The Unholy Consult: The Aspect-Emperor

Oof. To any fellow fans of medieval-fantasy series – with or without a side of grimdark – a word of advice: steer well clear of R. Scott Bakker’s shark-jumping train wreck of a septology. Despite interesting-to-amazing worldbuilding, a genuinely good and novel take on magic, the bones of a compelling story, and the impressive ability to occasionally layer *relevant* philosophical insight into the narrative in a way that enhances rather than detracts, this series gets progressively worse the further in you go. I’m normally reluctant to review any creative works, especially since the enjoyment of stuff like this is often hopelessly subjective, but my disappointment here was so great that I felt obligated.I was able to gloss over (if not ignore) some critical faults in the otherwise-enjoyable first three books due to the aforementioned strengths, but the last four volumes really double down on all the worst parts of the series – unnecessary and exaggerated gore, violence, sexual assault, sexism, misogyny, incoherent battle scenes, purple prose galore, and excessively indulgent info-dumps and pretentious philosophizing – all while bolting on a legitimately terrible and contrived ending that hinges on one of the worst, most insufferable characters of the entire series. This last book has caused me to reconsider my former willingness to recommend even the original trilogy to people.*SPOILERS*And to be clear here: I don’t mind plot twists, sudden reversals, or even “bad endings” where Team Evil ultimately prevails – or is at least not fully defeated – but that requires foreshadowing, thematic consistency, and sufficiently intelligible plotting so that it is a logical (even if not obvious) extension of *what came before.* That was not the case here.Also, when Bakker kept Kelmomas around even *after* he’s outed to everyone of note as a scheming, murderous little proto-tyrant, and then Esmenet, despite recognizing this, inexplicably gives him the means to escape captivity, I had a sinking suspicion that he was somehow going to have a much bigger role to play in the ending. Little did I know that he’d sink the entire endeavor single-handedly.Even if it’s true that Bakker is writing more books to “finish” this, whatever that means, I think I’m all tapped out. I’m curious in a “read the Wiki” sense, but no more, and even that's probably a sunk-cost thing.

I sort of figured it would end the way that it did, and I am part of the minority that appreciates the way it ended. But beware, the last third of the book is an appendix.I am eager to see how the series could continue on after this, so here's to hoping that Bakker's publishers get their priorities straight and give the man more (and better) deals.This book lives up to the series’ given name of The Second Apocalypse. A lot of people are not happy with how this ends, or more specifically, the manner in which the ending Is achieved.All I can say is that, unlike GoT, which should have ended with Westeros covered in glaciers, this story had the resolve to end in spectacularly bleak fashion.This is also the same series that got me to stop reading mountains of fantasy work. After this, short of the morbid curiosity that inevitably will accompany the release of Winds of Winter, (or to a lesser extent Rothfuss’ Doors of Stone) there just isn’t really anything out there (in fantasy) that has the particular ingredients that this series has. Perhaps I’ve a predilection for desolate stories, but this is certainly the best fantasy series I have read.

I read the entire series, only to find utter disappointment at the end of Book 7. As others have stated, at times reading through this series was truly a slog of slogs. But the world building and some of the characters were intriguing enough to keep prodding me along.Then I arrived at the end of the Unholy Consult, to the worst ending of any fantasy series I've ever read. Only the fact I was reading a Kindle version on my Fire instead of a paper copy kept this book from launched across the room after I finished the last chapters.I've heard another series is planned to wrap this series up. I really don't care. I'm done with Mr. Bakker's series.

Like others here, I echo the same sentiment about this book. It felt like this book was built on a ton of chapters of filler, and then a little bit of story, mostly buried underneath an amazingly epic pile of self aggrandizing prose. I found myself having to read several parts over and over and then going to the web to try to understand what exactly it was I was reading. If you have to rely on outside help to understand a simple conversation between characters, that is just a result poor authorship and editing. I read this book because I really liked the world that Bakker had created, but his other books, despite the same annoying prose, were much more on target and to the point. This book (and honestly, book 3 suffers from the same issues) just beats the ordeal to death and becomes a real life "slog" to read through. He really could have just condensed book 3 and 4 into one book, doing away with the needless "single chapter" characters and the endless chapters on the ordeal eating sranc and itself. I think after this book I may be done with Earwa forever, even if more books come out. Sad really, so much potential, but no real payoff

This series has some fantastic philosophical and personal explorations. World building is awesome. The plot is excellent. But wow is the writing bad! Talk about slogs ….. the chapters about the Nonmen are almost non-readable. The battles are incredibly confusing and really worthless. The ending is enigmatic at best. I really still don't know what happened. Kelmomas, Kellus, Ajokli all in the Golden Room … what really happened there. Surely the prose doesn't explain it. Overall a major disappointment. Bakker needs to take a creative writing class at a community college or get some sort of competent editor. Makes GRRM look like Shakespeare.

A slog, much like the slog from earlier books. If you like character arcs that go nowhere, endless repetitious pages of turgid (and quite disgusting to be honest) description, and a divisive ending then this is for you.Happy that I have finished both series, which do have some interesting ideas, characters and world-building, but honestly, there should have been a decent editor let somewhere near this. Pompous florid philosophising and repetition of words/phrases is not the "high quality" writing some reviewers seem to think it is.

I don't know what to say in all honesty. I'll leave the informative reviews for others. But I will say this is as good as any of the previous books in the series, appropriately epic and fantastic. The ending will be discussed for a long time I would say. If you've read this far you aren't going to stop now and you shouldnt. I thought it was an amazing, tough and relentless read and I won't even pretend to understand everything that happens. But I've found, when looking back on chapters and passages, I understood more than I first thought I had. And things seem a bit clearer. It's been an actual experience reading this series, sometimes hard but always fascinating.Recommended

IMHO as a lifelong sci-fi and fantasy geek, the Second Apocalypse is one of the greatest works in the genre, the only thing comparable to Frank Herbert’s Dune sequence.I’ve re-read the entire series a few times and each time a get a new layer; the structure is coherent and built across the sequence - it isn’t immediately obvious what the significance is of certain narrative tracts, but they all resolve into powerful themes of language, meaning, perception, existence and being.And that truth is a terrifying thing - without giving too much away: in Sir Terry Prattchett’s coining of “knurd”, to truly apprehend the structure of reality is something humans really aren’t built for…so you need something inhuman. As to what the Inverse Fire really is, what the Tekne and Daimos implies about existence, and the curious properties of Witness.The whole series is mindblowing.

Sublime! His language transporting you to the depths of the pile of rot. Or something like that. How he manages to make a battle last pretty much an entire book is beyond me. It is epic and microscopic at the same time. Loved it! Pleeeeeeeeeease can we have more? Pweeeeeeeeease???

Wow! I just finished this, which is the last in a series of 9 and I've just read them all back to back, which has taken about 7 months, and I'm pretty blown away :o Easily one of the best series I've ever read, can't recommend it enough.