Gravity's Rainbow

I'm going to go and keep this one very short. I did not like reading this book at all and I want to talk about it even less. But as I am pretty compulsive, I need to write down something on it, even if it's just a little bit. and so, naturally, as these things go, the page blooms words.

Over the past few weeks I wrote down a whole hell of a lot on Gravity's Rainbow, most of it very negative, and I've deleted most all of it already, as I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not someone who can talk about it for a few reasons:
     I don't have anywhere near enough background on the facts in the book, how much of them are true and how much of them are not. Regardless, there are a staggering amount of anachronisms in the book, or so it seems to me, most of them involving drugs and drug-use during the second World War, a product of the time, and apparently also the drug trance, in which it was written.
     I am not a native English speaker, so when I'm uncertain about something I tend to give whatever I'm reading the benefit of the doubt, and despite that I think that to do so for this book would be likewise wrong. I also think it's more than likely that some of the book's much lauded humor went over my head or just came across as crass to me, precisely because of this lacking background of native English. It's also obviously dated and will be more so in time.
     I tend to read books for themes and though there were certainly some of those that were interesting to me, the esoteric, the mysticism and the metaphysics especially were fascinating, pretty much all of the rest of them were very much not. There's a huge focus on male genitalia and though it's easy to see why this is, the iconic shape of the rocket is very much a phallic one, it can be overwhelming. There is a crazy amount of sex in this book, most of it very explicit, some of it flat-out obscene, and there were a few that just made me upset with the book as a whole, to such an extent that my stance of giving every book I care to dedicate my time to a fair review, or even just to give my take on it, became impossible.

Simply put, I don't want to talk about it. And yet, here we are.

The central plot points hinge on the creation of secret rockets by the Germans, a secret British agency trying to find them, and one man's strange ability to seemingly predict where a rocket will strike through means of sexual climax. 

There are four parts to the book, and the above premise seems to go out the window by the third. But then, the premise is mine, my attempt to describe the entire plot in as little lines and time as possible, and though these things are there, to dilute the novel so would be wrong.
     Above was also the first time I termed the book a 'novel', and I've avoided doing so because it is also wrong. This is not a novel, and is instead a setting, a set of themes interweaving in and around characters interacting, conflicting and generally, living forwards (most of them). None of it is straight, not the progression, not the truths, not the ending, not anything. Characters inhabit multiple names, seemingly. Characters see angels, ghosts and signs, and all kinds of supernatural trappings are spread throughout the story. Technology rears its head and every reviewer and essayist will espouse the writer's virtues in getting it down so truthfully, and so correct, but, really, it doesn't matter in my opinion, the truth is not something to be sought after in a book like this, and that is despite my worry at the blatant misrepresentation of a drug culture 80 years gone. The first seems pointless, but it's the latter that sticks in my throat, as bizarrely as it distorts landscape, characters and events into something really quite unlikely. The world is a different place under chemicals.

My main problem is that for all the praise the book deserves, there is just so much more stick that it also deserves, which it just doesn't seem to get. 

My main impression is that Gravity's Rainbow is quite a vulgar reading experience. My second is that it fully deserves a second read.

Update

 Just to show I'm still alive.

Review: Luthor Huss

And yet another excursion into the Warhammer Heroes range, and would you know it; for once I ventured into the ranks of the goodies.

In Middenheim, one of the great cities of the Empire, Witch Hunter Lukas Eichmann has been investigating the machinations of a new cult. Another day, another misbegotten heretic creed, and it seems as if there's no end and no point to the stamping out of heresy and corruption. Over the years Eichmann has grown weary of his duty, and the faith that once gave him unshakable purpose has diminished with the never-ending tide of human weakness. Now, the desperate confessions of dying cultists are pointing him away from Middenheim onto a new trail of darkness.

In the heart of the Empire, in the borderlands where humanity's vies for dominion with beasts, at the edge of the massive Drakwald forest, a young girl's hopes and dreams for a normal life are brutally crushed with the coming of a plague of undeath. With no hope of survival, with everyone dying around her, Mila Eichen takes up sword to rage against the coming darkness. But as death closes in inescapable with ravening teeth, the undead horde is smashed aside by faith and steel.

She is saved by the wandering priest Luthor Huss, a dour, uncompromising man of faith unlike any she's ever known, and with her life in ruins she follows him as he barrels from battle to battle, to crush the enemies of mankind wherever they are found. Soon they find themselves inexorably drawn towards lands where humanity holds no sway.

Because in the depths of the Drakwald something monstrous is stirring. In answer to an unseen design the beastmen have begun to march. And as everywhere the dead rise to kill the living, and as in the cities, the corrupted and the mutated are compelled to cast off their disguise, to respond to a secret summons, it slowly becomes certain that Chaos is on the move, and that it has made plans for the men who rally against them.

     I really enjoyed Luthor Huss. It's a novel that pretty much epitomizes what the Black Library puts out, and it is probably one of, if not the best novel in the Warhammer Heroes range. Chris Wraight is a solid writer and though nothing he puts out here is truly extraordinary, the story, writing and in particular the characters are put together well and delivered with skill. Huss himself is an interesting character and a rather unique one at that. He is in fact a saint, one of those characters who genuinely are able to channel the divine might of their god, whether that is the Emperor in 40k or Sigmar in the Old World doesn't really matter, wat matters is that it's a very rare thing to see and read about, and it gives the story a much different flavour than what is usual for these books. But even though he is a holy man, he can be one harsh bastard at times. He has a complete contempt for human weakness and at times doesn't seem to understand it, and he has a divinely inspired oratorical gift which allows him to raise up from the gutter the downtrodden people of the empire and to turn them into raging zealots as he so chooses. It's a strange and frequently disturbing thing to behold and Wraight depicts it well enough.

     And as for any problems the book might have, apart from some tiny lore-errors that bothered me personally (like why the hell is Morrslieb yellow? or what the hell is that whole Well of Souls business at the end?...), those're pretty much a matter of personal taste depending on the reader in question. Some people seem to think it's too slow, others that the book focuses on battles too much, yak yak yak blablabla.
     To any one reading these books I offer this bit of advice: your expectations are too high. These are corporate-mandated novels: the page count is limited, and there are certain things that they can not deviate from. The story and the lore can't expand too much, and there's almost no leeway for experimentation.
     Now, true enough, in the recent year specifically, the Black Library has gone out of its way to actually encourage creativity in its novels, but you can bet your ass this certainly wasn't always the case, and a lot of these older books, written during the post-2006 years of Black Library will read the same way.

     These days the individual novel is out of print but can be found in the Heroes of The Empire Omnibus from the Warhammer Chronicles range, which also collects the Kurt Helleborg and Ludwig Schwarzhelm duology plus their own short stories, all of which are also very good, though in grim-darkness they are miles beyond the rest of the Old World fiction, which can be a little jarring.

Also included is Luthor Huss' own short story the March of Doom which is awesome, and which I had totally forgotten reading already until I remembered that I also own this little booklet, where I had already read it before.

It's a very short little tale which follows Huss as he and an army of zealots march to relieve a town from a siege by Beastmen. It's a bit like the main novel except here there's almost no real plot to speak of, and instead the story puts a little more emphasis on how messed-up the lives of the people who follow Huss are. Messed-up, a shadow of what they once were, and yet also lifted up into a level of grace reserved for saints and madmen. It is fascinating to see how Huss thinks of them and it shows why that he pretty much is a perfect representative of Sigmar: Fighting for humanity, cherishing so much of them, but demanding that they fight with all they have.

 This little story is a must read for pretty much anyone. It is just fucking great.

Try not to fear.

Pain is fleeting.

Then his smile truly broke out.

Salvation, I tell you, is eternal.

Review: Wulfrik

So, a week ago I finished the first book in CL Werner's Warriors of the Chaos Wastes Omnibus, a trilogy of standalone novels set in the Old Warhammer World. The individual novels aren't really connected directly, so it's not an actual trilogy, but they do share the common theme of focusing on a few characters, well-known or not, from the Old World's Chaos faction. Now, Chaos, or the Ruinous powers, tends to be flat-out, over-the-top, and always horrifically evil, so these novels are a safe bet for when you're just out to have some fun.

You see, I just finished Gravity's Rainbow and I just wanted something easy, something quick and engaging, something as far away from the so-called 'literature' that everyone seems to want to put on a pedestal, no matter what its many, many flaws.

Yeah, I didn't like Gravity's Rainbow. I understand it is important, and I can distinguish some of the really good stuff in it, but it just did too much awful, awful shit for me to ever like it or even recommend it. Maybe I've got blinds on or something, unable to see genuinely awesome writing and structuring when I see it, or maybe it's just that I don't like page-long descriptions of oh-so-loving acts of paedophilia. But anyway, I'm very much of track, Gravity's Rainbow's for another time to talk about, or not at all, I haven't decided yet.

Wulfrik ended up being a nice, quick read, not without its flaws but enjoyable and interesting enough. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of Wulfrik yet, so I had to crack the spine on my Warriors of the Chaos Wastes omnibus to read it.

Cursed by the Gods for his arrogant boasting, Wulfrik the Wanderer has been set on a never-ending quest to seek out the world's strongest warriors. to vanquish them in mortal combat, and to offer up their skulls to the Dark Gods he so foolishly challenged.

A mighty warrior even before his curse, Wulfrik has been gifted with a magical longboat capable of travelling through the dark Daemonrealm that links all places, better to seek out his new offerings, and a gift of speech, allowing him understanding of all of the Old World's tongues, and a powerful magic, leaving anyone challenged by the mighty warrior unable to deny him a chance for combat.

Renowned as he is, hated and feared in equal measure, the wild warriors of Norsca flock to his command, eager for fame and riches, for an awesome death worthy of the attention of the Gods.

But before his hubris brought his doom down upon him, before the gifts, before the curse, Wulfrik was just a man, a man with hopes and dreams, and with a chance for love.

Always desperately seeking for a way to appease the Dark Gods, to cheat them if he can, in order to return to the life he'd envisioned for himself, Wulfrik listens to a sorceror's promises of an escape from his plight, and sets out on an epic quest to undo the Gods' awful curse.

     Wulfrik was originally part of the Warhammer Heroes range, a series of novels detailing the origins for some of the Old World's most famous hero characters, and as such the novel kind of has a foregone conclusion. Maybe this is the reason why the prologue is one of those that I hate seeing in any story; you know the one, where we're actually being spoiled to events much, much later than where the novel actually begins. Maybe it's something that Werner felt he could get away with "Everyone knows how this is going to go, so why not show them our protagonist in his direst straits at about 80 percent into the novel." I don't know, I don't like the technique, its meant to wow the reader with excitement and spectacle so the author/ director can dial it back and take his time setting up his story in earlier chapters without having to worry much about boring the piss out of any regular viewer/ reader.

     It's not as if there's no action at the start even, where we find Wulfrik and his crew of the moment hunting Yhetees in some frozen place somewhere. And this honestly would have been a more than decent opener.

     Either way, foregone conclusion or not, Werner crams enough elements into the story to make it pretty much constantly engaging. Most notably there are Fire/ Chaos Dwarfs, a faction that has been sorely underused in the setting, and who were awesome to read about, endowed with a ruthless ingenuity and a culture built off of a mesh of steampunk and daemonism.

     As our central characters pretty much all hail from the Chaos branch there's constant scheming going around with various characters working against Wulfrik for their own ends, all of which revolve pretty much around Hjordis, Wulfrik's love interest and princess of a sizable Norscan settlement.

     The book moves fast and is fairly engaging throughout, and if there's one complaint I could make then it's that the ending ended up feeling a slight bit abrupt, where a few progression leaps seem to happen where events are skipped over that we should've maybe seen happen.

     This might have been an attempt of Werner's to keep his protagonist likable, keeping the truly unconscionable evil shit off-page, showing the aftermath of certain events rather than showing us the point where Wulfrik goes irredeemably too far.

     At the same time though, I wish we could've been given 'that scene', or at least that there had been a decent foreshadowing leading up to Wulfrik's decision, but as it was it felt a bit as if there was a part missing. It doesn't detract from the ending, and it might even add some proper alienation to Wulfrik's character, as we don't get to understand Wulfrik's reasoning, but we only get to see the aftermath of the violence, and it is jarring enough to finally put him beyond the reach of the reader's immediate comprehension and right into the status of a legendary character worthy of the forces of Chaos.

Small Update

Hello there,
     I just wanted to come and say hi and say that this Blog isn't defunct, but that it's just being pushed to the side a bit while I bury my face in the sand.
     I'm not writing anything and though I'm reading, it's all going at a snail's pace. Which, as should be self-evident, is very slow indeed, as snails can't read, or at least I don't think.
     This pace is down to a few factors, of which an unhealthy predilection of mine; to run away from issues and problems rather than facing them head on, is the main one, the problem, I mean. Gaming is such an easy way to make time pass, and to avoid looking at one's own life, one's own path, one generally has to spend time in/with it, rather than spending that time in worlds infinitely preferable to one's own. At least, preferable for as long as the remove is present. These worlds, whichever they are, are preferable for as long as they can be accessed at will, to be exited at nill, not all-encompassing but safe, at the remove of a television screen, a button, a thin layer of self-deception.
     Another problem is my chosen go-to book of the moment, which turned out to be quite a monumental cock-up on my part, as if I didn't have enough post-modernism with just Infinite Jest.
Now, if Gravity's Rainbow had the style, the build-up and the humour of Infinite Jest this really wouldn't be a problem, but the odd fact of the matter is that this book, this pinnacle of post-modern literature, is in reality a piece of excrement. It is out of control, at points thoroughly disgusting, throughout mostly boring, at all points too self-involved and on the whole it thinks it's way more clever than it's actually being. It's a book that I don't think would be publishable today. There are people who revere it, sure, and I admit that there are moments that I think are brilliant, particularly those scenes and circumstances where there's an almost mythical quality to what is going on, but on the whole I'm of the opinion that the bad far outweighs the good. I'll be finishing it, and I will have to kick myself to start writing down something more substantial than what I've set down here when I do, but for now my short opinion on this one is that it is garbage.
     Another factor is an over-reliance on medication, both prescription and that in a bottle, to take away any and all introspection. I'm having some help for and with this, but it's a day by day thing and progress tends to be slow.
But there is progress, and things are starting to look up. Long ways to go yet, but I'm getting there.
For today that's enough introspection, and it's time to go back to work.

I do have to say though, it felt good having a quiet sit-down and just writing this stuff down. See you around.

A glimpse beyond The Veil, Torn Asunder

Holy shit, I just noticed that I hadn't posted this one.

Obviously,

Massive Spoilers ahead:

-----

     In issue 1 of The Veil, Torn Asunder we begin with our main character revealing his innermost desire. He says that that more than anything he wants the truth of his reality. The Truth above all.

 He confesses to us that he has been running away his whole life, hiding in drink, flesh and other assorted debauchery, and that he at one point even deserted from the army. These days when he isn't trying to find out the truth of existence in the musty old tomes of Yharnam's libraries he instead wanders its streets thinking about his past, frequently lingering on the moments after battle where the horrors surrounding him made him believe that there was no meaning and no truth to be found in life.

     But in contrast to this there is also another memory; a moment in his life where he witnessed a monster peering through a fracture in reality, and it is this improbable event that has in subsequent years come to seem more real than anything else. It is this that has spurred him on in his quest for the truth. And somewhere along the way to the end of the first issue he is given the Tarot reading which will guide the rest of the narrative.

     Now, though it might seem as if the Tarot deck doesn't have a place in Bloodborne, it of course does. In fact, the Tarot cards are in some way already present as The Caryll Runes, and there are pages and pages of discussion on the Bloodborne forums over which Tarot Card corresponds to which Caryll Rune, which ones don't fit or seem left out, but this is somewhat irrelevant as Ales Kot, for the purposes of this story, employs them only as they are originally used; as a guide which reveals some of what the future holds.

     The reading as it goes is: all upright; The Tower, the Moon, and in the end; the Star.

If you have any knowledge of Bloodborne at all, these cards will undoubtedly already summon up some associations, but again, this is not so much about what's already in place as it is about what Ales Kot makes of it. The Tower card traditionally means destruction, even though the tower here isn't ablaze. The Moon card signifies occluded things, deception and the hiding of truth. The Star points to enlightenment and contentment.

     Also, by the end of the issue the man has begun to come into contact with an entity that appears to manifest throughout various elements, both living and not. He smiles as he recognizes that this is some sort of echo of his vision beneath the water, a sign that shows him he's on the right track.

-----

     Issue 2 is appropriate for the Tower Upright as it is both about destruction and awakening, both figurative and, in this world that has layers of dreaming, very much literal. Though we don't know it yet, we start in echoes of the past, and then the man awakes inside a dream.

     The man finds himself on the streets of Yharnam, now clearly under the light of the Blood Moon, which means that the story and world have progressed ahead to the time when the game's protagonist is already tumbling down the rabbit-hole of insight, and stumbling around pants-less, is after a while confronted with a sight that will provoke a profound change in him.

     The Darkbeast Paarl and the One Reborn do battle.

It is interesting to note that in this issue that I have deemed the Tower card, the monster that shows up is the One Reborn who is most associated with the Tower Card on the forums, and that just like the tower in popular depictions of the card, he is struck by lightning, here present as the Darkbeast Paarl.

     And then something happens; the man seemingly disintegrates.

Now, it's very hard to understand the correct sequence of events of the Veil, Torn Asunder, because this moment, the start, the middle, and the aftermath, are spread out over the first 2 issues (and maybe also part of the third). Maybe this is because Ales Kot was too enamoured with the loose structure that Eileen the Crow's story provided and he wanted to use it here again, but I feel the story would've been better served with a more linear approach. Because unlike for Eileen in the Song of Crows, for the protagonist of The Veil, Torn Asunder, time only flows one way... or it should anyway.

     Upon witnessing the monsters the man's body disintegrates, or seems to disintegrate, burning up until only a familiar shape remains; an echo of the form first glimpsed in the water.

Metaphor and literal destruction both; the gaining of knowledge burns the man down, mind and body.

It's very hard to figure out how this could happen but it seems obvious that the key lies with the open-mouthed shape we have been seeing throughout the story. It is because of the nature of this entity that the man will gain the ability to cycle through various moments in the Bloodborne stories.

     As I have stated, this whole sequence is a dream, but the thing about dreams in the world of Bloodborne is that they aren't just dreams. They aren't less than the reality that engenders the dreaming. They are just other, different realities, pocket dimensions that can be slipped in and out of, given the right catalyst.

     Back in his room the man ponders, but the smell of shit and blood and stained sheets intrudes on his senses and he realizes that he needs to face reality. Issue 2 ends with whatever is left of the man's life in shredded tatters, blood coating the surface of the room he's in, and dripping from the edge of the razor he holds. His private story destroyed, now there's nothing to hold him back from his work, his quest for truth, and the only way left is the way forward.

-----

Issue 3 has as its Card the Moon, which is most commonly associated with deception and illusion,  and as we ended last issue with the destruction of his life, his story seemingly truncated in lovers' blood, and though he needs to face what is happening, because this is a character who has only ever run away from everything, he runs away again, and somehow he runs farther than he ever could have.

He becomes unmoored from his reality, and he becomes a witness to the burning of beasts in the streets of Yharnam.

He sees Hunters fighting the Cleric Beast.

He meets and talks with Eileen the Crow as she trudges trough the forest in A song of Crows.

He sees a Blood Moon over Byrgenwyrth and the streets of the Hypogean Gaol, and he sees the burning of Old Yharnam.

And he comes upon a scene of The Death of Sleep and shares a pity-filled look with the transformed child carried by the Nameless Hunter, who in this moment doesn't yet have the insight required to see both the madness around her, and in her arms.

But our protagonist does see the monsters. His insight in his reality has grown to such an extent that he can see the Elder Horrors that permeate his existence. Of course, given the Lovecraftian nature of the world of Bloodborne, madness walks hand in hand with the seeing, and so, he becomes truly unhinged. But you could also put it that since running away is what he does, what he's always done, he runs away from the knowledge he has gained and that he instead takes his refuge in insanity.

-----

And so we arrive at issue 4; The Star.

The Star is the card signifying spiritual enlightenment and contentment, and in the case of our main character it signifies the stage where he achieves his heart's desire; the attainment of his much sought-after ultimate truth.

     In the asylum our character lies, sheltered in insanity, having halted his quest for truth. But he is not the one to decide the direction nor the end of this story (or is he? Tum Tum Tum TUUUUUUM), and he is visited in his cell, first, by illusions seeking to perpetuate his private tale, then by the entity that has haunted him throughout the story, this time clothed in the skin of a dead man.

     The entity goads him on, and he is reminded of what knowledge means in the world of Blooborne, that it is gained by the seeing, and accumulation, of eyes, and he is told precisely what it means to cover those eyes up. 

     To be willfully blind in this universe is to choose to just be yet another in an innumerable succession of blind thralls, all in slave to an unfathomable design.

     It is at this point that the man begins to question what the entity wants from him specifically, why he has been pushed in a direction of the entity's design. He realizes that he himself has nothing to offer, nothing to say or reveal, no hidden knowledge to impart.

But then, intuitively, revelation dawns.

     Because of his unique point of view; a life lived, guided only by constantly running away, a constant escapism into anything but the thing he needs to confront, he understands the motivations of the unknown force that has guided him here. He understands that the only thing he's actually giving it is window to look through, a story to follow. Something to distract it from its own reality. He understands that there's nothing he really can offer, nothing except divertissement, and that all that he is, for this entity that dons dead men like clothes, is entertainment.

     At this point we realize that the narrative has become a Meta one, that it's been one all along, that the entity that keeps looking in on our protagonist is probably us, staring with open mouth at the horrors we witness, or that at the very least it is Ales Kot himself, the writer, trying to coax out a story out of a subject whose sole drive has been the discovery of the ultimate truth of his world. And problematic for both subject and writer, the ultimate truth that comes out of this, is that this particular revelation does not stop at the boundaries of the world of Bloodborne, and that it goes beyond its confines to make the audience, the world at large a part of the reveal. All of a sudden Yharnam has becomes a small place in quite a large tapestry.

The man realizes he is in a story, that he is a story and that the entity wishes him to continue on, to put on a show, as it were. But the man denies the formless watcher, and, not without some malice, acts according to his nature. He runs away again, by gauging out his eyes, and since this is Bloodborne, and eyes are here the symbol of knowledge, he takes away his knowing and the possibility of progress, and so denies the entity both the continuation and the conclusion to the story, who leaves and rears away from him.

Then, throughout this section Ales Kot, via our narrating protagonist, addresses us pretty much directly, berating us,for escaping into fiction, while all around us our world is being torn apart by awful forces. Take your pick: corruption, climate change, war, famine, pandemic, any and all, all these destructive forces and yet here we are, hiding away in our stories.

-----

"The truth is I spent my whole life running and called it conquest'."

A line from our protagonist that hits quite hard with me, a reader who doesn't venture outside much, adding books to my shelves only when I 'conquer' them, finish them. I constantly need to escape into stories, into fiction; books, comics, tv or games because I can not handle the world outside.
I read books, and I finish games, all to avoid interacting with the world. Behold my library and you can only glimpse but an inkling of the things my mind has seen. but the truth is that all I do is run away. Escapism rules supreme.

-----

A small thought here at the end. Part of a larger section that I scrapped because it didn't seem to add up the way I wanted, but there's a small chance there's something here anyway.

In this way it initially seems as if the Carryl runes did not actually have a place but it does bear noting that where in the previous 2 volumes (issues 5 to 12) the end of every issue was closed out by the same Caryll rune each time, and that in this volume every issue is instead closed out by another one: The Formless Oedon rune.

A secret symbol left by Caryll, runesmith of Byrgenwerth.

The Great One Oedon, lacking form, exists only in voice, and is symbolized by this rune.

Those who memorize it enjoy a larger supply of Quicksilver Bullets.

Human or no, the oozing blood is a medium of the highest grade, and the essence of the formless Great One. Both Oedon, and his inadvertent worshippers, surreptitiously seek the precious blood.

Could Formless Oedon be in the meta way suggested in the story, be the creators that work on the stories of Bloodborne. Could the shade with hollow mouth be a form taken on temporarily to work their will? The artist's will made /almost/ physically manifest?

Some few Thoughts

For myself, because at this rate I'll never write anything down anymore: In 10 sentences write down your thoughts about the final book in the Aspect Emperor Quartet.

     1. Well, here I am, at the end of the long slog, and though I pretty much got exactly the ending (to the Aspect Emperor cycle, at least) that I wanted, there's more than enough reasons to be both profoundly disappointed and baffled by exactly how we got here.
     2. I came into the final two novels of the Aspect Emperor books without foreknowledge, but with pretty high expectations, a lot of them actually very concrete, having built my 'Road of Faith' blog-posts around my ideas on how these final two novels were going to go.
     3. But even though I guessed the heart of the matter correctly, and knowing that I actually will still (probably) end up getting what I want in the books yet to come (if they ever do), I finished The Unholy Consult very troubled.
     4. There are several reasons for this; the incredibly poor editing, the gratuitous level of sexual violence (which I, this time, find myself quite unable to accept the in-book reasons for), the repellent (though also immensely compelling) chapters of various characters' various descents into madness, the sudden appearance of certain elements at the novel's eleventh hour that completely derail plot developments into avenues heretofore impossible to foresee, and other elements I can not talk about without going into major spoilers.
     5. A very large part of my distress (and it truly is that) derives from having gone into the final novel certain in the knowledge that I knew where this was going to end up (the bubble of my assumption that author and the novel's prime subject's goals had been in alignment all along was, at the novel's close, quite ruthlessly held to a candle's brilliant flame and popped without compunction) and this is something that I'm aware of, and don't hold against it, seeing the fault as mine, but there still are niggles here and there that lead me to declare that this novel would have been served a lot better with maybe a year or two extra in the editing phase, (maybe even for the quartet as a whole).
     6. The relationship between Overlook Press and Bakker lies at the root of this, deadlines passed or no, and it is a shame that art and vision can be pressed in such a way that the cracks become plain for all to see, and it is my sincere hope that Bakker will eventually release a preferred author's text for the last few novels in the Aspect Emperor Quartet.
     7. But even with a strenuous bout of editing to streamline the vague mess that calls itself the Unholy Consult, strange choices have been made; storylines and characters are truncated and altered, respectively, to a very confusing and unsatisfying extent, new plot elements are introduced way too late in the game without enough foreshadowing to build them up, and some of the book's many revelations and heel-turns just don't seem to make much sense.
     8. For me it is plain that there needed to be more build-up for many of these elements.
     9. That being said, The Unholy consult's final stages are so bold, and the final page and paragraph might as well just go to a hospital emergency room right now because no way is that normal, the size of those balls, and I applaud it all the way.
     10. Though the Aspect Emperor Quartet is almost fatally flawed, and mars much of the perfection that was the Prince of Nothing trilogy, it does eventually work pretty well, provided that one can accept that this is a story that is unlike any other and that it plays completely by its own rules, and that it simply does not give one shit about your expectations or your satisfaction.

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More concrete thoughts, though random, these pretty much are  definite spoilers.

- Kelmomas does the deed. Brilliant, and a truly head-slapping moment of 'why didn't I see this coming?' and built up satisfyingly, but then also how is it even remotely possible that Kelmomas is here, in this place? You could explain it, yes, but still it just doesn't seem to be possible.

- Ajokli. Holy fuck.
In a way this could have been awesome, but the fact this is introduced here, a dozen or so pages from the end, makes this feel like a massive deus ex machina. This might precisely be the point, but there should have been precedent for this, and the W-L-Warrior concept does not compare to what this is. What happens here is unprecedented, and for some reason it happens to another major character after this as well? The rules surrounding this are nonexistent and it feels like a massive cop-out, and feels very unsatisfying. There are loose threads everywhere here regarding this thing and it is this, more than anything else in the novel, that made it feel unsatisfying.

- The Encyclopedia's Notes on the Decapitants are extremely chilling, and it feels as if this is one of the things that should have been in the novel proper in order to build up the aforementioned point.

- The whole 'Resumption' chapter doesn't seem to make sense. Proof prime of much needed editing.

- The reveal of the Unholy Consult. Brilliant. Makes sense and is completely believable. And just as I knew it would had to: it actualizes the author's goal in an identity within the story. My mistake was that I assumed that this identity would be Kellhus, but in this way it probably works out better.

- The meeting of the three who are able to love made me quite teary-eyed. Hands down best part of the Aspect Emperor cycle.

- Plotlines get radically truncated:
Sorweel's journey is probably the most indicative of this. Though he is pretty consistent in the Judging Eye and the White-Luck warrior, he is so inundated beneath change and upheaval in the subsequent books that it can be safely stated that his character ceases to be after the beginning of the Great Ordeal. Of course, characters can change. But Sorweel is just reshaped according to the needs of the plot. In ishterebinth he is bonded to a Nonman soul which makes him completely different, and in the Unholy Consult he ceases to be himself and is ridden by the White-Luck until his death. There was almost nothing recognizable from his point of view, he became a supremely alien character in the last two books of the quartet.
     I recognize that this is the danger of how this world works, but it is heavily inimical to conventional storytelling and character-building.

I might just add some thoughts when I feel like it, the series is too big in my head and my thoughts too disordered to properly write much down these days.

Bloodborne: The Veil, Torn Asunder

Bloodborne: The Veil, Torn Asunder is the fourth and (for now) final volume of the Bloodborne comic series. And it's a pretty damn good one, but just like the previous volume, A Song of Crows, it doesn't stand well on its own. The Veil, Torn Asunder actually goes a step further than Eileen the Crow's outing and requires the reader to be familiar with not just the Bloodborne universe but also every Bloodborne comic that precedes it. And even then, with all that, and even if you're well-versed in the available lore, you're still going to have to delve quite a bit in order to figure out what is actually going on here.

A man walks the streets of the city of Yharnam, haunted by a singular moment in his past, a moment where the veil of reality itself tore apart, and where it seemed as if something monstrous stared back through the breach. Convinced that what he saw was real, the man resolves to understand the truth of the shapeless form that once met his gaze, and while the Blood Moon rises he relinquishes his hold on reality in a desperate bid for the truth.

But in this nightmare world, too much truth can very well drive one insane. 

Under the guise of one man's search for the ultimate truth of his world, writer Ales Kot delivers a story that is ostensibly somewhat lacking in plot, but that nonetheless satisfies as it delivers some awesome gothic horror-artwork and an intriguing mystery hidden behind an experimental meta-narrative.

I really quite enjoyed this one, but it was an enjoyment borne rather from trying to figure out what the story was actually doing when the read was over than any kind of immediate gratification during the read itself. Awesome art is great to look at, but if the cohesion and natural progression of the story they depict between them is missing, when you don't know what the hell is actually happening, then the story can be as well thought out as can be, it'll be very hard to give it its due. And this is where that figuring-out comes in, because it is pretty hard to grasp The Veil, Torn Asunder unless one has a lot of knowledge of the things Ales Kot brings into this story.

Which is why I'm going to go into exquisite detail in the next post.

Print-on-Demand Warhammer Collection Completed

 After years and years of looking out for this one I finally, with the help of a friend, was able to add The Incomplete Zavant Konniger to my shelves.

When the Black Library released the Incomplete Zavant in their Print on Demand range back in 2008 I held off on buying it for a while, foolishly believing that Print-on-Demand meant -Print on Demand- and that I could pick up a copy whenever I wished. Besides, I had already read the novel, and all this edition did was add a single extra short story to the package so I figured there was no real need and no rush to make quick work of obtaining it. I did want it though. I mean, look at that cover and tell me you don't think it looks fine as hell.

So when I eventually tried to get the novel I was rather annoyed to find that the book had gone out of print, out of stock and that it wouldn't be reprinted any time soon.

Because of course.

Anyway, I've got it now, and I read that short story I hadn't read before, and as expected it was a fun one. The Case of the Scarlet Cell, or the Reikerbahn Butcher follows Zavant and Vido as they track down a brutal killer in the streets of Altdorf.

I don't have much more to say because even though it is a fun tale, there's not much more to it. There's not really a mystery to solve, as all the clues, and pretty much the answer to the whole thing ends up being practically tossed into Zavant's lap on page 2. Good crime fiction this isn't. But what it is is enjoyable, good, enjoyable Old Warhammer fiction. Back from the days where the setting didn't take itself too serious and where everything felt much more adventurous.

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As a bonus here's the completed collection.

I've read all of these, barring Marks of Chaos and the Fleischer omnibus.

I'm actually looking forward to reading the first as I've only recently learned that the novel uses Valten, the supposed reincarnation of Sigmar, in its story. I was a big fan of the character and I would avidly read the battle reports in the White Dwarf issue that introduced him, so knowing that Marks of Chaos might be the one to actually focus on him, even if it's just a little bit, I have to say, it makes me rather eager to dive back into the Old World.

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For Chris.