That explains why their burgers taste like sranc...

Heh. My 66-year-old (and pretty hardcore feminist) mother turned out to enjoy The Second Apocalypse books even more than I did. So I'm thinking the problem is one of presentation more than Bakker's work genuinely being, umm... too spicy for Cthuulhu.

When I wax evangelical about Bakker's writing, I tend to talk about his fascinating and (AFAIK) unique take on the metaphysics of sorcery and gods, as well as his Blind Brain ideas, rather than the rape-alien stuff. But maybe that's because I genuinely want to share the awesome experience of reading Bakker, rather than trying to make myself look all cool and edgy.

Personally, I think Steven Moffat (or possibly Mark Gatiss) is a Dunyain. The TV series Sherlock is a Conditioning of the Ground to get us to see such a character as essentially heroic so that we will eventually accept (nay, demand) Moffat (or Gatiss) as God-Emperor of Earth.

Meybe this should be in the 'Conspiracy or Paranoia' thread...

"What would you think of a man..."

...who doesn't understand the differences between states and individuals? ...who relies on analogies stretched to the point of absurdity to make his arguments?

I liked the Illuminatus trilogy as entertainment. It was a fun read. I didn't find it especially thought-provoking or intellectually stimulating, though.

I do agree that there are those who stand to benefit from encouraging the masses to be permanently paranoid. As well as ensuring there are plenty of truly nutty conspiracy theories around to distract from and discredit the few that might just possibly have some truth to them.

A close relative used to work for one of my country's intelligence services. So I have reason to know that what governments and the media present as the official story is often very far from reality. But most of the things people generally think of when you say "conspiracy theory" are just bunk.

As a general rule, the conspiracies that are some variation on "the CIA/MI6 assassinated a person who officially committed suicide/died in a tragic accident" are the ones I find the most plausible. The ones that propose some grand international, multigenerational conspiracy are rather less so, because the people involved just aren't that clever, frankly.

The best guide is probably to work out the minimum number of people that would be required to know about the conspiracy in order to make it work. If the answer is more than a handful, you're stretching credulity.

Assassinations require rather fewer people to know the truth than you'd think, though. Because you subcontract the initial hit to some random thugs, then have a second team (usually your true professionals) eliminate them. Obviously, you don't tell the second team why the first team have to be removed, and once they've done their work, nobody other than you is left alive who knows that the original subject was assassinated.

As the old saying goes: "Two people can keep a secret... if one of them is dead."

Duskweaver:  Yeah, I'd never thought of them like that...  That would be kinda badass, though.  Where did that rendition of the Shield come from?

It was my quick and dirty attempt to visualise the description in the tUC excerpt, as explained in this thread, originally on the previous iteration of this forum.

The big problem, for me, in determining the actual capabilities of the Dunyain in general and Kellhus in particular is that I'm pretty sure Bakker goes out of his way to "claim [Kellhus] to be less than what he seemed to be," and so "move men, even learned men such as [us], to hope or fear that he might be more." (TDTCB Ch. 17)

Another rendition of the Horns, with a little dramatis personae.

Hmm. I've always seen the Horns as being recurved (S-shaped), like someone buried a gigantic lyre in the ground. Or like the Shield of Sil.