by R. Scott Bakker (1967)
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Picture this: a barbarian chieftain named Cnaiür urs Skiötha, his face scarred like cracked leather, drags a screaming sorcerer across the sun-baked steppe, raping him in a frenzy of vengeance that leaves you hollowed out, questioning every shred of humanity you thought you knew. That’s the opening gut-punch of The Darkness That Comes Before, R. Scott Bakker’s unrelenting plunge into a world where the Crusades bleed into cosmic horror, and free will is just another illusion to shatter.
From there, you’re swept into the Holy War, a million fanatics marching south under banners of zealotry, their ranks swelling with kings, knights, and whores like Esmenet, whose sharp mind and broken heart make her the series’ quiet revelation. But the real serpent in this garden is Anasûrimbor Kellhus, a monk-assassin trained from birth to read souls like open books. Watch him condition Cnaiür in a tent lit by dying firelight, peeling back layers of rage and shame until the Scylvendi weeps promises of loyalty—it’s mesmerizing, terrifying, like staring into a mirror that knows your every lie. Bakker, a philosopher at heart, weaves dread through every page: the wizard Achamian’s nightmares of the No-God, a skeletal apocalypse shambling from ancient ruins; the Consult’s inhuman schemers plotting in shadowed citadels, their evil not cartoonish but a cold calculus of extinction.
Reading it feels like wading through tar-thick intellect laced with visceral brutality—the rush of epic battles clashes against the slow poison of doubt. Is Kellhus a savior or the ultimate manipulator? Are any of these fools truly choosing their path, or are they thralls to history’s brutal logic? No fluffy quests here; Bakker’s Nônumorica is a grimdark colossus that devours Tolkien’s hope and spits out something rawer, probing consciousness itself in ways that linger like a fever dream. It’s influenced the cerebral edge in later grimdark—think Joe Abercrombie’s cynicism shot through with metaphysical dread—but nothing matches this series’ scalpel-sharp ambition.
If you loved the messianic manipulations of Dune or the soul-crushing wars of Malazan, but hunger for fantasy that claws at your certainties, this is your unholy grail. I’ve devoured it four times, each pass revealing new fractures in the characters’ psyches, and it still leaves me unsettled, alive.
Crack it open tonight, and the darkness won’t just come before—it’ll claim you whole.
Author portrait: Photo: Roberta F. | License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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