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I just read TDTCB and it's surprisingly good, for a 600 page first volume in a trilogy that's basically just a prologue. The world is vividly described, and I liked the Middle Eastern feel, even if the fantasy names are alphabet soup spiced with diacritics. I liked the characters, even the awful ones,* and the everlasting politicking rang true. The Achamian/Esmenet and Cnaïur/Kellhus relationships were intriguing. Kellhus is a monster, as horrifying as the Inochoros really. They both seem to stand outside the normal world, so I'm not sure if they would end up being allies or enemies. (I suppose the Inochoros is a Consult thing, like whatever Skëaos was?) Despite all the History in the Making and Great Men, there are a lot of pleasingly small-scale or subtle aspects. The funniest bit was the Nansurians arguing about how often to leave a Scylvendi head on a stick, so they didn't run out before they got home, that was worthy of Hugh Cook. *Except Serwë, who was just depressing and irritating.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:48
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Libluini posted:So in a away, even if they look strange to us, he uses names that could actually at one point have been real names. It's basically like a novel full of names like Steve and Susan, just published thousands of years in the future in Japan. Yeah, a small step. There's some good stuff like Golgotterath/Mengedda (obviously Biblical), and Achamian recalls "Achaemenid", and Sarcellus makes me think of Pulp Fiction of course, but mostly they just kind of blurred together. Worst was "Padirajah". Oh yeah, all these dusky Easterner Saracen cultures are the same. Hope you guys who've read the other books enjoyed my plot guesses.
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Feb 7, 2016 22:57
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Finished The Warrior-Prophet and I've got to say, the names and general solidity of the world have really grown on me... it's just that one of the main characters is near as dammit called Coitus. I was underwhelmed at first by its length and lack of interest - it's clear Bakker's deliberately using the books' length, I'm just not sure how worthwhile that is. The battle scenes are good. It's really interesting to see him using real-world stories (Passover, the Library of Alexandria) to add depth to a secondary world.Drogue Chronicle posted:Related, while I've only intermittently engaged with online forums on Bakker's work, I don't every recall seeing anyone speculate on how the Dunyain treat their own women. Given how so far I've only seen Kellhus use other people to get what he wants - whatever the specifics are, I bet they're  Dûnyain sex ed is probably abstinence... that works.Mr. Soul posted:I don't want any specifics, but is there any elaboration on the no god and it's WHAT DO YOU SEE talk. It seems to me that it may be unaware of itself somehow and is honestly asking what the gently caress is happening. And I heard someone thinks it's a helicopter, which kind of owns somehow. It's clearly a blind idiot god.
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Feb 23, 2016 18:51
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I finished The Thousandfold Thought and it was pretty underwhelming. Lots of battle scenes and people riding about looking for other people, and the ending felt very rushed. As did some other scenes, like the bit where Maithanet turns up and tells the Quorum his spies have found a skinspy amongst them - I'm not sure what the point of that was because there weren't any reactions to it. Sequel hook? The Warrior-Prophet was an unusual fat fantasy novel in that it felt like its length had a purpose; this just felt padded. Using Akka and Esmenet's relationship as the backbone of the series paid off, and it was nice to see Esmenet having a relationship with someone not male or dead. Obviously you can't use the viewpoint of a character like Kellhus too much, and it's a big moment when Bakker returns to his POV after having abandoned it for, IIRC, most of Warrior-Prophet and Thousandfold Thought. I'm not sure what's going on with him though. He seems to be having the same delusions of glowing hands as his followers, implying that they're not due to insanity, but he then goes and kills Moënghus, which seems motiveless. Is the nature of the Thousandfold Thought ever made clear? It seems to be the master plan for defeating the Consult, which Moënghus manipulating Kellhus into also devising. Is there anything more to it? I think the detail and realism of Bakker's world, and the use of this world to give it depth and meaning, are his biggest assets. The verbal and structural echoes are meaningful but also have the freedom of a created world. E: Oh yeah, one other thing. How do Dûnyain inherit names? Because there could easily be a situation where they all have the same surname... come to think of it, if they never go outside Ishuäl, why aren't they all inbred to the the Nth degree? Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 08:17
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Libluini posted:I've heard NASA made a recent study about this kind of thing. Turns out as long as you're really carefully planning everything out, you can have a healthy genetical base with something ridiculously low as ~80 people or even less. Wasn't that in the ancient history thread or something? I remember that too. But... 1. Do the Bronze Age Dûnyain know about genetics? 2. It's funny to think of Kellhus, the mighty Warrior-Prophet and Aspect-Emperor, as Charles II of Spain, the drooling idiot. thumper57 posted:I think you can assume Dunyain genetics actually are screwed up - if I remember right Kellhus casually remembers learning about face muscle structure from skinned/pinned "defectives" in Ishual Oh yeah, I forgot them. Rather similar to the way he treats skin-spies, isn't it? Is the name "the Consult" ever explained? It's weird to see a verb being used as a proper noun.
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Mar 24, 2016 03:34
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I still haven't begun the second series. However, I recently found that the phrase "the great ordeal" is taken from Revelation 7:14 (apparently only in the New Revised Standard Version; AV prefers "tribulation"):NRSV posted:I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Describing martyrs living and praising God upon his throne. (I'm slightly spoiled for the series; the verses immediately before descibe the sealing of the 144,000, which I know has something to do with the Bakker.) The "great ordeal" also turns up in Matthew 24: Jesus describes the end of the world and his return, and warns the disciples against false prophets: NRSV posted:For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. [...] Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see "the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven' with power and great glory. (The "suffering" of those days is, I think, the same word in Hebrew as used for "the great ordeal".) Obviously I don't think Bakker is copying the Bible, merely using it. Point being, the meaning of "Apocalypse" isn't the end of the world, it's "revelation". In the First Apocalypse, the No-God was revealed to the world. What's coming this time around?
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May 14, 2016 12:03
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savinhill posted:Oh man, you should definitely start the second series, especially since you seem to enjoy analyzing these types of things. Bakker just ups the ante on all of it and gives you so much more to speculate about. Plus, the next one is coming out soon, so why risk spoiling yourself even more before reading the other two, and deprive yourself of theorizing about it before the next volume reveals more answers. I'd like to but I can't get them here  Strom Cuzewon posted:The Mandates mantra is also an inversion of jesus' "what good is it to gain the world if you lose your soul?" One of the epigraphs is also an obvious riff on "when I was a child I thought as a child." I said upthread I think Bakker's use of the real world to light Eärwa is one of its most interesting aspects, though I'm too ignorant to pick up on most of the philosophical bits. I thought Ajencis was more like Socrates for some reason though. I dunno.
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May 19, 2016 16:19
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Oh yeah probably. I was thinking of Ajencian Nail where he sits down to think out the only thing he can be sure of ("that I am less ignorant than before") which is what Descartes does in the intro to his cogito, even if they're vastly different. See, I didn't even know that; I was thinking the Nail was a take on Socrates' scepticism. But I suppose it's just possible Descartes got there before Bakker, maybe. The Vosgian Beast posted:He's Aristotle. The Philosopher anyone educated has to learn about and read, just like Aristotle was in the middle ages. This too of course. "Ajencis says..."
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May 20, 2016 16:09
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Excellent! Please keep us updated with your opinions of what Kellhus' endgame is. Love hearing some good speculation. I have no idea of his motivation other than a) his brain was broken by exposure to the world outside Ishual or b) he's actually a prophet of sorts; God is working through him without him realising it.
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May 26, 2016 14:58
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The Thousandfold Fart. Also change the tag to religion.
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Dec 7, 2016 20:15
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Rime posted:I would suggest that Bakker never considered female nonmen sorcerers in the context of the lore, because he killed them off at the very start and their role in the narrative was encapsulated in that death. Do we even hear about any female nonmen at all, outside of the womb-plague and how that loss destroyed the entire species? Should we? Would that progress the narrative? In what ways? He never bothers about the female characters cos he stuffed them all in a fridge thousands of years ago to make the men immortal and pissed off with the Inchoroi, pro defence here guys.
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Jun 20, 2017 10:03
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Malcolm XML posted:yeah the physical books have been leaking everywhere That's just one of the differences between books and e-books v  v
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Jul 1, 2017 04:11
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Memnaelar posted:I remember when there were mods who could serve as a bulwark against the threadshitting. Pedantry 
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Aug 2, 2017 06:36
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Inchoros cosplayer:
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Jan 5, 2018 14:55
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Cardiac posted:I am mostly curious why people are so upset about Bakker and the books since there are plenty of mediocre fantasy written by authors with questionable opinions out there that people don’t get upset about. He wrote about sex. It's as simple as that. Amethyst posted:I doubt either of these are common sentiments. Both are a stretch. They're pretty common and not really a stretch. Tolkien wrote about good, tall, long-lived pure-blooded Numenoreans and little-Englander hobbits (apologies for the lack of appropriate accents, my new computer is annoying) fighting evil Southerners/Easterners and ugly, uneducated-sounding, man-eating orcs. Yes, he subverted that occasionally, but it's a pretty big part of his books, Lord of the Rings in particular. Lewis wrote about good Christians and devil-worshipping Muslim-a-likes, and the last Narnia book includes Susan's being excluded from Heaven because she discovered lipsticks and nylons, if I remember the line correctly. They were fundamentally white Edwardian men, it's no wonder people today take issue with their ideas on race, sex, and class. As for the Jesus lion, nuff said.
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Apr 30, 2020 16:27
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Amethyst posted:I’m talking hating Tolkien, not writing about Edwardian views on race in general. Acting like lotr is a racial manifesto because it was written in the early 29th c is very dumb, sorry. No, it's a pretty obvious reading, albeit not the best one. Crimpolioni posted:You hate lions or something? I'm a zebra.
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May 1, 2020 04:43
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