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I feel obliged to point out that his second "trilogy" is supposed to be four books long. Anyhow, I read the first three back-to-back so I'm waiting for the second cycle to be done before I tackle them. I can't say I was too impressed but it seemed like it had a lot of potential, sadly the first three books really failed to resolve anything past a bunch of mostly irrelevant to the plot politics. Fantasy mostly runs on ideas and while there were some interesting concepts in there all the seemingly pointless detail detracts from them. Also, the loving names. And I'm saying that as someone who is very much a fan of Malazan. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 00:19
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Is he a hero though? I haven't read past book 3 but on ending that I very much had the idea of him as a conniving rear end in a top hat who doesn't get what's coming to him only by virtue of his world being such a shithole you can't really imagine "good" prevailing.
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Jan 7, 2016 16:14
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To be fair while I can see some point in defending the fantasy books, Neuropath really doesn't have any redeeming features - at least in the about 2/3 of it I read. Book's just poo poo.
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Jan 7, 2016 19:30
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Boing posted:It's definitely not a book I would recommend to everyone. Not just because of its weird dark gruesome stuff, but because it takes a certain kind of philosophical open-mindedness to really appreciate (or the kind of cynical psychological education that means you've already come to this conclusion).
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Jan 24, 2016 15:08
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Depends on what you mean by premises of modern science, I guess. I have a mere bachelor in psychology but if that taught me anything it's that we have absolutely no loving idea how the mind works and all our theories stop working at different points. Neurology and brain chemistry don't fully explain identity; similarly while you can manufacture and manipulate social constructs, you cannot effectively predict responses to them on an individual basis without knowing about the person's experience (which tends to be moderately difficult to impossible). I haven't finished Neuropath, but in the fantasy books a lot of the stuff Kellhus does seems implausible - particularly the way he convinces Achamian smells more of plot contrivance than actual manipulation, the buttons he's pushing working because the author wants them to. My main issue, however, is that there from what I've seen there isn't a single bit of acknowledgment that he could be wrong, that there could be some transcendence, hell, that there could be something he didn't think of. I agree Bakker is extremely well-read and very intelligent - but he also reads as extremely arrogant and way too convinced of his own infalliblity. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jan 24, 2016 |
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Jan 24, 2016 20:09
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Reading the Afterword made me really angry for a while (as does lots of what I read, I think you've seen that) because I find it incomprehensible that he would want to write a book about things that haven't been proven yet, to write a book presenting an argument (sorry, an Argument) that the author doesn't actually believe in.
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Jan 24, 2016 22:45
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I don't object to the idea being the centerpiece of a story, but with (what I read of) Neuropath it feels the story is just background for the idea. That doesn't really click with me as a reader.
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Jan 25, 2016 00:22
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Really? Because they feel random as gently caress, this is a book where you got Dunyadin, Xerius, Cnaiur and Esmenet in one place. Not really sure what puts that above standard fantasy fare.
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Feb 7, 2016 18:07
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