fan or to the general public?
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Stopped reading the first book after 3 chapters or so. Baker's writing style just didn't do it for me.

If you value any sort of external description (the characters could have been wearing pink jumpsuits and eyeliner for all I could tell) or logical character interaction (Kellus brings a strangely weak-willed mountain man to tears with Jedi mind tricks) It's about as far away from ASoIaF style-wise as one could get.

But don't take my word for it, who knows, maybe you'll dig it like so many others seem to.
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[quote name='Triskele' post='1745287' date='Apr 5 2009, 01.09']Wait...are you a feminist?[/quote]
Ah, it's so weird to see a Bakker thread where this takes so long to come up.
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wow more opinions. You guys are great. thats why this is by far my favorite forums (ign used to hold that one).




i have no problem with a story taking a while to start.. I still remember Dragonbone chair.. that took forever, but i ended up loving MST (even though I only read it once completely, and skimmed on the reread).


one final question. I would check this on the wikipedia entry an such, but i don't want to be spoiled ... but is it a complete story finished?
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[quote name='lordofavalon' post='1745318' date='Apr 4 2009, 23.02']one final question. I would check this on the wikipedia entry an such, but i don't want to be spoiled ... but is it a complete story finished?[/quote]
The major story lines are completed in the trilogy, but some underlying story lines are left hanging. These will be addressed in the second trilogy(?), the first book of which is already out.
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To expound on that, Bakker initially intended to write a trilogy. When he was writing, he reaized that each book of that trilogy would likely take three books to get through, and so he's writing a trilogy of trilogies essentially. He's completed the first trilogy (The Prince of Nothing: The Darkness that Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, and The Thousandfold Thought) and book one of the second trilogy (The Aspect Emperor: The Judging Eye).

I'm two books into The Prince of Nothing and am enjoying it quite a bit. Will go buy The Thousandfold Thought soon. I find the world to be really wonderfully realized.
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