Quadrophenia

In fairness, that was Kaladin pre-Super Saiyan-esque power upgrades.

Second Book of the Four Novel Project: THE VEILPIERCER TRILOGY: Book One: City of Graves Book Two: Lifting the Veil Book Three: 'til Death. This is my attempt to write an action-oriented dark fantasy/horror series, taking inspiration from The Dresden Files or our very own Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, with influences ranging from Upton Sinclair's Jungle to Fritz Lang's German Expressionist films. The premise? Imagine a gruelling industrial world where if you're a working class schmoe working in some textile factory and there's a fatal accident and you're in debt to your employer? Well... that employer has every legal right to demand that you keep working off your debt even after you're dead. Literally. In the Necropolis (placeholder name), the working man is faced with the grim and existential spectre of living their horrible, soulcrushing occupations for their industrialist or noble employers well into the afterlife. These poor men, women and even children are referred to as the "Chained Dead," or "Chaindead" for short. They can work off their debt, but those who can afford the most amoral of lawyers know how to circumvent contracts and keep piling on the debt indefinitely... While compelling any surviving next of kin to pick up the debt themselves. If any of them die while in the line of duty, well... it's a vicious cycle. God have mercy on your soul if you have no family. This has created situations where some working souls keep toiling day and night, no closer to finishing their debt... but generations have passed and their own descendants have forgotten all about their ancestors, leaving them trapped in a macabre societal machine. Oh, and if it wasn't depressing enough... well, sometimes some souls forget why they died in the first place, all memory of their mortal life dissipating under the endless strain. Worse yet, this influx of indebted souls has promoted a "technically" legal booming market that everyone at the top profits from, and two competing organizations are vying for a monopoly on this market. On the one hand, the Entropic Priesthood. They're a clergy of necromancers who utilise their incredible occult knowledge to bind the souls of the recently departed to the material plane, just before they escape to the unknown. On the other hand, the Funeral Parlour, a guild of alchemists and Doctor Frankenstein-types. Their brand of Chaindead? Reanimated and ostensibly brainless corpses. They argue their methods and results are far more humane; that corpse of your beloved Grandpa Manfred isn't really Grandpa Manfred, he's just an animated vegetable, more machine than man! See? You don't have to worry about debt as we desecrate your grandfather's corpse for menial and demeaning tasks... These two organizations, this divide between necromancy and... well, mad science... have been locked in a centuries old feud, with this fierce economic competition the first openly public displays of animosity and conflict between the two. (cont...)

I'm really more than okay with it. For instance, cutting out Tom Bombadil? Best decision they ever made. All adaptations will require pragmatic editing, it's part of the medium, it's the sacrifice inherent in the transition. So long as they keep the spirit of the original and it's done with love and the execution is terrific, I have no quarrel. As for no decent high fantasy movies? The Dark Crystal, half the Studio Ghibli canon, the original Sleeping Beauty, Legend, Time Bandits, Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, Excalibur and the delightful parody that is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I can also think of a dozen amazing and underrated cult classics that come immediately to mind.

I think the difference is that Bakker, by his own admission, writes purposefully pornographic detail in some vague pretension to "deconstruct" the male gaze... which, really, is like trying to stop a raging inferno with a soaked rag, that (at least for me) it grates on me after the 135th rape. We know sexual violence is bad, Bakker. Some of us have lived through it. You haven't. You're saying nothing new, offering no fresh insight. I think that's what bugs me about it more than anything. Add to that the aforementioned and deliberate lack of humanity that colours the narrative and so much of the point falls by the wayside. Meanwhile, I think the reason why Thomas Covenant gets more crap over it than ASOIAF or other similar series? I can't speak for Wheel of Time or Malazan, haven't read either yet, but ASOIAF has enough distance between the act and the reader that it isn't as disturbing as being in Thomas's shoes when he cruel exploits and violates his, well, fan girl. That's my take on it, at least. By the way, love your avatar!

Wonderful! And hey, stop by my Four-Novel Project thread, posted my first concept! You and anyone else reading here might find it interesting !

Colour me suspicious, but I can't help but think a good many of the forum goers here miiiight be TVTropers, heh.

I get that, certainly, and it's one of the things I find fascinating and philosophically compelling... on the other hand, one might make the argument it grants him a legitimate excuse to write male characters with greater ease and efficiency. Not to mention it forces every woman to run through a repetitive arc that gets old after the first or so book. Oh, absolutely, no question about it. Bakker has gone on record with his belief the modern symbol of evil is the serial rapist, hence every act of evil---even the casual acts of evil---is sexually obscene in nature. I wouldn't mind so much if he were better at writing character drama. I'm not convinced remotely every instance of rape isn't lazy and convenient. Like I said, it's why I think the series is what would happen if you drained the humour and humanity out of A Song of Ice and Fire or Berserk, two series that are no strangers to grim nihilism, but at least they knew how to work character arcs and use sexual violence in a more meaningful, impactful way. With Bakker's body of work as a whole, sheer overuse has robbed it of any and all impact or narrative merit. It just makes me think the guy's a one trick pony when it comes to drama. Does it make sense to you guys I find the thematic core of his work more engaging than the stories themselves, to an extent? Intellectual engagement vs emotional investment, you might say.

There's a reason some circles call him the God-King of Edgelords. The sranc wear floppy severed dicks on their heads. Which they stroke. For luck. Its a little silly, you have to admit. And I can't help but feel constructing a hyper exaggerated reality cherry picking the worst of the medieval ages to make the point "these things are bad, yo!" might be a bit on the nose. He still can't write women particularly well or find any roles for them in his society beyond prostitution or nobility. Or rape victim, really. Fun fact, women in Spain had more rights than women in 19th century England. History's far more nuanced and interesting than reducing it to, "EVERYONE GOT RAPED ALL THE TIME," and I don't buy Bakker's notion he's exposing the reality of it. Thank you, Captain Obvious. The philosophy and metaphysical examination are terrific... story and analogous history not so much.

I like that!

Same, but I do find the constant employment of rape as a dramatic device wears on me a bit. Second Apocalypse is a series I appreciate and enjoy more intellectually than emotionally, if that makes sense.

It's Berserk if the main protagonist was Griffith XD In all seriousness, it's Berserk without the humanity and humour,

I'd say that's reasonable.

I saw that at the Montreal Fantasia Film Festival! I even got to meet Christopher Lloyd!

It gets gloriously and ridiculously edgy. Like Warhammer40k if it wasn't taking the piss. ... There's also at least one rape scene every 5 to 10 pages in every book. Bit tedious, really. Bakker can't write drama to save his life, so he just has someone, male or female (mainly female) sexually assaulted by rape orcs that wear crowns of severed human penises for a trophy or by shapeshifting demons that spurt black slpooge across your face. Oi vey. One book literally ends with a large Orc army raping to death a smaller human one.

That's perfect! Also, don't forget to pepper it with Dune!

Even Sanderson's work has a bit of it. The whole horror behind the Heralds' plight, Odium as sentient rage spreading across reality like a scar gashed across existence itself and breeding nightmarish monsters in its wake? That's not even getting into Ruin's true Shard form as a writhing mass of shadowy tentacles (Mistborn: Secret History) that nearly breaks Kelsier's mind...

Dude, that's... pretty scummy.

Good God, it really isn't. I didn't know what to say that that wouldn't be critical or slightly condemning, but oi veeeeeey that's... now, assuming he's serious and it's meant to be dark humour, it's not particularly witty dark humour by any stretch of the imagination. It's, instead, edge for edge's sake, grossly insensitive and horribly reductive.

Think less Social Darwinism, more Jurassic Park... with a dash of Lovecraft.

The idea here is that civilisation is getting its just desserts after exploiting the natural "world" for too long, that the systems that keep society running will eventually come crashing down. It's less about strength and more pitting artificial designs like civilisation against the fundamental forces of nature.

Not quite how evolution or nature actually works, nor the central theme.

Honestly, I was going for the beast possibly wanting to eat them as a symbolic act of revenge against civilisation. Nature taking up arms against exploiters, sort of thing. Although, come to think of it, maybe replacing the carrions with an even larger carrion would be far more upsetting an ending.

Man, someone needs to introduce you to Jason and the Argonauts, Conan and Highlander.

Oooh, here's a thought. If anyone is caught outside during a Highstorm without protection... How buggered is that character?

And I know exactly how I'd want to end it. The beast goes down, all hope seems lost as the crows descend... But they're suddenly warded off by thunder. The insect people are relieved... but there's another crack of thunder. And another... and now something massive's blotted out the sun. They glance up, these survivors of a now dead civilization... And see another beast of burden---stronger, healthier---, staring down at them. It'd end like that, on a perfect note of ambiguity.