The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker (Orbit Books)

If it was not for the online fantasy community over at various message boards plus the addition of fans of the genre running their own weblogs, I think I would have never picked up The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker. After all what else would be reason enough to pick up this one, the cover art? Not a chance, although the ‘dark’ cover is in many ways a foreboding of what is to come, it does not lure me into reading the book. The reputation of the writer? This is Bakker’s debut novel, the first one to hit the shelves. No, purely because of the exposure via the internet, I picked this book up. This is actually good example of both the strenghts and the weaknesses of a still rapidly growing medium. I can honestly say that I am glad that I picked this one up. The book certainly is not flawless, but still a fascinating read. Let’s dive right in.

Most of this is already common knowledge, but for the ones who are not familiar with Earwa, Bakker’s world, I will quickly outline the situation at the start of the novel and introduce the most important characters. We have cast of multinational characters, in the sense that almost every single important character comes from different area of the world and has a different background. This brings a lot of variety to the table. As the story kicks off, we find ourselves entangled in a holy war of the Inrithi religion. Target is the southern area of the Three Seas, lands ruled by the Fanim. Goal is to cleanse the land of the heathen and free the holy city of Shimeh. This call to arms comes from the new the spiritual leader of Inrithi faith, shriah Maithanet. As the story progresses, we witness the gathering of thousands thousands (as Bakker would put it) of fanatical followers at the gates of the city of Momemn, ruled by Emperor Ikurei Xerius of the Nansur. This holy war is also the precedent of much larger and darker conflict, of which outcome will decide the shape of the world itself. This setting provides the author with the necessary means in order to weave a fine tale of twisting intrigues, vicious dialogues and awe-inspiring worldbuilding.

Now, who inhabit this world? We have, maybe most importantly Kellhus, a Dunyain monk from the North, of an old race forgotten long ago and believed to be extinct. Although he is not continually present during the whole tale, it is certain the book does revolve around him and his mysterious search for his farther, residing in the holy city Shimeh. There is something strangely eerie and unfrettening about his character, this is partly because most of scenes in which he is featured, are described from the point of view of another, Cnaiur or Serwe for example so never really know what exactly motivates his actions. We do know as a reader that he is dangerous, manipulating and twisted, but on the other hand he is compassionate, friendly and is even capable of loving and caring. Or so it seems. This continuous blur of contradictions makes it hard for the reader to really pin point him down. Personally, I find that fascinating. I have never encountered a character before who is so inscrutable that I have difficulty deciding on whose side he is in the conflict. Maybe he is only his side, Kellhus’ side. This brings us to Cnaiur, a forty four year old Scylvendi barbarian, Chieftain of the Utemot clan. He is Bakker’s powerhouse, an incredibly strong warrior, hardened by the plains where he has lived all of his life. And if you do not believe me, just count his gazond, the battle scars covering his arms and back. Cnaiur is fascinating in totally different way. Where Kellhus relies on manipulation of the mind to overcome his enemies, Cnaiur uses brutal force and a brutal form of intelligence. There is nothing twisted in Cnaiur, yet he is as insane as Kellhus nevertheless. This seemingly contradiction of the two, it is almost like they are opposite poles of each-other, makes their dialogues very interesting. In fact I would number the parts where they travel together across the Scylvendi plains among the best in the book. I really do like this character, because he is so fun to ‘watch’ and he capable of doing the unexpected. Then we have the Mandate sorcerer and spy, Drusas Achamian. The Mandate School is an organisation specialised in controlling events concerning (the ‘rise’ of) the No-God, which led to the First Apocalypse. Akka, as his name is abbreviated, is certainly the one meant to empathise with, since he is the most human of the whole cast. I found him an interesting character on the whole, but not as fascinating as the former two. The fact that he does sometimes indulge in his human emotions, does make him a bit tiresome on some occations. Still, he is a nice change from the ‘inhuman personalities’ portrayed by the two described above. Last but not least, we have Emperor Ikurei Xerius of the Nansur Empire. He was somewhat of a pleasant surprise for me, I found his madness as obsessed Emperor quite hilarious at times. I imagine, if Steven Erikson was willing to write from a Laseen POV, she would be something like Xerius because they two are similar. In the end, his obsession with his nephew Conphas, Exalt-General and with the Indenture of the holy war, put me off. Still, Bakker did an excellent job in the characterisation of this Emperor. I mentioned above that Achamian tended to indulge a bit too much in his emotions for my liking, sadly the same can be said of the two prominently featured female charaters, Esmenet a thirty-one year old Sumni whore and Serwe, a nineteen year old Nymbricani concubine. Their reactions to things happening to them tended to bother me a bit, as they were just too overly emotional. I would have skipped those parts if not for fearing I would miss some of the important information. I wouldn’t necessarily say the characterisation of the females was lacking, it just was not up to par compared to the male characters who felt much more fleshed out. Still, I would say that characterisation is certainly one of the strenghts of R Scott Bakker as a writer.

I referred above to the fear of missing important clues, I say this because the writing is dense. Although the book consisted of only six hundred pages, it felt much longer. The thing I can admire in Bakker’s writing is the fact that he able to pack so much information in just a couple of striking sentences. His of choice of words did felt a bit unnecessary difficult on some instances. In any case, the fact that he graduated in philosophy clearly shows through, reading this book felt like an intellectual challenge in some ways. One that I really cherished. I have not encountered any pacing problems throughout the novel, the narrative flow is pretty consistent. Each time I pick up something new to me it does take some time to get used to the authors’ specific style, but once I get used to it a barely notice it anymore. A thing a lot people seem to complain about is the fact that they are so many sort of names and places, all adding to the confusion. I actually experienced it otherwise, to me it really added to the scope of the world and contributed to the scale. It did certainly not confuse, nor did I have problems pronouncing some of names, I just pronounced whoever I think it sounded best to me. Many people define this series as gritty, I can certainly see where they are coming from, although I would rather define it as ‘darkly epic’. The first book does contain a lot of sex an violences, especially Esmenet’s POV, so you are warned.

Now, the two inevitable questions remaining are, ‘how the hell is R Scott Bakker going to wrap this up in merely two books’ and ‘how the hell should I rate this effort compared to other epic fantasy novels’? The former is easy, I am planning to pick up the rest of the Prince of Nothing trilogy, The Warrior-Prophet and the The Thousandfold Thought and find out. As for the latter, if I take the characterisation, prose, scope and world building and the fact that there is undoubtly still room for some improvement, into consideration I would rate it:

Eight and a half out of Ten