Someone out there must be better at math than me - does anyone have a decent idea how tall these things are? iirc the canted horn is described as taking something like 30 heartbeats to fall. The word "leagues" gets tossed around in one description of the horn falling to the plain, i think, also.

The Ark almost certainly was built in space wherever it came from. That sort of mass would be heinously hard to launch out of any sort of earth like gravitational field.

Also, randomly, why did Aurax open the door from the Vigil into the Golden Room? Is it as simple as death = damnation and he would do anything to live longer even though he was 99.999999999% certain Kellhus would kill him the second the door opened?

Also, randomly, why did the dunsult make a seemingly legit effort to kill Kellhus when as far as we know they also needed him to be TNG (at least until the last 20+ hours when Kel came into their clutches)? They need TNG to close off the world and stave off damnation and they they are going around trying to kill their shot at Resumption. Doesnt really make sense. Unless its all performative. When you have two sets of Dunyain (and a god!) claiming that the ground is conditioned in their favor motive/subject/object gets confusing in the extreme.

the book continues to definitely sit better with me after my re-read but there are still some ridiculous Chekhov gun scenarios running around. Oh well..

So i have completed my re-read and i have thoughts.

1. The Cannibal Rape Holocaust is better upon a re-read. But its hard to tease out exactly why. I think i appreciate it more, full stop. I also think that i wasnt impatient to get to the part of the book where, you know, maybe the Unholy Consult gets the detailed treatment many of us assumed it would. Since that obviously didnt happen i was better able to just carefully read the CRH and appreciate it for what it is. Its still too large a portion of the book but since the book is what it is i know longer hate it and take it on its own terms

2. There are still a whole lot of Chekhov's Guns laying around. My initial criticisms of RSB stand in regards to Akka and Mimara going for a fucking 4 book walkabout and do a grand total of jack shit. That doesnt mean that i dont hold much love for both of them, i do, however, their integration into TUC was a whole lot of sound & fury signifying nothing.

3. The title should be changed to: The Horns of Golgotterath - sure, the boards had guessed about the Dunsult twist but obviously no one knew. What was in actual evidence was that the most devious and evil minds of inchies/non-man/man were still the Unholy Consult. I think the title vs. the actual substance of the book is a cheap 3 card monty type of subterfuge. At least we have The False Sun and ill consider that my go to for cool Unholy Consult pov and background. The ppl on this board and others around the 'net are by definition a very small subset of RSBs very small fan base - how many ppl have actually read and discussed TFS? probably not many in the grand scheme of things. This title sucked.

4. Has anyone figured out wtf RSB was referring to when he talked about everyone missing something important? Dear RSB, if everyone is missing it the fault is with you, not the reader. RSB is very glib when pushing back on the readers and while i am 100% fine with ambiguity (as previously stated i loved the ending of TTT for example, or the pulling of Serwe's heart, etc etc) but when everyone is fucking clueless than perhaps pull back a bit on your glibness and spell some shit out and please spare me the sanctimonious crap regarding how the people who dont get it are actually the ones who get it the most of all. That the sort of BS i expect out of upper mngt trying to pull a TED talk out of their ass while they are announcing layoffs.

5. Because i dont have TGO near me i have a quick question that i just cannot recall the answer to. At the end of TGO when future/current/always No-God Kel interrupts the Narindar creeping up on Kellhus, which god does that WLW belong to? Yatwer, Ajokli, Momas? I just cant recall. 

Anyways, upon review, i like TUC (HOG) better than before but i am still moderately unsatisfied. Meh.

Thanks for the info and reflections from Zaudunyanicon. Im sure it would hvae been interesting to see things through my own eyes. Subject/object, and all that. Sometimes being a Bakker fan is a slog - he does not endear himself or make it easy and that is obviously perfectly fine as he can do what he wants. Im still, to use a term in this thread, nonplussed about TUC and i dont see that changing. If nothing else its simply a bad title and doesnt jive w/the material in the way that hte other 6 titles and books do, imho.

Also, shocked that hes shocked that the editing is so poor. Doesnt he get a production copy of the book before anyone? The editing was basically atrocious for TUC. Regardless, good job @Madness & Wilshire for setting this up. impressive work recruiting a recalcitrant Bakker to come out and press the flesh a little.

Of course, that's also what an author that failed would say 

Ha, beat me to it. That is awful convenient to say..

Quote from: Wilshire on July 31, 2017, 08:43:39 pm

Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the response.
That means your planning on coming to Zaudunyanicon right? I kid

Not kidding, you should come to Zaudunyanicon, Rots!

I would but its in the great white north, yes? I hope you all have a great time bouncing nerdanels off of one another!

[EDIT Madness: Fixed quote tag.]

So ive now had several days to let TUC sink in and i am still of the opinion that its a massive let down. So much space dedicated to agongorea, i still cant get over that. I feel like that is a story line that maybe 16 year old RSB might have thought was transgressive and heterodox and is really just a slog and boring. Its the first and only time in reading the 7 books that i have ever thought about just fast-forwarding through it to get to the next chapter.

So many seemingly important story lines that were teased out for thousands of pages and are not even mentioned at all or barely touched upon. Im basically fine w/the ambiguity of the end - weve seen that before in the RSB playbook. The dues ex machina of the dunsult has been bandied about here for years but i am fine with that. however, the fact that the most devious and cunning minds of man, inchie, and non-man came together in the Consult and then had literally millennia to game theory TSA and they just get run over by Dunyain faster than Usain Bolt can run a 100 is a bit much.

Heres a thought: maybe spend a few hundred pages less repetitively illustrating mans inhumanity to man and give us some of those pages back as chapters on the Ark like were done for Ishterebinth. Or literally anything else. This is the first of these 7 books i will not recommend to anyone and the first that i will not buy in physical form. Ive been a 99% lurker but i go back to ZTS and have been avidly a reader and a fan of this series from day one and this is still, after 5 days of reflection, a real disappointment for me.

I agree with Panorama almost completely. Well put. Im hoping my initial disappointment subsides but seriously, wtf, so much bs. Maybe Bakker is the trickster..

I donated to the cause. God knows what i gave is a poor representation of what i have received from RSB these last 10+ years.