R. Scott Bakker & The Prince of Nothing: Better than Fucking a Hole in the Ground

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > R. Scott Bakker & The Prince of Nothing: Better than Fucking a Hole in the Ground

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Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

I liked the first trilogy well enough but the first book was the best and then the Judging Eye was goddamn terrible. I haven�t tried to re-read them since I was 16-17 so I don�t know how well I�d get on w them now. Also TJE includes the line �her lips pert around some lozenge of inexplicability� so I stopped reading there.

Might catch up when the next... next book is out.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2016 17:02

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:14

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

he does really like to go on hilarious blog rants about how the misandrists are trying to destroy his career, though, it's something really... special.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 15:38

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

quote:

Then he saw . . . it. An abomination walking through dawn twilight.
It was half-again taller than a man, with long, folded wings curved like scythes over its powerful frame. Save where it was mottled by black, cancerous spots, its skin was translucent, and sheathed about a great flared skull shaped like an oyster set on edge. And within the gaping jaws of that skull was fused another, more manlike, so that an almost human face grinned from its watery features.
The Sranc howled with rapture as it passed, and jerked at their groups as they fell to their knees. The mounted Nonmen lowered their shining scalps. It studied the rows of hapless humans, and then its great black eyes fell upon Aengelas. Valrissa sobbed, a mere length away.
You . . . We sense the old fire in you, manling . . .
�I am Werigda!� Aengelas roared.
Do you know what we are?
�The Great Ruiner,� Aengelas gasped.
Noooo, it cooed, as though his mistake had aroused a delicious shiver. We are not He . . . We are His servant. Save my Brother, we are the last of those who descended from the void . . .
�The Great Ruiner!� Aengelas cried.
The abomination had walked ever closer throughout this exchange, until it loomed over his wife and child. Valrissa clutched Bengulla to her bosom, held out a tragic warding hand against the hoary figure.
Will you tell us, manling? Tell us what we need to know?
�But I don�t know!� Aengelas cried. �I know nothing of what you ask!�
Effortlessly, the Xurjranc snapped Valrissa�s tether, and hoisted her before him, held her as though she were a doll. Bengulla shrieked �Mama! Mama!�
Once again the question thundered through Aengelas�s soul. He [missing] tore at the turf.
�I don�t know! I don�t know!�
Beneath the monstrosity�s claws, Valrissa went very still, like a lamb caught in the jaws of a wolf. Her terrified eyes turned from Aengelas, rolled upwards beneath their lids, as though trying to peer at the fig behind her.
�Valrissa!� Aengelas screamed. �Valrissssaa!� Holding her by the throat, the thing languorously picked her clothes away, like the skin of a rotten peach. As her breasts fell free, [garbled] with soft-pink nipples, a sheet of sunlight flickered across the horizon and illuminated her lithe curves . . . But the hunger that held her from behind remained shadowy�like glistening smoke.
Animal violence overcame Aengelas, and he strained at his leash and gagged inarticulate fury.
And a husky voice in his soul said: We are a race of lovers, manling.
�Beaaassee!� Aengelas wept. �I don�t knoooowww . . .� The thing�s free hand traced a thread of blood between her [missing] across the plane of her shuddering belly. Valrissa�s eyes regarded Aengelas, thick with something impossible. She moaned and parted hanging legs to greet the abomination�s hand. A race of lovers . . .
�I don�t know! I don�t! I don�t! Beaase stop! Beaasse!� The thing screeched like a thousand falcons as it plunged into [missing]. Glass thunder. Shivering sky. She bent back her head, her face contracted in pain and bliss. She convulsed and groaned, arched to meet the creature�s thrusts. And when she climaxed, Aengelas crumpled, grasped his head between his hands, beat his face against the turf. The cold felt good against his broken lips.
With an inhuman, dragon gasp, the thing pressed its bruised prick up across her stomach and washed her sunlit breasts with [unclear] black seed. Another thunderous screech, woven by the thin human wail of a woman.
And again it asked the question.
I don�t know . . .
These things make you weak, it said, tossing her like a sack to cold grasses. With a look, it gave her to the Sranc�to their licentious fury. Once again, it asked the question.
The abomination then gave his weeping son�sweet, innocent Bengulla�to the Sranc, and once again asked the question.
I don�t know what you mean . . .
And when the Sranc made a womb of Aengelas himself, it asked�with each raper�s thrust, it asked . . .
Until the gagging shrieks of his wife and child became the question. Until his own deranged howls became the question . . .
His wife and child were dead. Sacks of penetrated flesh with faces that he loved, and still . . . they did things.
Always, the same mad, incomprehensible question.
Who are the D�nyain?

philosophical

# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 19:03

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

urgh yeah I read Neuropath :negative:

# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 19:31

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Libluini posted:

Hilariously, this has the opposite effect on me. It managed to make the Consult look stupid in addition to being sinister. Existential dread just isn't something I can emotionally understand. Well I mean I do know that people fear that kind of stuff, it just feels silly to me.

It�s more understandable when you have definitive proof that God exists and hates you I guess.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 17:11

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Reason posted:

I haven't heard of this before. The op mentions it is 'brutal', is it grim dark brutal hardcore for the sake of it? Are there elves?

See here

# ¿ Jun 29, 2016 22:20

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

savin hill is a good street dogs album

# ¿ Aug 5, 2016 00:50

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Cnaiur digging holes in the ground and loving them while crying, is me irl

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 16:15

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

it's definitely a helicopter

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 13:13

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Libluini posted:

To even think of a helicopter in connection to this, you must be the stupidest human being alive.

I'm sorry to be so harsh, but that's literally the first thought popping into my head when I read this.

it's a really big rape helicopter. The Inchoroi have those.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 13:55

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Kellhus' glowing hands are because he's holding signal flares. This is extremely obvious.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 14:02

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Rime posted:

This author was gifted an unnatural way with words.

well, it's certainly unnatural.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 12:32

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Rime posted:

I was really down for "digging holes in the ground and loving them".

An Unnatural Way With Holes

# ¿ Dec 6, 2016 19:50

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

I liked the first book and a half and it slowly but steadily got worse from there, and I was like 17, so honestly I'd say stop now

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 18:27

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Can someone explain the whale mothers in detail because they sound absolutely hilarious and I'm not reading any more of these books

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 16:25

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Strom Cuzewon posted:

There was Esmenet reminiscing about her kids with "And then came the nameless one, with eight limbs and no eyes. The physician priests had drowned it, according to Nansur tradition, in unwatered wine"

I was cool with vagina-heads, but that bit made me wince.

I can imagine it did. after all, if they had that tradition these days, your mum would never have survived childhood

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 11:54

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Your mum's so ugly she's the reason Cishaurim gouge out their eyes.

your mum's anus is so insatiably hungry for monster cock, average-sized men call it the Judging Eye

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 13:48

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

your mum�s holes are so nasty, her favourite dildo was repurposed as a terrifying weapon, the Heron Spear

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 16:19

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Your mum's so ugly that Eliazarous only hosed her because of his cataracts.

rumour has it that the most fearless Mandate scholars face one final Dream of Seswatha that none have ever experienced without succumbing to madness and clawing out their own eyes in their sleep; the very night you were conceived

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 17:57

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

...drat

# ¿ Jan 25, 2017 18:02

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Did he have a stroke while writing that or did I have one while reading it

# ¿ Mar 20, 2017 02:35

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

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?

Trying to write fantasy in the era of Tumblr derived opinions must be the most anxiety producing career.

the mother fuckin tumblristas are at it again. ...

# ¿ Jun 20, 2017 12:02

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

General Battuta posted:

Has Bakker really considered the whole problem of holes? How did Kellhus stick it in Proyas so easily? Was his rear end in a top hat prepared by careful manipulations? Dilated and stretched through the mysteries of the Thousandfold Thought? Does the Aspect-Emperor gently caress a conditioned butt? I need to know, R Scott

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ¿ Jul 21, 2017 18:59

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

General Battuta posted:

(Now, I think Bakker's philosophy is inane, his 'neuroscience' is all freshman-year obvious, and his terrors of Blind Brains, Rape Modules, and Pornographic Future are basically overheated religious fears glazed in citations...but I do think it's possible to write well on these topics in fiction, and produce something that has worth distinct from a bunch of papers on Google Scholar.)

e: write well on the topics of neuroscience, psychology, and subjectivity in general, not Bakker's weird hobgoblins

huh it never occurred to me that Bakker is essentially Whathisname Yubchanksy with his Dark Enlightenment and Roko's Basilisk

# ¿ Jul 24, 2017 11:24

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Rime posted:

This is all very true and it would be nice if the book barn mods were as vicious as the D&D ones when it comes to handing down super long probations for serial threadshitting.

this would be good because it would mean people would stop coming into the literature thread and explaining why it hurts their feelings that people read books with no wizards in them

# ¿ Jul 25, 2017 10:30

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

So you're just saying that it makes sense, but it's just genre idiocy. Your defence is a belaboured explanation of how the sci-fi alien works instead of, you know, something on aesthetic grounds. Also lol at how desperately Rothfussian your reading gets at the end (what does 'a blanket being stretched across this vast chasm of time' actually mean?).

And it's more of Bakker's tiresome doom and gloom.

okay man I don't disagree with you at all and it was funny at first but it's getting a bit tedious now, take a break

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 10:52

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhh

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 17:05

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Mustang posted:

I just finished the first trilogy, I love the setting but I have to say, I thoroughly dislike just about every character. Achamian is the most sympathetic but even he irritates me when he pushes his hate aside to be in awe of Kelhuss. I'm eagerly looking forward to Kelhuss getting his poo poo pushed in at some point.

Both Esmenet and Serwe are super annoying and unfortunately they're like the only two female characters other than the Emperors mom, who is also pretty lovely.

It's okay I read the first book of the second trilogy and Achamian fuckin sucks in it, and then shags his daughter, so

(I didn't read past that book)

# ¿ Aug 6, 2017 23:57

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

It's what publishers demand now. When Steven Erikson eventually got the first Malazan book published it was only under the condition that he write another nine

# ¿ Sep 1, 2017 00:29

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Interesting... how does this relate to any literary qualities the books might possess?

Come on dude

# ¿ Sep 7, 2017 10:47

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Lol he's actually self satisfied enough to preface his short story with "...at the very least, I think it does a good job of unseating some fairly standard human conceits"

# ¿ Jan 21, 2018 02:53

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

I am so glad I tapped out at the judging eye this sounds hilarious. He was just possesses by Satan all along?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2018 14:49

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 15:39

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

It's actually done best in the Mahābhārata, closely followed by Might and Magic 7.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2018 10:31

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

I'm nursing a semi waiting for neuropath 2

# ¿ Dec 24, 2018 01:27

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Moby Dick for the first part at least, the entire deal with the whale is a bunch of people trying to confront the unknowable and failing. No black demon jizz.

What do you think oil is

# ¿ Dec 28, 2018 02:06

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Goons have eccentric approaches to random authors. The fantasy/scifi general thread which I had never visited got bizarrely personal about me for saying (a) Malazan has some lovably goofy moments and (b) Solzhenitsyn was bad

# ¿ Jan 5, 2019 10:30

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Libluini posted:

Well, to be fair that are some really bizarre opinions.

even if you wrote the best book in the world it would automatically, retroactively become very Bad as soon as Jordan Peterson wrote a gushing intro for a re-release

# ¿ Jan 6, 2019 14:16

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

Give him a few years tbf

# ¿ Jan 6, 2019 17:03

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:14

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

may'haps it be elitist of me but i feel entitled to, as an adult, refuse to read any book where there's a dragon that talks about cunny.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2019 03:34

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > R. Scott Bakker & The Prince of Nothing: Better than Fucking a Hole in the Ground

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