Pierre Nel &
The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker

Would be five stars if not for the surplus of gratuitous sex scenes and the sometimes overly derivative world-building, especially when it comes to the religions (e.g., the central figure of the Christianity pastiche is named INRI).

Amazing.

For a long time I wasn't very interested in the genre of fantasy. From the little I'd read, most of it recommended by those who claimed to know the genre well, I'd decided that fantasy was basically a very, very long blowjob for a man named J. R. R. Tolkien. I found that most of what I'd read-- such as Robert Jordan, David Eddings, and Dragonlance books-- were unoriginal and long-winded cliche-fests with little unique to distinguish them. It is because of books like these that I honestly thought George R. R. Martin was the only interesting thing happening in fantasy. But, Martin has been around for a little while, and now his disciples are beginning to arrive. Both R Scott Bakker and Joe Abercrombie have stated that A Song of Ice and Fire was a huge influence on their decisions to write fantasy in the first place. I've been excited about reading both of these authors, but I must admit I was a little afraid they would turn out to simply be a different kind of derivative. Bakker isn't derivative. The Darkness That Comes Before is the beginning of a trilogy that concerns a holy war. Our protagonists include a sorcerer spy, a warlord with no living friends or tribe, an aging prostitute and a young concubine who just can't keep from being stolen by mean people. But, the story really moves around Kellhus, a man (maybe?) who is searching for his father, supposedly with the intent of killing him. Kellhus is, simply put, an amazing villain. He's smarter than the characters moving around him, and is able to effortlessly manipulate them without any of them (or us) knowing what his true motivation is. He's up there with Steerpike and Ozymandias on my list of most hatable villains. Bakker gives me everything I look for in a fantasy book: developed characters, a strong sense of place, intrigue and action. And Big ideas. Bakker also manages to leave out all the stuff I hate. For instance, the predictability level is low, although I have one broad prediction about one character. Other than that, I have no guesses. Also, none of the characters are too heroic to be believable. But neither are they unnecessarily reprehensible. We like them all, and feel sorry for them all (except for Kellhus). I can't give the book five stars, though, because it isn't a full story. In TDTCB, Bakker has basically set the chess board, and explained to us why this game is important. It ends right when the holy war is ready to begin, and we're left excited to find out what the hell happens. This isn't a bad thing; it's common in trilogies. Other than the lack of an ending and an occasionally slow pace, I don't have any criticisms of the book. The treatment of women is disturbing, but this is intentional, presenting a brutally honest reflection of how women were treated in less enlightened times. And, it's especially brutal since the women aren't peripheral characters. We see through their eyes as they deal with a society that treats them like chattel. Let me sum up. If you are a fan of GRRM, or if you like fantasy but find most of it disappointingly unoriginal, there's a good chance you'll like this series. And I'm excited to finally be reading an epic fantasy that I'm in love with THAT HAS AN ENDING.

A rich stew of Dune's cruelty, politics and prophecies, Tolkien's orthography and hereditary virtue, Wolfe's tragic palimpsests, the real sordid history of the Crusades, and ancient Greek elitist metaphysics and fatalism. It should be derivative, and his reliance on making absolutely everything Bad Ass should make it risible. But he blends them all smooth. The young can never see life for what it is: a knife’s edge, as thin as the breaths that measure it. What gives it depth isn’t memory. I’ve memories enough for ten men, and yet my days are as thin and as shadowy as the greased linen the poor stretch over their windows. No, what gives life depth is the future. Without a future, without a horizon of promise or threat, our lives have no meaning. Only the future is real, Conphas, and unless I make amends to the gods, I’ve no future left.” To the extent that the average fantasy novel has any philosophy, it is Celtic mythology: revenge, polytheism, human frailty, the hidden world as sick morality play. Bakker (a philosophy PhD) instead manages the first convincing Dark Aristotle / Spinoza I've ever seen. The central theme is the relationship between knowledge and free will, and, here's the unusual bit, not just a trivial nod to the mystical deepness of these concepts. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before? ..."Sentiments, like a son’s love for his father, simply deliver us to the darkness, make us slaves of custom and appetite... I am my thoughts, but the sources of my thoughts exceed me. I do not own myself, because the darkness comes before me.” Achamian had protected innocence, had allowed it to flee to a safer place. How could anyone condemn such a thing? But every act could be condemned. The same as all bloodlines could be traced to some long-dead king, all deeds could be chased to some potential catastrophe. One need only follow the forks far enough. One odd bit about his predominantly feudalist world is the amount of social mobility. Achamian and Serwe and others rise from peasantry to consult or consort with emperors. First 120 pages are relatively generic and monotonous, about an old spy filled with sentiments and insecurities seeing the shadows draw in. The magic system is also kind of ordinary, OP. But then it moves to a realistic materialist view of the crusades. And then, better, to an actually psychologically plausible "barbarian" and his intense mental chess with a manipulative Buddhist/Nietzschean superintelligence, Kellhus. He had fled his childhood and had crawled into the honour of his father’s name, Skiötha, Chieftain of the Utemot. With his father’s shameful death, he’d fled and crawled into the name of his people, the Scylvendi, who were the wrath of Lokung, more vengeance than bone or flesh. Now they too had died shamefully. There was no ground left to him. He lay nowhere, among the dead. all things men do are journeys, I ask you, why are... the customs that bind what men do like mountain passes? Why do they ride the same trails, over and over again, when the ways to their destination are without number?” ...Where others filed through illusory canyons, his soul ranged the trackless plains... they spoke not to share perspectives or to communicate truths but to come before—to dominate souls and circumstances... These men were more than human, they were Kahiht, World Souls, locked in the great wheel of great events. One bartered principle and piety to accomplish what principle and piety demanded... Proyas suffered, as all men of high purpose must, the endless exchange of principles for advantages. Kellhus is a bit of an insert sometimes. Too strong, too unerring ("what makes him different?” “He’s . . . better. Better than most men.” “Most men?"). (view spoiler)[Though he does kill a child. (hide spoiler)] Men are Men and women are Women here: the latter helpless and afraid. I don't have a clear sense whether the many first-person passages about what this is like for the women lifts it. But he makes us care for Esmenet and then suffer for caring. It's all grey at best. There are about a dozen awful foes, mostly humans. (view spoiler)[The Consult, the ultimate demonic conspiracy, are well-done. Bakker uses all the elemental horrors: political infiltration, doppelganger horror, sexual corruption, bad bodies. It stood a short distance away, perched on the railing, watching him with shiny blue eyes. It had the body of a crow, but its head was small, bald, and human—about the size of a child’s fist. Stretching thin lips over tiny, perfect teeth, it smiled. (hide spoiler)] I was slightly chilled by the similarity of the Mandate to my own x-risk community: a bunch of doomsters screaming about a perfectly hidden evil, who get laughed off despite their skill and seriousness. I am impressed with how much light he manages to put into his grimdark feudal dystopia. After the initial overwrought goth stuff, the prose often settles into routinely beautiful observant notes: He offered her the blanket, which she took in knotted hands. She had clenched everything with a strange fierceness lately, as though daring small things to be glass. with the vacancy of one preparing to hate And the Dunyain who come in halfway are a welcome tonic of agency and knowledge, though horrifying in their own way. Bakker goes on my very short list of fantasy writers who write as great writers write (Clarke, Wolfe, Le Guin), and my barely longer list of novelists who can do philosophy rather than simulating it (St Aubyn, Goldstein, Pirsig, Markson, DFW, Murdoch, Borges, Card, Lem, Chiang, Egan) .

I really enjoyed this even though I found it to be quite dense around 150-250 pages in. It jumps around to different factions, which is always interesting, but it is a lot to remember sometimes. The nice thing about listening to audio book was the pacing the reader took. Because it was slower than reading it was easier to digest, I think. It doesn’t read like typical fantasy, which I can’t usually get through. I like the prose, which don’t overstay their welcome but paint evocative details. The world is interesting, the characters complex. There are definitely no “heroes”. The only thing that stood out was sometimes the writing was a litttle cringe when it turned its eye to women in regards to characterizing other male characters, which is pretty eye roll worthy and tropey. Otherwise it was very novel for me and I will definitely continue on to the next book as well.

I have thought back and forth for awhile, but I think I am finally giving up on this book after reaching the half-way mark. I want to come back to it and try again someday, but I'm really not in the right mood for this book. The names are awful. I don't think I've encountered names as difficult as the ones in The Prince of Nothing. I can't remember who is who because their names are all so complicated. Throw places into the mix and I am lost. What I loved about this book and why I really want to come back to it is the writing. Bakker's writing is beautiful. He's not afraid to use complicated prose and difficult vocabulary which is sometimes absent from other fantasy when authors get caught up in character development and worldbuilding. Usually, my attention is not drawn to the writing style in a book unless it is horrible or bizarre, but Bakker has a wonderful way with words that you don't read every day.