I Survived THE SECOND APOCALYPSE: Spoiler Free Thoughts.

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:01][music] [music] >> Right, where to start? Probably with kind of abject misery and despair, right? Because I just finished the Second Apocalypse series by R. Scott Bakker. It's a very shiny cover, isn't it? And I want to talk about that reading experience with you today. There are seven books in the series. It took me about 18 months to read.

[00:00:24]>> [music] >> And about half the time I thought that you pronounced his name R. Scott Bakker.

[00:00:28]So, that shows the intellectual credibility that I'm bringing to this discussion. I'm going to divide this video into a few different parts. What is The Second Apocalypse? What I love about The Second Apocalypse. What I find a little bit awkward or not quite as quality about The Second Apocalypse. And then last, I want to have a discussion about The Second Apocalypse in relation to Malazan Book of the Fallen because I often see people making those connections. I don't think those [music] connections are quite right. We'll get to that. Um, everything in this video should be spoiler-free. [music] Um, anyone should be able to watch this and enjoy as much as you are able to enjoy.

[00:01:01]I don't quite know the words. Here's the issue. I had a brilliant, wonderful time reading this series. And yet at the same time, it is full of misery. And I don't quite know what language to use in that capacity. So, if I'm tying myself up in knots as we do this [music] conversation, that's part of the reason.

[00:01:19]The other reason is a I'm a So, we'll just have to see how this goes.

[00:01:23]Okay, so let me start off by telling you what The Second Apocalypse series is. I called it earlier a seven-book series, which is kind of right and kind of wrong for two different reasons. Uh, reason number one, there might be more books [music] coming. That's kind of an open question. And then second of all, it's actually two subseries. You've got a first trilogy called The Prince of Nothing, followed by a quartet called The Aspect Emperor. And those two series very much do connect to each other, but they are also distinct [music] to some extent. They're they're dealing with separate stories. Think of it like Robin Hobb. Think of it like Joe Abercrombie.

[00:01:58]One big world, definite through line, but also kind of a distinct package at the same time. Another thing to acknowledge or say right off the bat, and I've already alluded to it about two times, uh this is often seen as the pinnacle of dark grimdark fiction. The series is kind of notorious for being brutal, both in terms of its underpinning philosophy, and also just [music] because of what happens on the page, particularly as you get towards the ending of the series. There There's a lot of brutality and violence and sexual violence and and things like that that happen. This is not a series for everyone, and I think if people heard the pitch and go, "This is not for me," you're probably right, and I don't want to diminish or disqualify that that opinion. I don't think The Second Apocalypse is ever going to be for everyone. Just looking at some Goodreads reviews as well, this thing is flipping polarizing. Let me read four very quickly.

[00:02:50]Absolutely incredible in every way. I've been searching for a series that reminds me of Malazan, and this one absolutely fits the bill.

[00:02:58]Maybe one of the most compelling and complex fantasy reads I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I was turned away from this series on a number of different occasions because I had read so many reviews that trashed it as self-serving pseudo-intellectual drivel.

[00:03:11]Well, I'm glad I finally put all of that aside and gave it a go because in my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. Conversely, I should probably make a shelf named abandoned because that's what this book is ending up as. I made it about halfway and just can't bring myself to pick it up anymore. To call this a painful read is an understatement. [music] I would give it negative stars if I could. I've changed this one slightly to avoid spoilers. Valor and rousing speeches are revealed as fraudulent. Victories are couched in the guise of wanton murder.

[00:03:40]The obviously philosophical undertaking wouldn't bug me half as much if it weren't so lofty. By all means, turn Tolkien on his head, but stop using his voice to do it.

[00:03:49]>> [music] >> I'm rolling my eyes at the parallels.

[00:03:53]That, and far, far too many erections.

[00:03:55]Listen, I'm probably going too much into this point, but I just wanted to recognize that that this series has a a medley of of of opinions. It has not just a reputation, but reputations. But anyway, I've now prattled on for a good while, and I haven't told you what the series itself is actually about. So, in this series, we stay in the continent of Eärwa, which is a surprisingly gorgeous and and flowy name for such a depressing place. And we follow a number of characters who get caught up in a holy war. The first trilogy really very much centers around the idea of holy war, almost a crusade, very much a crusade, and and the characters heading towards this this world's version of Jerusalem.

[00:04:33][music] But meanwhile, kind of holy war aside, there's a lurking menace in the background, a kind of supernatural menace that begins to reveal itself [music] over the course of the story. Don't want to spoil too much about the Aspect Emperor, that second quartet. All I will say is that it continues with some of the characters from the first [music] trilogy, and is set a couple of decades on. Some of the characters, very quickly, you have Akamian, who is this kind of aging, [music] portly wizard who is investigating the the consult, the aforementioned [music] supernatural presence that seems to be prevalent in the world. You have Esmenet, who begins her journey as a prostitute in a in a world that is very much geared against women. One of my favorite characters is Esmenet. You have Naer, Naier, a Karsa-kind of Conan-like character, who is filled with violence and also trauma about things that have happened in his past. And then we have Kellhus, who is probably the most intriguing character at the beginning.

[00:05:28]He is a monk-like figure from a very isolated [music] sect in the far north of this continent, who begins the whole story by heading south because his father [music] has left this isolationist sect, and is I calling to him telepathically from across the continent. And I recognize, as I'm telling you, not even the personalities of these characters, but their their roles. A lot of that sounds a bit tropy.

[00:05:49]I mean, certainly in the case of Akka man and Ainaer. I No idea how to pronounce his name. When you have these two characters, they sound like they would form a very um warped D&D party, perhaps. But each of these characters is is underscored [music] with a a viciousness that you wouldn't see in other texts. Akka man, to give one example, one of the main characters we follow, is damned. We're told right at the start he's damned. [music] He is a magic user, and therefore he is going to this world's version of hell. And this is especially terrible because a lot of the magic users in this world, they don't sign up for it themselves.

[00:06:22]They're kind of recruited as children.

[00:06:24]So, hmm. But Akka man is also damned in a second way because every night wizards from his school of magic are [music] doomed to revisit the nightmare that was the first apocalypse in this world.

[00:06:35][music] There's no escape even in in sleep for poor Akka man. And he's our main character, or one of them. What Baker is really good at is he takes what's familiar and he he twists these things for his own ends. Um and he does that with his literary allusions, [music] too. There's a lot of kind of inverted biblical moments and biblical allusions here. Um a lot of Aspect Emperor feels very much like Lord of the Rings. They even descend into the mines at one point. The like this this whole thing does feel very much like a homage to other works. Um but with Baker's own unique messaging.

[00:07:10]And those messages and those themes, as indicated previously, are very heavy.

[00:07:14]Stuff like do we have free will? Um what does it mean to be human? Um and what does it mean to have purpose? And whether purpose is real or just something that we have invented for ourselves. These are some of the ideas that Baker continually bandies about.

[00:07:29]The series is not afraid to take you to [music] some pretty heady spaces and tell you what it views of as the blunt truth about not just their reality, the characters in this book, but our reality, because it does very much feel like Baker thinks that [music] free will is an illusion, for example, and purpose is an illusion, and even creation of purpose just feels a bit flimsy, and and we're kind of kidding ourselves. And And this is not to say that the series is just a slog from end to end. It's It's not that.

[00:08:00][music] It's not page one is filth and decay and dirt, and then we get to the last page and it's filth and [music] decay and dirt. There are moments of of joy and and laughter and and love and and hope. That's all here, but it is peppers of light underscoring quite a lot of cynicism that can be quite strong to stomach. It's It's like a mature cheese, The Second Apocalypse.

[00:08:22][music] But all that to say, I loved reading this series. I adored it. It was one of the best reading experiences [music] of my life. Um I took a break from it about halfway through. I stopped after book four and took about six months off from it, and as soon as I got back to it, I just went oh I missed this.

[00:08:41]Um which sounds weird it as I'm pitching it to you, but if you've read the series, you will understand. [music] For me, it is a magnificent work that does so much well. And I want to take this next section of the video to talk about some of that and why I love this series quite so much. The first reason that I just adored The Second Apocalypse is just the writing on a line-by-line level. It is some of the most evocative and purposeful and clever prose that I have ever read. Or maybe maybe different kinds of prose, different kinds [music] of prose style, because there's a few different styles that Baker has. He has his battle scenes, which are very bird's-eye and and pulled back and and Old Testament, I guess is how I'd phrase them, where you are seeing a battle from a million different perspectives, a lot of people who you don't even really know who they are, and the thing is told like the Odyssey, it's a big, grand, sweeping [music] arc of of narrative, and it's so well done. It feels it feels stark, I guess, and and strangely luscious at the same time. And then you have Baker's dialogue, which is also magnificent. You get the sense that when characters are interacting, there's so much subtext and machinations going on under the surface and characters are sort of pulling each other apart and trying to interpret each other and everything is is layered with meaning that makes the conversations really rewarding to read. And often I would just get to the end of the page and go back up to the top of the page and read it again, not because I didn't understand what was going on, but because I sensed that there was also more going on. [music] There's the way he can describe and evoke place. There there's a couple of moments in Aspect-Emperor, [music] especially in Aspect-Emperor, those last four books, where the descriptions of place are so visual. I generally am not the most visual reader. You know, if you have to have a one to 10 scale of how much do you visualize, I'm like a four or a five when I read. I don't see the movie in my mind, but I'm realizing as I'm talking to you now that with R. Scott Baker, when he's evoking place, I see it. I see it so starkly and so clearly. There is an attentiveness to language and words here that Baker doesn't always get right. I mean, no one gets it all right all the time. But when he's firing on all cylinders, as he mostly [music] is, it is some of the best writing I have read, hands down. And I also very much love R. Scott Baker for his evocation of theme and I've talked about this a little bit already, right? Questions of free will and purpose [music] and meaning and how he's not afraid to go where he wants to go with those conversations, R. Scott Baker. But I also love again that Baker's writing is true to those themes. If we're talking about whether anything has meaning and purpose, it feels appropriate that people would just randomly die. We don't get a lot of tidy bows and and neatness like we might get from other fantasy. We do get resolution to plot lines, but we don't get tidy, nice, kind of clean, crisp resolutions all the time.

[00:11:29]And when they come, sometimes they're they're flipping sudden. And I I really do view that as Baker carrying what he believes about the world to be true into [music] the the the the nuts and bolts of his narrative, and I find that really captivating, actually. That synthesis of theme and structure, I think is something really to Baker's [music] credit. Another theme that I didn't really get to earlier is is this idea of of salvation. Like who is saved? Who saves us? What does being [music] saved actually mean? That's a big thing in in in Baker's books as well.

[00:12:00]Soteriology of R. Scott Baker is a whole can of worms that I'm going to address in that that spoiler video when when I get to it. I found [music] that an endlessly fascinating discussion here, too. And the final reason I really enjoy R. Scott Baker is of course his [music] covers. No, I'm just kidding. Broken binding Broken binding, right? Cease with The Wheel of Time, and please do me a seven-set edition of The Second Apocalypse. I would I would pay you a pretty penny. Um anyway, just kidding.

[00:12:23]The other reason that I wanted to just highlight right now about why I love The Second Apocalypse so much is how immersive it is. People talk about the difficulty of R. Scott Baker and and the various ways that he is difficult um to death, and I'm probably guilty of that in the first part of this video. It seems to dominate the conversation, but the truth is when I'm reading these books, I I'm not even I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am when I'm reading these books because they are so engaging [music] and immersive. And some of that is the the writing style, the the descriptions that I mentioned previously, and that that authorial voice, which is just incredible. These characters, too, are just so engaging and and interesting. And often with I find with POV character, they're the least interesting character because they are giving us the window into the more interesting people that we want to be pulled back from a little bit. Not so with R. Scott Baker. Sometimes the characters you know inside out are some of the most fascinating [music] people. When these characters confront each other or interact, and the revelations that they get out of each other, I'm just spellbound. Um genuinely spellbound by by how engaged with the text I am as I'm reading it. I you I have two children. I I mention it sometimes on my channel.

[00:13:32]And nevertheless, I read this much in about 2 and 1/2 weeks. And I don't know if that's because the series is necessarily so good or because I'm a failure of as a parent. Um but this this is evidence to what I'm saying. [music] I think next year I might audio book through them just to catch some of the stuff I missed.

[00:13:48]Um Yeah, >> [music] >> shall we move on?

[00:13:52]I guess what I'm trying to say is at the heart of the Second Apocalypse is this weird, appalling, but incredibly told tale. So, what are my issues? Cuz I did say that I don't think Baker is always firing on all cylinders. Um >> [music] >> and I would stand by that. So, I want to just kind of lay out my my main gripe with the series. You know, I've I've acknowledged the brutality of some of the content, so I'm not going to dig into that. I do think people's mileage may vary there. My my main gripe with the Second Apocalypse is what I like to call the curious case of the two R.

[00:14:25]Scott Baker's. Let me explain. Here's what I understand >> [music] >> happened. Um R. Scott Baker had a bit of a tumultuous, complicated relationship with his his publishers and his editors.

[00:14:35]>> [music] >> And so, the last two books, The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult, were [music] written with far less editing and and people's eyes on them, quite frankly, than the the first books in the series. [music] And unfortunately, um I think that shows. And in fact, if I were going to rank the series, and I I won't make a video about that, I'll just put it here.

[00:14:54]Um you you'll see >> [music] >> that the best for me, the best books are actually the middle books of the series, you know, Judging Eye, White-Luck Warrior, literally the middle of the Second Apocalypse series, uh Warrior Prophet being the middle book in The Prince of Nothing.

[00:15:08]For me, the weaker books are the endings. That's The Thousandfold Thought and also more significantly, The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult. Now, listen, I don't think they're bad books. I don't think any of the books in this series is anything less than a five-star. Even the weakest ones I still [music] think have have great literary value, but I do see a slight degradation in my enjoyment, not necessarily quality, but my enjoyment of the [music] series in those latter two books. It's kind of a It's kind of a dark terror situation, isn't it? A lot A lot of people say something similar that the the last two books in the Dark Terror sequence are not quite as strong.

[00:15:42]They're still really really great texts.

[00:15:44]And you know what? I wouldn't necessarily call that The Great Ordeal or The Unholy Consult worse books. It's more like they're Bakker at his most bakery at bakerish. I don't know the the adjectival form of of R. Scott Bakker.

[00:15:57]The the abstract philosophizing is more mercurial. It's kind of harder to parse.

[00:16:03]Um the the the gratuity in in the violence and things like that do also last a bit longer on the page, [music] it feels like. The story itself seems to fragment and get increasingly symbolic and and allegorical as as we head towards [music] the finish line, particularly in in the second half of The Unholy Consult. And again, I want to reiterate I don't think those last two books are bad books. I think they are actually very very good books. But for me, I do prefer Bakker in that slightly more refined, polished, edited state [music] than in the the ruggedness that we get in in these latter two books.

[00:16:36]Anyway, I've got one final [music] thing to say in regards to The Second Apocalypse, and it is about Malazan Book of the Fallen.

[00:16:43]Hello Malazan fans. I too am one of you.

[00:16:46]What I saw online In fact, the reason I bought uh The Darkness That Comes Before, the first book in the series, the reason I bought it is because so many people said online, "If you like Malazan, you will like Bakker. And if you like Bakker, you will like Malazan."

[00:16:59]There seems to be this thread tied between these two series in the fan base. And in fact, on the back of a lot of these books, you will find a quotation from Steven Erikson talking about how exquisitely intelligent and beautifully written this series is. But guys, I kind of disagree.

[00:17:14]I do not think that there is much of a connection between these two works, Malazan Book of the Fallen and the Second Apocalypse. Okay, maybe maybe that's overstating the case because [music] certainly with Malazan Book of the Fallen and R. Scott Bakker, what ties them together is that slightly more abstract philosophizing that that occurs. Maybe abstract philosophizing isn't fair because it's always wedded to the story. Um but there is a lot of kind of deep thought, if you like, going on in [music] both of these books and both writers are not afraid to take a couple of pages and use their characters' internal monologue >> [music] >> as a means of communicating a perspective on culture or existence or what have you. So yes, there is there is that parallel that they they do similar things. They're working [music] with similar tools. And yet yet on a on a moral didactic level, if I can call it that, on a thematic level, not that either of these authors shove their message in your face, they could not be more dissimilar. And I actually wonder if these authors themselves would agree with people putting these two works together like a jigsaw puzzle given the the through line of let's just say with Steven Erikson and R. Scott Bakker right now, the through line of those authors' thoughts are totally different from each other. Could not be further apart on the fantasy scale because Malazan for me ultimately [music] is a series about hope. Erikson has said, [music] "I don't write grimdark." He doesn't like that title. I would argue that maybe Kharkanas is is edging towards the grimdark, but that's a different argument to have later. And you know, I did a a conversation with uh Dr. Arina Rang Al I'll link her channel down below on um Malazan and and heroism in Malazan and and Erikson actually put a comment on that video and he said something to the effect that yes, I wanted to start with this attitude of of cynicism and as the series goes on, it becomes increasingly heroic and hopeful. I'll put the comment here because I don't want to to paraphrase the guy, but Malazan is is extraordinarily [music] hopeful.

[00:19:10]Not naively hopeful, but hopeful. Baker is so grim dark that you cannot even see the hand in front of your face because of the darkness. And it's not a hand anyway, you just have a stump. And it's not even darkness, you've been blinded by a demon who's holding your eyeballs in front of you going "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

[00:19:26]Baker is pitch black. And again, I'm repeating myself, while Baker does have these moments of of humor and and honor and compassion, very often when Baker is giving some kind of in [music] enjoyment to his characters, it's going to be snatched away either in the short term or the long term. I'd be very curious to hear what your thoughts are on this. Um [music] but that's something that was bandying around my head as I was as I was thinking about this discussion, and I did want to share my thoughts on that, too. So, tell me your thoughts about about this, that, about anything. Um I really just again, I'm enthralled [music] by this series, and I know I spent a lot of today talking about the darkness. Um but that that does not mean that the experience was not weirdly joyous at the same time. Certainly challenging, >> [music] >> um always engaging, and I'm tremendously glad to have have finished and wrapped up this series. I'll be posting my my spoiler-filled thoughts on Baker in the next [music] week or two or three. Uh so, look out for that. I promise that will be less abject nonsense. And until then, I'll see you on the next video.

[00:20:21]Goodbye.