Again, I really don't understand how - Bolivar, looking at you - so many people glossed over this Skin-Spy Esmenet abducting Kelmomas passage... it comes directly after the section where Esmenet frees Kelmomas, ffs. Kelmomas severing Migagurit's ankles... just brutal.

So this first time I read it, I actually assumed it was The Survivor's Son. The return of the Scylvendi made me think of him, that he had doubled back and was shadowing the shadowers. After you guys addressed my skepticism, it seems pretty obvious that it's Kelmomas and the Skin Spy likely brought him to the Ark. I'm ashamed!

Awesome thread, Madness, always appreciate your insights, especially since you've probably been moderating yourself for the last few years, so as to not give anything away.

Regarding the comment about "the meat" or the consequences Sranc withdrawl earlier in this thread... while it's somewhat expected that some readers might react negatively, I am a little surprised by it. My take is that we all knew what we signed up for ahead of time but, more importantly, the depravity totally fits within the context of the story and where things have been heading. I feel like the Second Apocalypse is the only series that could get away with this level of over-the-top shit and not feel like it's being forced or jumping the shark. And Madness is right, it's very clear that it's confined to the opening of the book, one last trial for the Ordeal to overcome before the final showdown at Golgotterath. And the scenes it set up with the last whelming and Proyas are all pretty amazing.

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As much as I want to persist, I'm willing to take the L on this one

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I knew this was coming. When I was 200, then 300 pages into the book, I knew that there just wasn't enough time left for the story to go in a different, shocking direction or to offer a conclusion of finality to The Aspect Emperor like The Thousandfold Thought ending sequence did for The Prince of Nothing. When I turned the final page to the glossary, I knew this was the most insane epic battle I've ever read but a small part of me raged that this story is clearly far from over.

I just feel like this is not the book that's been teased since the publication of the White Luck Warrior. Sorweel, Mimara, Achamian, Meppa, Cnaiur, and the Survivor's Son all had zero bearing on the ultimate destination of the plot. It makes me wish we could have instead gotten what I was hoping to see from The Aspect Emperor, to really dive behind the scenes of characters like Maithanet, Aurang, Shauriatas. Both glossaries refer to the Mangeacca as a contemporary school, Kellhus saw them huddling over Aurang's body but now they all supposedly died out a long time ago? I don't know why this book is called the Unholy Consult.

There was no g-string. We only saw more Ur-Sranc, Bashrag, and Erratics. The Inverse Fire is exactly what we were told it is (which, I've been meaning to give my brother H some serious props for nailing it - that it's both a factual depiction of one's future damnation and the goad that the Consult uses to recruit talent). We were all getting psyched up for something that never happened. The No-God rising is the conclusion we were told was coming in the first chapter of the first book.

I really want to re-read just The Aspect Emperor because I expect it's going to resonate more now that it's complete and that these books in particular are going to age very well. It's clearly a much better written series than PoN, which is saying a lot, but it also has serious structural problems that make it such a far less satisfying story. A lot of fantasy fans like to defend a lack of closure by citing to the fact that these are large, overarching series. My response is always that the first three books here each had a clear beginning, middle, and totally unique, unforgettable end. The characters are completely different people at the end of each novel than they were at the beginning. If nothing came after TTT, you still would have read one of the greatest self-contained fantasy trilogies ever. So many of the TAE stories went nowhere and as amazing as Golgotterath was, my eyes really started glossing over the descriptions of fighting Sranc at that point. Again, I'm not scrutinizing Bakker for any of his plot point decisions, just the structuring.

And how can anyone deny the Deus Ex Machina at the end? There's no way that kid got to the upright horn!

That being said, I actually kind of feel bad for him. Hes spent 3,000 years trying to escape damnnation, and just when things are starting to look good for him, some Dunyain come along and squash him like a bug, sending him to the outside that he dreaded so much

Ha, I feel the same way. I always assumed with The False Sun and the chapter excerpt that went out so many years ago that Shauriatas was being built up into this mythic figure that would have a huge role to play in the Unholy Consult.

Part of my disappointment stems from the contrast with the Prince of Nothing.  You're told all this time you're going to meet Moenghus  and then at the end you do, it's awesome, with all these lengthy passages. Here, the Consult members we've been obsessing over are only briefly seen until these random guys come out behind the curtain and even then we only get these small 60 second bursts of plot with them.

I'm not sure what to take from Bakker's "Well, Ajokli can't find him" in regards to the question he responded to. The more I thought about it today, the scene seems to confirm that the rumors are true, that the Aspect Emperor had been possessed during his incursions to the Outside. He goes from defying the Mutilated to conscripting them into some kind of dark reign of terror.

Scott, congratulations on finishing the Aspect Emperor and thank you so much for sharing your world with us. We know how much you've fought to bring this story to us and we're fortunate to have this caliber of fantasy to enjoy. When I first read The Judging Eye, I thought the Sakarpus intro was the best opening chapter I've read in a fantasy, so it's only appropriate that you've equally raised the bar with the climax sequence at Golgotterath. Bravo.

I'm most curious about whether this really is the conclusion to the story you originally envisioned all those years ago. You once said that if you (God forbid) had an accident after publishing TUC, you would be able to die with the biggest grin on your face. Do you still stand by that now and if so, why? With the next installment taking place a few weeks after the Resumption, it feels like this cycle hasn't concluded yet.

Second, do you think your work over at Three Pound Brain has removed some of the mystique of the series? When I read the Prince of Nothing, the observations about free will and self-deception were harrowing in part because you didn't know whether they were a) devastating objective truths, b) illustrating the depths of cynicism of the POV character, or c) something interesting the character stumbled upon, conceited at their own self-destructive insights. Now it seems like the definitive answer is all of the above. After reading so much of your nonfiction work, these observations started to feel heavy handed in the Aspect Emperor, because I now know you're committed to disseminating this perspective, or at least getting folks from different walks of life to start thinking about them, in light of where our civilization is headed. Specifically, when I read Ben Cain's guest posts about the tension between mythopoeia and science, it virtually obliterated the mystery of the Inchoroi for me. The Golden Room sequence was everything I hoped for but there was a remanant of disappointment that some of the revelations were things I had already been posting about for years.

Finally, last year, I asked you on Reddit why Cnaiur and Kellhus reappeared so late in the narrative. It felt like Cnaiur really should've been there since the beginning, like the other three main characters, whereas Kellhus felt like you were throwing a bone to rabid fans, since he only gets a few very brief passages at the opening before his POV disappears again. With Malowebi being used to convey Kellhus' scenes without a POV (an awesome choice IMO), it seems like we were never really meant to get a Kellhus' perspective in The Aspect Emperor, making his Great Ordeal sections even more out of place. You said you would be able to explain this after publishing TUC - now I'm calling it in!

Thanks for engaging us here and I look forward to supporting your work in the future, fantasy and otherwise.

Saw this when MG posted it on Twitter, it was pretty great. It kinda came out of nowhere though, does anybody know anything about this guy or why he wanted to do a TSA book trailer?