Earwa > The Unholy Consult

Book Review: The Unholy Consult

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mrganondorf:
The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker crashes into the inevitable contest between the Dûnyain-Prophet, Anasûrimbor Kellhus, and the vile Consult hierarchy.  This novel, the fourth and concluding volume of The Aspect-Emperor series, chronicles a convergent conflict, millennia in the making, between Men, Nonmen, and Inchoroi abomination.  Tekne and Logos will vie for the fate of the world, the fate of souls.  The Great Ordeal will traverse the unnatural wastes at the end of the world to face it…the Golden Horror.



Weaving the narrative threads of The Aspect-Emperor into a rope, The Unholy Consult hangs from the Horns of Golgotterath.  The survivors of Ishterebinth make haste to join the Great Ordeal, which in turn staggers in its last desperate trek through the Fields of Woe.  Following the destruction of the Horde at Dagliash, the false Believer-King, Nersei Proyas, struggles to steer the might of Earwa across ashen Agongorea.  Stripped to the foundation of their Meat, the Men of the Ordeal find they must overcome themselves to march upon their foe, to achieve the requisite mad ferocity to topple wicked and alien heights.  Besotted, crazed with loss and bewildered hope, the old Wizard, Achamian, and the pregnant Prophet, Mimara, draw near to gaze upon the Aspect-Emperor with the Judging Eye.  Even the eyes of the damned will stand witness to the Warrior-Prophet’s ultimate disputation of war. Gobozkoy like no other.  As the Great Ordeal unleashes its collective might on Unholy Golgotterath, Bakker rolls into one all the strategy, tactical reversal, and heartbreak of the battle sequences of his six preceding novels…and the Gods play benjuka across the very the plate of the world.



Thematically, the darkness that comes before dominates all individuals through every faction. In a contest of this magnitude, none can be sure their cause is righteous truth.  Meat and spirit, meaning and its wages compel reason run to the end of sanity—The Unholy Consult emerges as the most profuse expression of Bakker’s philosophical viewpoint on humanity’s frame and substance. Stylistically, Bakker furthers the coiled power of word and verse from The Great Ordeal: epic fantasy as adventure and elegy.  This novel is word for word, line for line, condensed, packed, loaded.  In the end, Bakker sparks a detonation proper to the termination of The Aspect-Emperor series.  A rebuke of and tribute to the Tolkinesque tradition, a rumination on holy scripture, and prophetic word, The Unholy Consult is above all a tale to grasp the heart.



Included with The Unholy Consult is an expanded encyclopedic glossary, elaborating on the glossary of The Thousandfold Thought, divulging history, secrets, lies, and promising more.  A particular highlight is a short account concerning the Aspect-Emperor, revealing insight into his peculiar magic and snatched, it would seem, while the Anasûrimbor thought no one watching. Bakker’s, previously available online Atrocity Tales, short stories set in Earwa, “The False Sun” and “The Four Revelations,” are also included as Appendices Two and Three.  “The False Sun” constitutes an episode from the formation of the Consult and their grudge with the ancient Grandmaster of the Sohonc, mighty Titirga.  “The Four Revelations” takes the reader inside the mind of a Nonman Erratic, long-lived beyond all dead glory and sanity.



Tragedy, tragedy averted, tragedy necessary and inescapable, The Unholy Consult marches toward Golgotterath, measuring its path by the suffering of its persons.  This is the seventh book in The Second Apocalypse series.  Apocalypse is revelation.  Bakker delivers humanity, character and reader alike, to the revelation of the fate of worlds.

Behold!  The Passion of the Warrior-Prophet.

H:
Awesome, can't wait.

MSJ:
Great review, MG!

The Passion of the Warrior-Prophet. Hmmm, his state of living/consciousness will likely be in doubt at the conclusion, then.

BeardFisher-King:
Well done, MG! I think I'll read it!  ;)

I also think my old friend Zöreius Öenghûs the comic might be silenced by the events chronicled in TUC. Sadness beyond imagining......I am preparing for the worst.

Jackehehe:
omfg

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