The Judging Eye: The Aspect-Emperor Book One (The Aspect-Emperor, 1) - Softcover

Bakker, R. Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590202929 ISBN 13: 9781590202920

Verlag: Harry N. Abrams, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

“Among the greatest . . . A plot and subplot that is like the climactic movement of a symphony.” —Realms of Fantasy

The acclaimed author of the Prince of Nothing series returns with a new epic fantasy series in the same richly layered universe.

With this first book in the Aspect-Emperor quartet, R. Scott Bakker delves into his richly imagined universe of myth, violence, and sorcery.

Remolding the fantasy genre to broaden the scope of intricacy and meaning, Bakker has once again written a fantasy series that defies all expectations and rewards the reader with an experience unlike any to be had in the canon of today’s literature.

An uncompromising portrayal of a catastrophic world of myth, war, and sorcery, the scope and creativity of the Aspect-Emperor books stand alongside George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.

The Aspect-Emperor Series:

• The Judging Eye
• The White-Luck Warrior
• The Great Ordeal
• The Unholy Consult

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

R. Scott Bakker is a student of literature, history, philosophy, and ancient languages. His books include the Prince of Nothing trilogy: The Darkness that Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, and The Thousandfold Thought. The Aspect-Emperor series is a sequel series that includes The Judging Eye, The White-Luck Warrior, The Great Ordeal, and The Unholy Consult. He lives in London, Ontario.


R. Scott Bakker is a student of literature, history, philosophy, and ancient languages. His books include the Prince of Nothing trilogy: The Darkness that Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, and The Thousandfold Thought. The Aspect-Emperor series is a sequel series that includes The Judging Eye, The White-Luck Warrior, The Great Ordeal, and The Unholy Consult. He lives in London, Ontario.
 

R. Scott Bakker was born in 1947. He holds a B.A. in English language and literature, an M.A. in theory and criticism, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University. He lives in Monterey, California.

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Table of Contents

THE JUDGING EYE

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Epigraph

CHAPTER ONE - Sakarpus

CHAPTER TWO - Hûnoreal

CHAPTER THREE - Momemn

CHAPTER FOUR - Hûnoreal

CHAPTER FIVE - Momemn

CHAPTER SIX - Marrow

CHAPTER SEVEN - Sakarpus

CHAPTER EIGHT - The River Rohil

CHAPTER NINE - Momemn

CHAPTER TEN - Condia

CHAPTER ELEVEN - The Osthwai Mountains

CHAPTER TWELVE - The Andiamine Heights

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Condia

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Cil-Aujas

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Condia

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Cil-Aujas

Interlude: Momemn

Character and Faction Glossary

What Has Come Before …

Acknowledgements

Also by R. Scott Bakker

THE JUDGING EYE

R. SCOTT BAKKER is the author of Neuropath and The Prince of Nothing series, which includesThe Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior-Prophet, and The Thousandfold Thought, a trilogy thatPublishers Weekly calls “a work of unforgettable power.” He spent his childhood exploring the bluffs of Lake Erie’s north shore, and his youth studying literature, languages, and philosophy. He now lives in London, Ontario, with his wife, Sharron, and their cat, Scully.

Also by R. Scott Bakker

THE PRINCE OF NOTHING SERIES

The Darkness That Comes Before, Book One
The Warrior-Prophet, Book Two
The Thousandfold Thought, Book Three

Neuropath (writing as Scott Bakker)

First published in paperback in the United States in 2010 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

NEW YORK:
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012

Copyright © 2010 by R. Scott Bakker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN: 9781590207451

To Ricky—friend and brother

But who are you, man, to answer God thus? Will what is made say to him who made it—Why have you made me this way? Does the potter not have power over his clay, to make, from the same mass, one vessel for honour, and another for dishonour?

ROMANS 9:20–21

Exalt-Minister, most glorious, many be your days.

For the sin of apostasy, they were buried up to their necks in the ancient way, and stones were cast into their faces until their breathing was stopped. Three men and two women. The child recanted, even cursed his parents in the name of our glorious Aspect-Emperor. The World has lost five souls, but the Heavens have gained one, praise be the God of Gods.

As for the text, I fear that your prohibition has come too late. It was, as you suspected, an account of the First Holy War as witnessed by the exiled Schoolman, Drusas Achamian. Verily, my hand trembles at the prospect of reproducing his vile and abhorrent claims, but as the original text has already been committed to the flames, I see no other way to satisfy your request. You are quite correct: Heresy is rarely singular in its essence or its effects. As with diseases, deviations must be studied, curatives prepared, lest they erupt in more virulent form.

For the sake of brevity, I will limit my review to those particulars that either directly or indirectly contradict Doctrine and Scripture. In this text, Drusas Achamian claims:

I) To have had sexual congress with our Holy Empress on the eve of the First Holy War’s triumph over the heathen Fanim at Shimeh.

II) To have learned certain secrets regarding our Holy Aspect-Emperor, to whit: That He is not the incarnation of the God of Gods but rather a son of the Dûnyain, a secret sect devoted to the mastery of all things, body and spirit. That He transcends us not as gods transcend men, but as adults transcend children. That His Zaudunyani interpretation of Inrithism is nothing more than a tool, a means for the manipulation of nations. That ignorance has rendered us His slaves.

(I admit to finding this most unnerving, for though I have always known that words and events, no matter how holy, always admit wicked interpretations, I have never before considered the way beliefs command our actions. For as this Achamian asks, if all men lay claim to righteousness, and they do, who is to say which man claims true? The conviction, the belief unto death, of those I send from this world now troubles me, such is the treachery of the idle intellect.)

III) That our Holy Aspect-Emperor’s war to prevent the resurrection of the No-God is false. Granted, this is merely implied, since the text was plainly written before the Great Ordeal. But the fact that Drusus Achamian was once a Mandate Schoolman, and so cursed with dreams of the First Apocalypse, renders his suspicions extraordinary. Should not such a man hail the coming of Anasûrimbor Kellhus and his war to prevent the Second Apocalypse?

This is the sum of what I remember.

Having suffered this blasphemy, I understand the profundity of your concern. To hear that everything we have endured and cherished these past twenty years of war and revelation has been a lie is outrage enough. But to hear such from a man who not only walked with our Master in the beginning, but taught him as well? I have already ordered the execution of my body-slave, though I mourn him, for he only read the text at my behest. As for myself, I await your summary judgment. I neither beg nor expect your pardon: It is our doom to suffer the consequences of our acts, regardless of the piety of our intentions.

Some pollution begs not the cloth, but the knife; this I accept and understand.

Sin is sin.

Prologue

When a man possesses the innocence of a child, we call him a fool. When a child possesses the cunning of a man, we call him an abomination. As with love, knowledge has its season.

—AJENCIS, THE THIRD ANALYTIC OF MEN

Autumn, 19 New Imperial Year (4131 Year-of-the-Tusk), the “Long Side”

A horn pealed long and lonely beneath the forest canopies. A human horn.

For a moment all was quiet. Limbs arched across the imperious heights, and great trunks bullied the hollows beneath. Shorn saplings thatched the intervening spaces. A squirrel screeched warning from the gloom of interlocking branches. Starlings burst into the squinting sky.

They came, flickering across bands of sunlight and shadow.

Running with rutting fury, howling with rutting fury, through the lashing undergrowth, into the tabernacle deep. They swarmed over pitched slopes, kicking up leaves and humus. They parted about the trunks, chopping at the bark with rust-pitted blades. They sniffed the sky with slender noses. When they grimaced, their blank and beautiful faces were clenched like crumpled silk, becoming the expressions of ancient and inbred men.

Sranc. Bearing shields of lacquered human leather. Wearing corselets scaled with human fingernails and necklaces of human teeth.

The distant horn sounded again, and they paused, a vicious milling rabble. Words were barked among them. A number melted into the undergrowth, loping with the swiftness of wolves....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harry N. Abrams
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1590202929
• ISBN 13: 9781590202920
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 433
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland