 The Darkness That Comes Before:
Unassuming start, solid foundation for later books
The Darkness that Comes Before is the beginning of yet another epic fantasy. It stands out a bit with its more gritty feel, its lack of frequent overt magic, the relative lack of supernatural creatures, and its more full use of religion and philosophy. Those with some awareness of history will also see clear parallels (though not necessarily in one on one fashion) to the Crusades, another nice twist. Like many of the more ambitious works in the genre, there are a plethora of characters and places with the book's narrative shifting back and forth between them and there is a grand sense of time, with events from thousands of years ago playing out in the present.
Darkness shares with some of those other works the same highlights and lowlights. The plot is complex enough to remain stimulating throughout and the shift in point-of-view offer up a more interesting story while allowing more in-depth characterization. Bakker handles the narrative shifts smoothly and has a good sense of when it's time to leave one character for another. The characters are also nicely balanced in terms of interest so that there is no drop-off for the reader as we move along. The same is true, mostly, for the various storylines, though some are more compelling and better paced than others.
The negatives, while not outweighing the positives, are a noticeable drag however. Because the book must recount history over the course of several thousand years and set up the reader for the coming conflict, there is a lot of exposition that must be handed out. It is rarely done in clumsy or uninteresting fashion (a few places here and there), but so much information does slow the book now and then. The number of characters also sometimes serves to dilute their individual impact. If they are well-balanced in terms of none are truly uninteresting, they are also well-balanced in that none, so far, really stand out. The sorcerer Achamiam is the best drawn and so far carries the best potential, but even he is not really forcefully compelling. The good thing though is that Bakker has truly laid some good character groundwork so the potential is obviously there.
Darkness therefore is a solid if not particularly inspiring introduction to the series. It didn't sweep me along; it didn't make me frantic to try and get a jump on the second book, as has happened with other series where I'll pay extra shipping or even go international to get hold of the next work. But it did hold my interest throughout and left me with enough interest to keep reading. And it is different enough from so much of the formulaic fantasy that is out there that the difference alone makes for a more pleasurable read. My guess is now that the foundation has been so neatly laid out in all sorts of ways—plot, character, history, politics, religions, etc.—the next book will move along more speedily and will offer up more intense and compelling scenes. Not a rave review, not a "you've just gotta read this" review, but a solid "this is good intelligent fantasy that breaks out a bit from all the other stuff and has potential to become even better" recommendation. —B.C.
 The Darkness That Comes Before: Pretentious
I should have known better than to start reading a book that has a quote from Nietzsche at the front. The writing is a combination of pretentiousness and clichés. It would have been sufferable if it were one or the other, but the two together just make it excruciating.
"A calligraphy of cries. The thud of astonished flesh. He speared the ecstasy from their inhuman faces, stepped among them and snuffed out their beating hearts."
The whole darn book is written like this. I suppose that's not such a big deal on its own. But in combination with how the characters are written it's too much for me. The main character is an arrogant idiot—exceptionally pompous—and yet he is described by the author in admiration. Have you ever known someone with an enormously over-inflated opinion of their own intellect? That person would be this book, incarnate. I can't bring myself to finish it, though I've tried several times. —M.P.
The Warrior Prophet:
Strong three, improves on first though a few flaws
The Warrior Prophet picks up from The Darkness That Comes Before (which must be read first) and mostly improves on that first book, which in itself was a solid read. Where Darkness suffered from lengthy exposition, now that the basic storyline and world have been set, Bakker can focus on moving things along more quickly, if that can be said about a 600 plus page book. Though the book could be cut by a hundred plus pages, that's a critique that can be made about almost any recent fantasy (heavy sigh) and so can be relegated to the minor "I've grown resigned to this" sort of thing. Despite some padding, the book moves along fluidly and at a good pace for the most part, with only a few lagging areas. Part of the reason for the better pace is that while in book one the Holy War (with clear connections to the Crusades) has to be laboriously prepared, here the War is literally on the march, so while there are still scenes dealing with politics, religion, philosophy, and other non-battle elements, because the army can't just camp out for months on end to deal with these things, Bakker has to settle them quickly or on the run. This self-limiting facet of the plot therefore helps quite a bit. The battles themselves are well-done, though I confess I tend to glaze over such things a bit the second or third time around.
The book also improves on Darkness in that there is less shifting among multiple characters and setting. This was less a problem of complexity than of emotional impact in book one—the constant shifting among so many characters diluted any single character's impact—so while Prophet may be equally complex in plot, the reader cares more about how that plot affects the characters thanks to the welcome sharpening of focus. Characters from book one aren't simply dropped; we just don't spend as much time with some of them.
The ones we do spend time with vary in their degree of interest and depth. As in book one, the most compelling character remains the sorcerer Achamian as we see him wrestle with a variety of issues, among them: his nightly dreams of the first apocalypse, his fear that Kellhus is the harbinger of the second one conflicting with his hope that perhaps Kellhus is more, his love for the whore Esmenet, his tattered relationships with former pupils who consider him a blasphemer. These don't even include his time being tortured or his attempts to track down the "skin-spies" of the Consult. The story is always strongest when it focuses on Achamian, and luckily it does so for most of it.
Unfortunately, however, that means that it does move away from him and it is in these moments that the book tend to lag a bit. None of the other characters are of as much interest. Kellhus, who is the second point of major focus, lacks the depth and conflict of Achamian. He is portrayed as just too good at everything. We're constantly told that when Achamian teaches him math, Kellhus stuns him with how he goes beyond the historical math geniuses. Then we're told the same with regard to philosophy. And then . . . And then . . . I kept waiting for someone to comment on how he cooked the best goat and mended breeches best and so on. Not only was this sort of thing repetitive, but it robbed Kellhus of a sense of humanity (needed even if characters aren't necessarily human) as well as robbing the book of some suspense as one never doubts that Kellhus will achieve what he sets out to. There are a few moments of internal conflict but they are grossly outweighed.
The women characters don't particularly stand out, nor do the other noble characters. Cnaur is mostly a one-note character who doesn't grow all that much. Other characters flash some potential, such as the leader of the Spires (a rival school of magic to Achamian's) but are usually cut away from too quickly.
Finally, Bakker needed to reset some of his character inter-relations and develop them a bit more here as some major plot movement of the latter half of the book revolves around those relationships—ones we haven't seen for about 500 or so pages back to the previous book.
Despite these flaws, Prophet is an enjoyable read. As mentioned, the plot moves quickly and at a good pace despite its 600 pages and the philosophical discussions, rather than slow the pace, complement the more militaristic "action" scenes nicely. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they were my favorite parts, making Prophet not simply enjoyable but thoughtful as well, something that can be said all too rarely about much recent fantasy. While I still wouldn't rank it at the top or in line with Erikson's Malazan series of Martin's soon to be completed trilogy, it is different enough and intelligent enough to recommend strongly if not wildly enthusiastically. Though if book three improves as much on Prophet as Prophet did on book one, that may change. —B.C.
 The Thousandfold Thought: Refreshing change of pace from your typical ending
This was well written and drenched in enough details that you truly could see the picture the author painted. The most amazing thing has been to watch the characters evolve through different influences and to see characters that you liked become characters you could hate.
My favorite part in it all was the fact that it didn't end happily. The ending left me thinking, "Wow! That sucks!" and yet it fit the mold and really summed up how things had evolved. —J.H.
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