Thursday, March 26, 2009

R. Scott Bakker's THE JUDGING EYE Tops Overlook Bestseller List

R. Scott Bakker's new novel The Judging Eye sits atop the Overlook Bestseller list for the third straight week! This long awaited new work is the first in a new triology, The Aspect-Emperor, and to the delight of many fans, picks up from The Prince of Nothing series. In a recent review in Strange Horizons, reviewer Peter Whitfield notes: "Back in 2003, when the world was young and we didn't have to worry about the economy and recycling and stuff, there came an author called R. Scott Bakker. The Darkness that Comes Before was quite hefty, and some of the character's names could give you a stroke if you tried to say them out loud, but other than that it was a bloody good read. It took the face of traditional epic fantasy and gave it a makeover. No longer did the reader have to suffer page after page of depthless D&D drivel. Now their fantasy came wrapped up in a nice little plastic bag called philosophy. Flawless world-building, striking events, and intelligent subject matter even led some fantasy purists to regard Bakker as one of the greatest living authors of the genre. Six years later and Bakker is still going, his latest book The Judging Eye forming the fourth instalment of the series he terms The Second Apocalypse. Interestingly enough, it is also the beginning of a new trilogy, following on from The Prince of Nothing. It aims to reintroduce (or introduce, depending on what you've read) the reader to the world of Eärwa, a place that Bakker himself claims "kicks some major ass." At the same time, it picks up on the events of previous books, twenty years later. As is tradition with his series, Bakker provides a short summary of "What has come before" at the end of the book. It's an accurate and extensive synopsis, but if you're new to the books it might be a good idea to just dive in and piece the bits together as you go."

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