Some Luck in the Beginning

Thankfully, The White-Luck Warrior opens with a handy re-cap chapter. The first trilogy is summed up, and then the events in each major character's arc from The Judging Eye is summarized.

Truth be told, I found The Judging Eye to be a bit of a slog, at the beginning.

Where George R.R. Martin tells his story with characters at the fore, and with a crisp sort of prose, Bakker tells his with world-building at the fore. But the world isn't so directly based on something easy like a rotated world map, magic, and the War of the Roses. The world of Bakker's fantasy epic is much more original. And as such, there aren't many analogues to fall back on or to prop up understanding.

The only thing that seems like it can be taken for granted is that the universe's cosmology is similar to most major religious conceptions of our own. There's a god of one sort or another, and then scads more that are much more specialized. But even then, the way that Bakker presents his characters, his narrative, and his world, causes doubts to rise about such a large scale certainty.

Nonetheless, Achamian and the Skin Eaters have left Cil-Aujus, and are now heading into The Mop, a dark and ancient forest.

A huge underground complex, and a primeval forest - both are fantasy mainstays, right?

But Cil-Aujus makes Moria look like a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs, so let's see how the forest stacks up against something like Mirkwood.

Though, before we get more of Achamian, Mimara, and the Skin Eaters, it's back over to Sorweel, the captive prince among the Great Ordeal that Anasûrimbor Kellhus has marching against The Consult. That is, of course, The group that many believe are conspiring to revive the dread No-God Mog-Pharau, a being that threatens the very fabric of existence.