If
you’re reading this review, then there’s no need to go into any rigamarole
about The Prince of Nothing or Aspect Emperor series by R. Scott
Bakker. Point blank: The White Luck Warrior superbly
escalates the story begun in The Judging Eye, and indirectly so the The Prince
of Nothing series, to leave the reader on the doorstep, panting for more. The
Unholy Consult is going to be as epic as epic fantasy gets.
Where
The Judging Eye expends much of its
energy re-setting the pieces on the board and putting them in motion, The White Luck Warrior opens with the
pieces already in motion—and in some cases, exhausted from the rousing
conclusion to The Judging Eye. Though there are lulls and eddies, The White Luck Warrior moves these
pieces’ stories full-steam. The Great
Ordeal, still marching its way across the great plain, encounters unheard of
swarms of sranc; Akka and his daughter still head toward the coffers of Mimara
to learn the roots of the Aspect Emperor; and things in Momemm remain
politically unsettled as Kelhus’ family continues to implode. Thus, to say the
book is non-stop action is one step too far; whether it be tense scenes
involving Kelhus’s mad children or Sorweel discovering his role in the great
ordeal, learning about the Non-man’s real history or what dragon’s bones mean,
Bakker ramps up the action at a steady, engaging pace leading directly into the
concluding volume. If everything
continues to move in the directions hinted at, The Unholy Consult is going to be one hell of a climax.
So
yes, if you like what you’ve read so far, The
White Luck Warrior is just as good, if not the best yet. Digging ever deeper into the implications of
the Great Ordeal as plot revelations and twists appear, it’s a middle volume
that heightens the stakes rather than leaving them out to dry. The harsh, brooding mood of the prior books
continues to address Bakker’s uber-grimdark agenda in philosophical as much as
plot-centric fashion. Leading me to
believe, if The Unholy Consult is as
good as The White Luck Warrior and
Martin continues to be unable to focus the storyline of A Song of Ice and Fire, Bakker may be able to say he has written
the best epic fantasy series of the modern era.
No comments:
Post a Comment