5 stars

I'm just numb at this point shielding me from the emotional damage

It certainly still feels like a book that would have been one large one, but also a middle book, since it also, much like the first, has slow world building and plot, and ends on a cliffhanger situation. The unease about the world ramps up as well, as The Consort moves from being unmasked, to being much more present.

Plus, the return of Aka! Hard won. I’m not sure anyone really bought he was killed last book but it’s still quite fun to have him back. Especially since he’s the closest thing to a hero, or sympathetic character, other than the women. But that’s kind of the point, and why it moves from a kind of tropey “evil”, into a much more comprehensive faction, or force. And it’s reinforced by the world building.

Because it’s dark fantasy, you can bet there’s mostly critiques of culture and society, and limitations of humanity, such as a very short memory. On the one hand you have Kellus, who has no real embodiment and whose powers come from philosophy and intellect, but is described as actually purging his personhood and any embodiment he once had in order to obtain it. On the other hand, The Consort is able to strive because they understand humanity in its animal form and outlast the memory of the generations that dealt with the primordial destruction of the larger evil force, possibly now tasked with rebuilding that ancient evil.

The narrative itself is written by Aka though. Itself a question, since the quotes in the book, and possibly the entire book, ostensibly, is the written record of an apocalypse. A second one. Bakker doesn’t really show what the answer to the philosophical questions are. He is more interested in showing the ways why there is no peace and why only terrible things happen with how culture, memory, and values are passed on. The nature of power interacting with those aspects are the “real” evil. Because otherwise humanity would be far more equipped to deal with these issues. Had they people like Nayoor, who learned of the Dunyain and grew from it, or people heeded the generational knowledge of the Consort, or paid attention to the philosophical aspects that Kellus was reared into, the Consort would be identified and much more easily dealt with.

But when either goes to an extreme, grow in power, they become monstrous rather than the tools people need to have some autonomy in the world.

Plot wise, more happens, but not so much as you’d expect in most books. Bakker is a slow burn kind of author. I already know from reading them all where it’s going, so I have a large sense of anticipation this time around. For first timers, I suspect, much like me, the strength of the prose and how novel the book is, probably will carry the reader through (or not).

There are two books here: one extremely well achieved political/military drama and a kind of silly story about "human nature." I see that readers of Bakker are firmly divided into two camps but I find myself in both camps simultaneously. Bakker's slightly overbuilt world works so well that the political action drives itself in an almost historical manner. But then he hands you a bunch of really dumb shit about the internal conflict of a medieval female sex worker that is exactly what you'd expect of an edgy y2k fantasy novel.