The Darkness That Comes Before

[Antæos]

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.

[poeticfantasy]

SLIGHT POSSIBLE SPOILER...


I've just finished the book, and i thought it was an incredible read. I love the characters ( My favorite is Cnaiur) and i love how they all have their own flaws. I can't wait to discover who Moenghus is. I have my suspicion that Mallahet is in fact Moenghus, but we'l see if I'm right.
I also love how the Holy War is so corrupted by the human need of power.

Thank you for the great debut Bakker, I hope to read more stuff of yours in the future.

Bravo!

( I just bought the Warrior Prophet at the book store, so far equally as impressive as the first. )

[The Master™]

i picked this book up from the local market... second hand copy... hey, i figure "why spend more than a pound on a book that may not be any good"... and i found this book un-put-downable... enjoying every minute i get to read it... and now i'm gonna have to go to amazon, to get the next two...

[molybdenum]

Just finished the book, so I wanted to say what I thought of it while it is still fresh in my mind.
In order of importance:
Plotline/ Excitement Factor- The major problem I had with this book is it just didn't have enough happen in it for me. I found hundreds of pages would go by and nothing at all would happen. The book didn't build towards a climax at the end, it kept trolling along at the same pace. I know this is the first book in a series, but it still is a single book and it should have some sort of climax.

The consult being revealed at the end didn't really make a climax for me, I saw that coming through the entire book. I didn't expect Skeos in particular, though. At least that was a surprise

Creativity- Not bad. The worldbuilding was very detailed, and the idea of people being able to determine thoughts and history simply from facial expressions was extremely interesting. Nothing extremely out there, though. I'd call it medium level creativity. He did a good job staying away from overused cliches.
Characters- Very well done. Each was deep, with motives that made sense for their actions. Each charater was a little different, and they were all fairly realateable. (Except for Kellhus, but that was on purpose.) The only problem I had was every single person was conceited to various degrees. No one of the God-fearing crowd thought along the lines of "I need to do more." But, then again, how many real people aren't conceited with their thoughts.
Prose/ Dialogue The writing was very good. There was nothing overly flowery, everything was kept to the point. Slight foreshadowing in some spots was good, and the dialogue had a purpose every time. A good job done of people saying one thing and meaning another, but without spelling this out for the reader.
Provocativity- Not quite sure if that's a word. This was an added bonus to the book that it made you think. Though in a fantasy world, it still asked the question "Where are my thoughts coming from?" Do they come from experiances, genetics, lessons learned from teachers. It's interesting to think whether one can determine exactly why they think the things they do at a particular time. It has to be possible, doesn't it.

I will read the next book, I expect the problems with plot to dissipate in the last couple of books as the holy war occurs. 7.5/10

[Aemrys]

I bought this book because i read that Scott bakker went to UWO and he lives in london, ontario. I was like holy crap! i go to UWO i am in the middle of a feast for crows though and i was jsut here reading reviews of the darnkess that comes before and it sounds great. Now i'm torn between the two. I dunno which one to read. With that and tryna study chem not much is being done.
(its always great when your problem is not that there aren't any good books..but which good book to read first ^^)

[BruceDoh]

I fairly read this book in about a week. I haven't been reading a lot in the last couple years, but I found this book fairly captivated me to read it through that quickly. Sure, the pacing is a bit slow, but I was fairly fascinated by the interactions between characters, and the suspense of not quite knowing what hidden agendas each character harbored.

As you may have guessed however, I was a quite distracted by the constant used of the word "fairly", especially since it was used mostly in a context that I was not familiar with. If you're reading this, Scott, I would ask that you tone down your use of this word in your future works. Thanks