A new one at:

http://frigidreads.blogspot.nl/2017/08/the-unholy-consult-by-r-scott-bakker.html

frigid's a friend and I pushed Scott Bakker pretty hard at him.  He's got a fairly broad body of reviews so you may find a fair amount of interest there.

I unreservedly love the books.  War is not antiseptic and clean with the victory of the righteous preordained.  It is, almost always, suffering and horror with the iron gears of circumstances chewing up men and nations.  That Bakker can incorporate these terrible and frequently brushed over truths into his works while also including gripping action, awesome sorcery, and profound courage is one of his great strengths as a writer. 

Victory was never assured.  Ninety-five percent of fiction tells us that, but we all know that there is a finger on the scale.  No noble sacrifice will be futile, no courageous deed will be easily undone, evil will not triumph over good, Sauron is always defeated, and fallen heroes always end up in the undying lands.  Free will matters, the main characters are heroes, not pawns.  That is the expectation.  Normal, easy, safe.  The lie that we want to be told.

Bakker dares to betray Proyas and show us that in the heart of the man who will save us from genocide there is room for only one other person.  He dares to actually unleash the Second Apocalypse that is foretold.  The savior is not merely hollow, he is a lie.  Tremendous sacrifice results in heartbreaking failure and the unleashing of the very evil it sought to forestall.  How often does fiction dare to walk that road?  Forget all of Bakker's skills as a writer and world builder, how can you not admire the courage?

As for the Second Apocalypse, it should be heartbreaking.  The tale of how it came to pass should be tragic and powerful.  It would be obscene if it wasn't.  But it isn't over.  The First Apocalypse was over come.  The success of the second is not assured.  Drusas Achaiman walks in Seswatha's footsteps and with him is the Holy Empress and the true prophet.  The Black Gate has opened and the army of Mordor has poured forth, but the White City has yet to fall.

It can't be a real influence if Bakker wasn't aware of whatever that thing is, but that doesn't mean one can't make the argument that there are similarities and parallels even though Bakker didn't put them there intentionally.

Not to say he is or isn't a 40k guy or any of the rest, I don't know, but whether the parallels are there and whether or not Bakker intended them to be are entirely separate questions in my mind. I often struggle when I don't separate those two ideas.

Warhammer, in all its incarnations, steals liberally from a variety of sources ranging from Dune's Navigators to Sumerian gods.  The broad base of source material means Warhammer has similarities with a wide array of works, especially those who tap into the same source material.

A point is made that most scholars transliterate names into Sheyic, thus leaving giving us both the original spellilng and names and the Sheyic spellings.

They do have no mark but 1) we've had a good explanation for why that it works in TTT that doesn't involve the accuracy of their beliefs and 2) we've been told that their have been others who have used the Psukhe before the advent of Fane.  So buying into the Fanim being right because their sorcery works has always been a palace built on air.

While it does say that there is no outwards difference in appearance between male and female Sranc that are readily apparent, this isn't the same as saying they are outwardly identical down to the genitalia.  It does mean that male and female Sranc will have the same height, build, and colouration.

Quote from: Wilshire on August 09, 2017, 12:12:37 pm

Btw, if you are interested, you should check out Malazan, one of the books fairly drips with the stuff (Reaper's Gale I believe).

Now *there's* a series which disappeared up its own arse. Read all the Erikson main sequence ones, which were excellent up to book 5, then increasingly self - indulgent until the end.  The Esslemont ones were just dreadful.

My opinion isn't quite as harsh, but I otherwise agree.

It's probably a cold blooded risk-reward calculation.  Kellhus knows that there's got to be a big topos there, but the advantages of having a bunch of powerful Ciphrang ravage the outer works is worth risking the loss of some of his Daimotic Schoolmen.  He is throwing the dice for all the marbles.