I do recognize that there are several significant subversions of fantasy tropes, but not "every." (This is not as much a criticism of Bakker's work as a criticism of the hyperbole surrounding it.) This applies to his "Epic Fantasy Grand Finale," too, since TUC isn't the end. Every series has reversals of fortune. If you'd stopped reading after Morgoth stole the Silmarils, you could say the same thing about Tolkien. So we don't have enough information yet to determine if this is actually as subversive as you're claiming.
Fair enough. It
feels like the ending, and was the intended one at some point (though I'm assuming certain details about the World, its metaphysics, etc. would have been made clearer by this point if it had remained the final installment. And, yes, I am perhaps a touch hyperbolic in my praise at times, though I do still contend he takes at least
most of the most overutilized tropes (the wise old sage, the unknowing descendant of kings and heroes coming from a secluded existence to save the world, the noble savage, etc.) and runs circles around them.
I didn't feel the splitting of two novels as much for TUC as for TGO. The episodic feeling of the latter can't be a criticism of the former, since it's the finale. It would have ended at the same place regardless (I assume) and thus suffered exactly the criticisms being levied now.
You just said it
wasn't the finale. Make up your damn mind!
My criticism of the separation into two volumes was aimed at the book as a whole, not so much the ending itself (which, yes, would be unaltered whether it was one volume or thirteen). Oft-criticized segments such as the Great Ordeal's Cannibal Sodomy Holocaust, I think, would carry more weight were the descent into madness not so seemingly
sudden as the carving into two novels makes it feel in the absence of a re-read immediately prior.
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