I’m past halfway through The Darkness That Comes Before and I’ve got a two-part reaction to get off my chest.
Part 1. The story is overall interesting and I’m continuing to read with satisfaction. Overall,!I find the aristocrats less interesting - they’re more typical, with clear inspirations from the Julio-Claudians, the Hapsburg, and others. There’s a matter of fastness about just how messed up dynasty tend to be that kind of refreshing: if chivalry is the stories made up to make knights happy (and it is), this is much more the reality of what those guys were doing before and after story time.
On the whole,!though, I find the lower-ranking characters more personable and sympathetic. I imagine a bunch of these folks are doomed. But we’ll see.
The worldbuilding has a lot to commend it, but here’s the other reaction I have.
Part 2. This is not a complaint about Bakker at all, but about a bunch of his fans. People, get some damn clues. Bakker is indeed very good. But he is not a successor to Suetonius and Thucydides. If you’ve never seen a world like this, you need to read some history the way Bakker clearly has. And while Bakker is very good…if you don’t know The Dragon Waiting and The School of Night, you need to meet John M. Ford, and so on for Gene Wolfe, and a bunch of others.
I do realize this is horribly arrogant. But I get buggles by little circles of enthusiasm. Like I said, not the author’s fault.
Part 1. The story is overall interesting and I’m continuing to read with satisfaction. Overall,!I find the aristocrats less interesting - they’re more typical, with clear inspirations from the Julio-Claudians, the Hapsburg, and others. There’s a matter of fastness about just how messed up dynasty tend to be that kind of refreshing: if chivalry is the stories made up to make knights happy (and it is), this is much more the reality of what those guys were doing before and after story time.
On the whole,!though, I find the lower-ranking characters more personable and sympathetic. I imagine a bunch of these folks are doomed. But we’ll see.
The worldbuilding has a lot to commend it, but here’s the other reaction I have.
Part 2. This is not a complaint about Bakker at all, but about a bunch of his fans. People, get some damn clues. Bakker is indeed very good. But he is not a successor to Suetonius and Thucydides. If you’ve never seen a world like this, you need to read some history the way Bakker clearly has. And while Bakker is very good…if you don’t know The Dragon Waiting and The School of Night, you need to meet John M. Ford, and so on for Gene Wolfe, and a bunch of others.
I do realize this is horribly arrogant. But I get buggles by little circles of enthusiasm. Like I said, not the author’s fault.
