# The White Luck Warrior by R. Scott Bakker



## Werthead (Apr 9, 2011)

The Aspect-Emperor, Anasurimbor Kellhus, is leading the Great Ordeal  into the heart of the Ancient North. Hundreds of thousands of troops and  thousands of sorcerers are heading for Golgotterath, the seat of the  vile Consult, where they plan to destroy the Ark of the Heavens and  obliterate the alien Inchoroi before they can resurrect the No-God and  plunge Earwa into the Second Apocalypse. After the relatively painless  opening leg of the march, the Ordeal now crosses through hundreds of  miles of territory infested by the vile Sranc, whose numbers blanket the  earth. For Sorweel, the young King of Sakarpas who has been sworn to  Kellhus's cause but continues to harbour doubts, the Ordeal is doubly a  nightmare, for he also seeks to avenge the death of his father and serve  the gods, who, blind to the machinations of the Consult, are offended  by Kellhus's temerity and fear his power.

Elsewhere,  the gods' fury makes itself known as the Cult of Yatwer allies itself  to the Fanim to launch a devastating challenge against the New Empire.  As the Empress, Esmenet, struggles to hold the Empire against this  external threat she also faces internal crises; a growing schism with  Maithanet, the Shriah of the Thousand Temples, and a force for chaos and  destruction which is growing much closer to home...

The  mercenaries known as the Skin Eaters have departed Cil-Aujas and now  face a gruelling march along the 'Long Side' of the Osthwai Mountains,  through a terrible forest and across vast plains to reach their  destination: Sauglish, where Drusas Achamian hopes to find a map that  will lead him to Ishual, the home of the Dunyain and the truth behind  the Aspect-Emperor.

The White Luck Warrior is the middle volume of The Aspect-Emperor, itself the middle sequence of a much longer series called The Second Apocalypse.  As such it carries us firmly into the second half of the overall series  and, fittingly, it raises the stakes, expands the backstory and  furthers the understanding of both the characters and reader of what is  happening. The previous volume in the series, The Judging Eye,  was very fine but also somewhat claustrophobic and lacked a satisfying  conclusion (arguably only the Cil-Aujas storyline had a real climax). The White Luck Warrior  has no such issues: it is a monumentally satisfying work of epic  fantasy and probably the finest volume in this subgenre published for  half a decade.

With this series, Bakker has taken the most basic  of epic fantasy plots - a bunch of ugly bad guys want to destroy the  world and wipe everyone out, only to find an ultra-powerful 'chosen one'  rising to oppose them - and empowered it with motivation and ambition  before not so much deconstructing it as tearing it apart and rebuilding  it brick by brick. It's a work of fiendish intelligence, but also one of  at times wearying nihilism and cynicism. This world is dark, cold and  brutal, but the alternative is so dark and horrific that it is shown to  be worth saving.

The White Luck Warrior sees Bakker achieving a near-perfect balance in his work. The Prince of Nothing  trilogy was packed with philosophical asides which were often  fascinating, but had a tendency to slow down the narrative (the problem  being not so much that they were long, just that were a lot of them). In  The Judging Eye Bakker reduced  these asides quite a lot, resulting in a book where it felt like he was  restraining his full powers in the service of accessibility. In this  book he strikes a compromise between the two: Bakker's philosophical  points are here locked to the story and the characters and made to  service them. So discussions about the nature of belief, faith,  damnation and redemption are relevant to the actual plot, the nature of  the Outside and the gods, and cast intriguing new light on the nature of  sorcery and the precise motivations of the Consult, the Inchoroi and  Kellhus himself.

The plot is perfectly pitched as it moves  between three primary storylines: the Great Ordeal as it battles its way  through hordes of Sranc, mostly related by the young Sorweel; the long  journey of the Skin Eaters, as told by Achamian and Mimara; and events  back in the imperial capital, focusing on Esmenet and her increasingly  disturbing child Kelmomas. Some other characters come in for brief  periods, but the book's sharp focus on these three storylines results in  a relentless pace that pushes the story forward at all times. Each  chapter builds character, or reveals backstory, or hints at things to  come or at things that have already passed. For a book almost 600 pages  long in tradeback, there is no flab or filler, which is itself an  impressive achievement.

The title of the novel and its 'middle book' status recall The Warrior-Prophet, the middle volume of The Prince of Nothing,  and there are echoes of that novel here: the endless march into a  desolate wilderness, resulting in supply problems, whilst, unexpectedly,  the words and actions of Cnaiur are still driving events two volumes  after his death. Most notably, after the mostly 'quiet' Judging Eye,  Bakker brings back the badass here. Massive battles and huge sorcerous  conflagrations make a comeback and are handled even better than before.  At the same time, Bakker doesn't repeat himself: the Sranc represent a  very different enemy to the Fanim of the first series. Elsewhere,  Bakker's oft-criticised (sometimes justifiably) treatment of women is  reversed somewhat here, especially when the Gnosis-empowered Swayal  witches enter the fray and Mimara's discovery of the Judging Eye gives  her soul-stripping powers that exceed those of the Dunyain.

Structurally, Bakker suddenly (and after the anti-climactic Judging Eye, unexpectedly) seems to have discovered the art of a perfect cliffhanger. To the point where he gives us no less than three  of them, leaving yawning mysteries that need to be solved, characters  walking into horrendous danger and huge battles about to be joined. He  also deepens the sense of mystery in the series through  carefully-measured revelations about the Consult, the Inchoroi and their  goals (including the Consult's fixation on one particular numerical  value). Expect fantasy forums to be buzzing as the full implications of  these revelations are discussed in the coming months.

The White Luck Warrior (*****)  is a powerful, engrossing, ferociously intelligent novel that sees  Bakker at the very top of his game. It leaves the reader on the edge of  their seat for the concluding volume of the trilogy, The Unholy Consult, which we need yesterday. The novel is available now in Canada, 5 May in the UK and 14 April in the USA.


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## chopper (Apr 9, 2011)

god damn it, i need to read the whole series _now_. Wert, your reviews are worth their weight in gold.


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## Sarcellus (Nov 22, 2014)

Sorry to resurrect but this is a fantastic review.


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