A while back I got a book as a present from my brother. I think it was last Christmas. Anyway it was The Darkness the Comes Before, by one R. Scott Bakker. Not an author or book title I had heard of before. Today his writings - one completed trilogy called The Prince of Nothing and one started trilogy named The Aspect-Emperor - are rather well-known.

I quite enjoyed the first book of the series. It's well written. Good language. It also has quite a few interesting characters - even if few of them come across as believable. If compared to he doesn't do too well - Mr. Martin is a far superior writer and a LOT better at character description and development. He does describe his world very well through, and manages to balance keeping true to the fantasy genre while also adding something new and unique to the scene. In all I enjoyed the book very much and would recommend it very strongly indeed.

The next two books were not as great. Bakker still has his strengths and weaknesses, but it's clear that after enjoying some success he's decided to water out the ale and only rarely serve the real thing. It's not bad books as such, but it is really only one volume in theme and content, but two (big) volumes in the print. So it gets sort of tedious. Which turns what could have been one very good book into two mediocre ones.

One final note about the third and last book of the trilogy; it's obvious that it's not the last book. It practically screams follow-up. It left me hugely unsatisfied after ploughing through two whole volumes to reach the conclusion - only to find none. I really need to begin reading the end of a book first...

The new trilogy is not really a new trilogy. It picks up where the first one ended. To me it comes across as what the last volume of the original trilogy was supposed to be like. Only now it's not ONE volume, it's THREE BIG ONES. The ale is no longer watered - you're being served watered piss. I found the Judging Eye to be boring, annoying and completely bereft of originality - it even re-imagines Tolkien's march through Moria - with none of the charm of the original story. Crap crap and utter crap!

I hesitate to say this, because the first book was so good and the next two passable, but stay the hell away! Unless you're really patient and for some reason think Bakker is the new shit. For myself I suppose I'll eventually pick up and read the rest of the Aspect-Emperor. Maybe.