Customer Reviews

The Warrior-Prophet: The Prince of Nothing - Book Two

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I reviewed "The Darkness That Comes Before" and gave it 2 stars. I stand by that rating, but I'm extremely happy I stuck with the second book in the series!

The Warrior Prophet is fantastic. The introduction to the book finally gives a succint explanation of the overall framework... reminiscent of the scrolling text in the beginning of Star Wars or the overview in the Lord of the Rings movies.

The characters evolve and develop and take on their traits through their dialog. The characters clearly change through the book. Khellus evolves into a messiah. Achamian is transformed into an all-powerful sorceror. The power center shifts from Proyas and Xinemus to Khellus and Achamian. You have a sense that the ultimate role of Esmenet and Cnaiur are still to be revealed.

The climax is potent and the imagery is much more visceral.

I anxiously await the next book.

This book continues the lovingly detailed world building of The Darkness That Comes Before and adds a sense of horrible necessity. With everything from the linguistic family trees to the interplay of Gnosis and Logos the author he creates a real place that still manages to be utterly fantastic.

In this volume, more than in almost any book I've read we get to see inside the heads of people who are greater and more intelligent than the author or the reader. This is a very neat trick.

As I alluded to earlier, the world is very well constructed. There is a real sense of history as well as merely place. There is religion, not just theistic special effects. We see transformation, and it is often awful and wonderful - in that it creates awe and wonder.

"Warning: This novel contains violence, nudity, and coarse language. Parental discretion is advised. " While this cautionary statement applies perfectly to The Warrior Prophet, it belies the breadth, the depth, and the beauty of the tale. There are scenes of brutally graphic violence. There are also episodes of explicit sexual encounters. And there are occasions where characters utter coarse language. However, none of these episodes is in any way gratuitous. Every event in this epic unfailingly serves to further character development, move the plot forward, and/or enhance the versimiltude of time and place.

There is also great beauty to be found in The Warrior Prophet. The language flows with a poetic sensibility. Moments of glory and trancendance are achieved, however ephemeral their substance. And the fantastic is rendered so skillfully that one scarcely remembers if there ever was a boundary between our own reality and this world of Bakker's creation.

The third book in The Prince of Nothing series cannot come soon enough for this reader.

All I can say is that you must read it. I rarely write reviews, but when I do, it's for something particularly good or something particularly bad. This isn't good. It's amazing.

The title describes this book the best. Epic. Keeping in mind the whole plot of this book is so ambitious, I must comment Mr. Bakker on successfully pulling off such a series, thus far. I have not yet read the third novel, titled 'Thousand Fold Thought' (since it's unreleased as of the writing of this review), but book 1 and 2 are amazing works of literature.

Now, The Warrior-Prophet is my favorite novel currently. I prefer it over such great high fantasy novels like Erikson's 'Gardens of the Moon' and Martin's 'A Game of Thrones', because of the incredible plot, the memorable characters, and the overall presentation.

I won't go through the plot, because it's utterly impossible to really explain. The plot seems like it's about a Holy War, but it's mostly about character reactions to it.
Bakker is such an amazing writer, that even conversations between, say, Scarcellus and Kellhus are extremely gripping. The battle scenes are breathtaking, and the world is realistic.

I must comment on a previous reviewer's opinion on the women (...) mistreatment . Although true, it's frequent, one must remember Bakker is trying to portray this world on a voyage of a Holy War. In this world, women are looked down upon and oftentimes considered harlots. So, of course they'll be mistreated.

The true gem of this series, 'The Prince of Nothing', so far is that just when Bakker lets you think you finally understand what is going to happen, and guess the conclusion, he throws out a little bit of information that completely erases any chance of your guess happening. He guides you to different possible conclusions, and shoots them down.

I apologize for the chaotic nature of this review... but there's so much to cover and I don't know where to begin. In addition, the novel and the series itself is just so complex and yet utterly enjoyable it's impossible to accurately describe in English. Only God knows how Bakker managed to do so.

All I can say is that you must read it. I rarely write reviews, but when I do, it's for something particularly good or something particularly bad. This isn't good. It's amazing.

If you're sick and tired of the usual pattern that fantasy follows, you know - the young-prince-living-as-pauper-discovers-his-true-heritage-and-goes-on-a-quest-to-regain-his-birthright-and-kill-the-evil-usurper plotline that so many authors seemed to be beating like a dead horse these days - then purchase and read Bakker's books *immediately*. I have not come across a fantasy voice as truly refreshing as Bakker's in a very, very long time, Eriksson and Martin included.
His prose is beautifully crafted and he really does a fine job of capturing the grit, dirt, and blood of his world, and does it in such a way that I don't feel I've just read an overly-rambling piece of tangential pulp fantasy-sci-fi swill.
Again, if you are a fantasy fan, expand your literary horizons and read these books.