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Mr. Soul posted:It's only getting weird to me now I'm in warrior prophet, the not-mongol stabbed a bunch of holes in the ground and hosed them while crying. Everybody else crying all the time too. This thread sold me on these books despite my hating most fantasy garbage, because this Bakker dude looks to be both hosed in the head and smarter than the retards whining about him online. How can these be bad?
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Jan 23, 2016 05:15
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I'm only halfway through the first book, but: The prose is not transcendent of the genre, Bakker is no Wolfe, but it does exceed most examples in the genre including goon favourite trashbins such as Sanderson and whoever writes those Dresden books. It's not stupid, nor does it assume that I am stupid; I grew up reading fantasy novels because they were entertaining escapism, then trailed off as an adult because puerile power fantasies stopped being satisfying. This appears to be a book about ideas more so than nerd wankery over D&D magic systems. Esmenet, the supposedly problematic whore, is my favourite character thus far and feels like an authentic take on the horrifying reality of being an intelligent and curious individual consigned to life in the lowest socioeconomic class. The few sex scenes are written better than what's in most other genre fiction, including popular favourites such as GRRM's novels. I understand this may change. Cnaiur the neurotic, depressed, and possibly closeted barbarian owns. Achamian is a class traitor. I know it's too early to pass judgement on this single novel, let alone the series whole, but up to this point the only real criticisms appear to be of the standard fantasy genre issues of it having imaginary names and not being ~*true literature*~. Given the megathreads and popularity of some truly lovely books on this forum I took the nature of the mixed response Bakker got as something of an endorsement, and so far I'm happy that I did. Maybe it all eventually falls apart Stephen King style though, I don't know.
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Jan 24, 2016 20:56
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Darkrenown posted:Sure, the reader can see Kellhus is awful, but everyone in world seems to love him (aside from the Byzantium prince who just seems to hate him because he's so popular) and he's great at everything. The very first person from outside his birthplace that Kellhus meets is a guileless innocent man, living far from society in retreat from his grief over a tragic loss. This man through direct action saves Kellhus' life and invites him into his own. Kellhus repays this man by manipulating him and training him like a dog, leveraging the man's grief and vulnerability to serve Kellhus' own ends, and ultimately leaves the man to die when the effort required to save him exceeds the material value of doing so. He is loved via cynical manipulation, and this is never implied to be a good thing. I don't think this is for you. Boing posted:His control over others is what makes him scary, and what drives the actual main characters into ever-deepening grief and ruin as they submit to his whims. Cnaiur is seemingly still hosed up by the time he spent with Kellhus' dad decades prior. Wheeee fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jan 25, 2016 |
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Jan 25, 2016 00:23
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I just finished the initial trilogy and, while I enjoyed it, I can see why Bakker isn't particularly popular and I'm not certain who his intended audience really is; people interested in going beyond surface-level reading and deconstructing meaning from their novels aren't generally into books about wizards, and people who are into books about wizards aren't generally into introspection and philosophical exploration. While they share little in the way of thematic elements, this series reminds me a little of KSR's 2312 in that I wish books of its nature were more popular, but I understand why they aren't. Is the second trilogy worth picking up next time I'm in the mood for genre?
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Mar 15, 2016 17:58
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Boing posted:the second trilogy takes a very objective approach and gets much more into the world and its history and its metaphysics. That doesn't sound particularly interesting to me, but I'll probably check it out at some point.
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Mar 15, 2016 21:28
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