Diet Chek Cola

[Cantih]

I was simply waiting for you to ask. Never know where your attention is, don't want to trespass IAS overmuch, I cant pull off that kind of style consistently or constantly.

Spoilered for Linliel & Qualbert, dunno where they are at.

Spoiler: show

As I said before, it is a solid series. Up there with George R.R. Martin & Steven Erikson's Malazan (or so I hear, it's in my stack). But no so high that it should incite derision in other series/authors as it seems to in you. The spying/plotting/intriguing in the first book is about as quality as what was in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series.
I can't really say anything about the Crusades stuff, not my area.

I don't like Kellhus much. Though he (so far) looks to be doing the right goals that need to be done, the eradication of the Consult, the man is so utterly heartless. Yes at the end of book two he pulls off a magnificent bastard xanatos gambit that would impress even Lelouch and Light, but he uses people up and tosses them away. There's that group of 40 people he left Atrithau with. And there's the Dûnyain room of faces, every bit as wrong as everything Consult being a rape machine. Yes it's nice to read non-black/white morality, but everyone here is just assholes. With George R.R. Martin, when shit happens to his characters you cheer or fffffff, but with these people it's all =|

The closest you get to a decent human being is Achamian (and Xinemus). And yes, he is badass when he busts out Gnosis in book two and three. The wathi doll is an awesome little bastard, and got the best scenes imo.

As for the philosophical bits, it didn't really trigger a wow response, but that's because I've already covered much of that ground on my own. But it is something put together well enough that it should be handed to the average person to try and get them thinking.

Another thing that bugs me is, Bakker shows Kellhus working people over bit by bit, but Cnaiür has a single conversation with Conphas and Achamian, and it's all "vwoop, I geiv yuo brain vaccine!" Also, that encounter with the nonman at the very beginning of book one. It vows to hunt him down, and then what. Just disappears for three books. If he doesn't show up in The Judging Eye, I'mma be cross.

[Qalbert]

I'm right here.
http://i528.photobucket.com/albums/d...7tdvbqp7fq.jpg

[Cantih]

was gonna say either you read like me or you were skippin

If I go nuts and do buggerall, I can get through two 350 page paperbacks, stuff like D&D or M:tG novels in a day. But it depends on the complexity of the book. Stuff like Harry potter, well, I got that last book at midnight, then finished it before the person I handed it off to woke up the next morning.
Generally it's book a day, two days if I'm lazy. Only reason I haven't emptied a library is because I also have Video Games, TV shows, and Anime/Manga to consume as well.

[Cantih]

Also, sorry for not seeing the PM. I never get any, so I rarely notice the top right corner of BG.

Needs some middle of window "YOU GOT MAIL BITCH!" popup box option.

[Qalbert]

its under options in user cp

[Cantih]

Well goddamn.

[Qalbert]

yeah, i love it

[isladar]

I was simply waiting for you to ask. Never know where your attention is, don't want to trespass IAS overmuch, I cant pull off that kind of style consistently or constantly.

Spoilered for Linliel & Qualbert, dunno where they are at.

Spoiler: show

As I said before, it is a solid series. Up there with George R.R. Martin & Steven Erikson's Malazan (or so I hear, it's in my stack). But no so high that it should incite derision in other series/authors as it seems to in you. The spying/plotting/intriguing in the first book is about as quality as what was in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series.
I can't really say anything about the Crusades stuff, not my area.

I don't like Kellhus much. Though he (so far) looks to be doing the right goals that need to be done, the eradication of the Consult, the man is so utterly heartless. Yes at the end of book two he pulls off a magnificent bastard xanatos gambit that would impress even Lelouch and Light, but he uses people up and tosses them away. There's that group of 40 people he left Atrithau with. And there's the Dûnyain room of faces, every bit as wrong as everything Consult being a rape machine. Yes it's nice to read non-black/white morality, but everyone here is just assholes. With George R.R. Martin, when shit happens to his characters you cheer or fffffff, but with these people it's all =|

The closest you get to a decent human being is Achamian (and Xinemus). And yes, he is badass when he busts out Gnosis in book two and three. The wathi doll is an awesome little bastard, and got the best scenes imo.

As for the philosophical bits, it didn't really trigger a wow response, but that's because I've already covered much of that ground on my own. But it is something put together well enough that it should be handed to the average person to try and get them thinking.

Another thing that bugs me is, Bakker shows Kellhus working people over bit by bit, but Cnaiür has a single conversation with Conphas and Achamian, and it's all "vwoop, I geiv yuo brain vaccine!" Also, that encounter with the nonman at the very beginning of book one. It vows to hunt him down, and then what. Just disappears for three books. If he doesn't show up in The Judging Eye, I'mma be cross.

Spoiler: show

Kellhus' inhumanity is probably the neatest part of it, watching him take over the Holy War and expose that conflict of doing something horrendous in the name of something good. I really appreciated the exploration of how people only want to hear/believe what they already think. I thought it telling that from book one into three, you get less and less narrative from Kellhus' perspective, as his becomes more and more inaccessible as a person.

Cnaiür in a weird way is the conscious of all of this, as well as an illustration of the potential of the human mind to take on the Dûnyain (sp) mode of thought, though obviously without the advantage of a supposedly stable mental state.

I really liked that most of the characters were beautiful and despicable at the same time; for once in a book series the people are just people, with the capacity to be heroes and fallible. Akka is wonderful, but terribly weak. Esme is naive, but also far more content to be deluded.

Oh and the Imperial Family, my god, how awesome are they?

Philosophy-wise, I found the application of said conflicting modes of thought to be the best part of it, from Akka's obviously Platonic / Socratic mindset to Kellhus' training.

As far as the nonman in book one, oh yes, you'll be happy with the Judging Eye. Fucking scariest shit I've ever read. I'm really glad you took the time to read the books, as I said, I got an immense amount of vicarious pleasure in that.

[Heian]

This thread needs more Winn Dixie bargain brands.

(I used to work at one for quite a few years in management, worst years of my life)

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

Yet Kellhus is largely infallible (which is boring in a character), what few troubles he has are due to his fathers near complete fallibility. The man travels through the world, using people without regard for them, and what's the result? He creates Cnaiür, the most violent of all men, that can now see the crap the man did. There's the shit he pulls down in Shimeh triggering the Scholastic war, when he finds out the skin spies, because he can't handle the situation because he got his eyes plucked out. And then his final fuckup, unleashing Kellhus on the world. The man is a failure of a Dûnyain.

The world between the apocalypse was a normal one, and if it could survive the coming of the next one, it would continue to grow, and maybe be a less shitty place, like we've managed. But now it trades destruction for control. A world under Dûnyain rule is one without any real hope for normal people.

There is a slim chance Bakker could set up Moënghus as a grand puppetmaster, making it so that Kellhus is a tool to destroy the consult, but sowing the seeds to destroy him and the Dûnyain after. But it would require that he have knowledge of the Consult BEFORE ever meeting the Utemot, which he doesn't. It'd take a retcon, and retcons are baaaaaaaaaad.

[isladar]

Spoiler: show

Moënghus is dead, kiddo (thanks, Cnaiür!). And Kellhus is insane, at least I think so. The Circumfix knocked him off, even Moënghus realized that, blind as he was. At this point Kellhus is convinced of his own divinity, which is why he rjgh. Judging Eye stuff. Suffice to say he believes Akka, and is probably what is going to trigger the Second Apocaplypse.

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

Moënghus is dead, kiddo

I'm aware. I meant that he could end up retconing him, to have set events in motion while he was alive, to result in the end state I described. Much like how Kellhus xanatos gambited everyone despite being on the Circumfix. Just much bigger and longer term.
In my argument of Kellhus, I simply saw a likely way Bakker could end up negating it, so included it.

The main thing that is bugging me tbh, separate from the book, is the derision of other authors/books, that just doesn't really feel right.