/lit/ - Literature

Finished the last two books of the second apocalypse series.
Overall a good series. The writing is strong, and bakker has a talent for creating a unique and interesting world. And the way he uses this as a vehicle for his philosophical ideas deserves a praise.

Also, the parallels between this series and malazan are fun. Like Cnaiür felt like a better version of Karsa Orlong.
However, while I enjoyed the conflict and journey of the characters in the first book, Kellhus invalidates these in the rest of the series.

The love triangle between Akka, Esmi and him?
We know Kellhus doesn’t feel anything and Esmi thoughts and feelings are artificially created by Kellhus. She isn’t just manipulated to “love” him and Kellhus doesn’t want to steal her away from Akka. He just calculated that she is useful for him and therefor made it happen.
I liked the dynamic between the whore Esmi and the honorless Akka in the beginning. And I would have loved to read the tragedy about they love falling apart or even getting a “happy ending” with them.

But with kellhus there is no tragedy. Esmi doesn’t have a choice. From a certain perspective, she has less freedom then a slave or a trained dog. Similar things happen to almost every other character. Kellhus turns these characters into mindless tools and we are just wondering what he intends to do with them.
You could argue in a similar fashion for the holy war. Instead of a devasting and murdering tragedy, it turns into a series of random town sackings as a part of Kellhus 10000 year long masterplan.

Turns out I like the Idea of a character like Kellhus. But I don’t like it as a big omnipresent part in the novel.
Not sure if I want to read another four (six?) books of this.