Quote Originally Posted by biodroid View Post
Hi all,
just wanted to find out if the book has any action. I really enjoy his style but I feel it lacks action. To me it reads almost like ASOIAF (I put ASOIAF down after 500 pages). I loved Gardens of the Moon and bought Deadhouse Gates but don't want to read it yet (don't want to get bogged down by one author) so I thought I could read the darkness that comes before. Does the pace pick up? Does it get more action packed, I like fast moving epics like Erikson.
It does. The entire third book is pretty much all the guys kicking asses and taking names.

I like the books ten times more than I like anything I've read by Erikson. Although I do definitely like the guy, and especially his flair for the epic "coming together"-ness, the characters are bland at best (bar one) with unbelievable dialogues and reactions.

Another thing that really appealed to me in Bakker's books were the conflicts and concerns of the characters. They are concerns of humans, with human lusts, peeves, madnesses and so on, and not the concerns of estranged wizards in some very fictional universe somewhere. Immersion is probably the word I'm looking for.

The overall grit in Bakker's world is fantastic as well (in my opinion). The torture, the rape, the occasional paedophelia, the religious hypocrisy and sectarian violence, the large scale WARFARE! And everything detailed so eloquently... amazing to my eyes. Definitely my favorite fantasy author.