[Cause]

Hoe do chorae work. I cant understand how with 30 schoolmen conphas could ever have lost his battle. only so many are protected by chorae the rest are dead. The chorae bowmen are secure but surly sorcery outranges a bow. and finally do they shoot the chorae as I have come to suspect or just wear them. if the latter the sorcerous words would protect them.

[Brys]

I just finished the Warrior Prophet. It's the best epic fantasy I've read since Deadhouse Gates. Bakker excellently managed to use the historical aspects and his own imagination.

From what I can tell, chorae are palm sized iron symbols, so I don't know how they would fire them from bows, but that's what I thought they did. In the battles it definitely seems that they fire them. Perhaps they're more abundant than we're given the impression, but I don't know how they work.

[First Seguleh]

Actually, I believe the chorae are repeatedly described as small spheres, so could easily be shot from a bow/crossbow or attached to an arrow in place of it's head.

[Cause]

but still I cant see how sorcery cant outrange a bow and it seems to me evryone without a chorae can be fried first and than the army can deal with the 5000 or so with chorae left.

[Lather]

sheesh, why you guys gotta always know how everything WORKS??

i can't figure out how they work but i'll bet money that the folks over at the Three Seas forum could tell you!!! they're unbelievable in their knowledge of the books and also, Bakker has a section there where he comes fairly often to answer questions of this nature!! he's really helpful and they been hashin' all this out for a couple of years over there so believe me when i say, they have more than likely discussed how the chorae work!! there's a search feature that works well for such things. anyway, they're nice folks over there. they turned me on to erikson there and discuss his work as well.

[First Seguleh]

We don't really know enough about the particulars of sorcery to answer the range question, but do bear in mind that a chorae-bearing archer can get as close as he pleases to a sorceror before shooting. Of course, if there are soldiers in the way, that could be harder, but magic seems to be fairly indisciminate, so those soldiers could quite easily get fried in the battle, leaving the archer unharmed. But I'm sure we'll see more of this later.

I believe the chorae are Inchiori artifacts, and as

*semi-spoiler*

they are aliens

*end semi-spoiler*

and practitioners of the Tekhne (I think that's how it's spelt), we really know very little about how they work. I believe TTT is supposed to go into much greater detail about some of the metaphysics of Earwa.

[Cause]

okay my last point regarding chorae if they have to touch a sorceror to kill why dont they wear armour? hell they fly its not a problem of weight

[Brys]

I thought it just had to get very close to them - he often talks about them being able to feel when chorae are close to them. If a chorae hit their armour, I assume it would kill them as well. As these are supposed to kill the "blasphemous" sorcerers, it would probably detect their magic, not their physical body, and destroy them through that.

[Darkwatch]

You obviously haven't read anything by Hélène Brodeur or Alice Brochart(probably mispelled but I don't care)

[Murrin]

(fair bit of warrior-prophet spoiler in this post, fyi)

Fool said:

I just finished the warrior prophet.

I thought the first one was decent and since everyone here seemed to say that the second one is even better, my expectations were sorta high.

But regardless of how low my expactations had been, this book would have failed to meet them.

500 pages of NOTHING happening. 500 pages of one character after another going: "Aw, this kellhus fella, he makes me feel like im more than what i am. Aw!" 500 pages of no conflict (how can there be conflict when there's one all-powerful character and hardly any opposition?), no tension, NADA, nothing.

And every time it SEEMED like there might be some conflict it simply evaporated.

I think you may have missed the point in a lot of cases.

Quote

Like after akka gets tortured you think, right, now he's gonna go back and kick some ass! Something is going to happen. What does he do? He confronts his whore, but nothing really comes of it. He confronts kellhus (sorta) but nothing really happens there either. Then he gives this big speech that reminded me of moraine in the first WoT book and gets laughed at. Is he supposed to be the comic relief or what?

He gets laughed at at first, because what he says is just fairy tales to the people present - but then they are given evidence, and from now on they'll start listening to him - it's the reason that's where the book ends - it's the turning point. Akka finally convinces them about the Consult, and as a direct result of that, Kellhus is finally given full, unopposed control of the Holy War.

Quote

The scylvendi dude... you think, well, at least heres someone who is better at SOMETHING (war) than kellhus and who knows him for what he is. That might, you know, develop into something, right? But then he rolls over like a puppy, hands over his knowledge and becomes just as insignificant as everyone else.

Did you pay any attention at all over these two books? Cnaiur has been driving himself insane for thirty years because of what Moenghus did to him. He was never going to end up all right, get what he wanted, or any of that stuff. He was completely out of his mind, and has been on the edge of losing it for years.

Quote

And dont even get me started on serwe. I was cheering when she died. I dont understand how any of the other characters could feel sad. The only thing better wouldve been if she had realized what a naive, stupid !@#$ she was before it happened.

Serwe was completely innocent, and that's why people care about her. She'd been cruelly treated all her life, was a bit dim, and in the end totally brainwashed by Kellhus (I think his manipulations left her far more emotionally damaged than anything else that happened to her). She was meant to be pitied.

Quote

For 500 pages there's one character namely kellhus, and a whole cast of pawns.... and pawns arent very interesting to read about, in fact after about 200 pages they started to make me gag with their near-constant supplication to kellhus, kellhus, kellhus.

Both the book and the trilogy are named after Kellhus, what did you expect but that the story should focus on Kellhus? The story is mostly about a immensely intelligent sociopath let loose in a world where noone can really match up to him. Watching Kellhus work his way into power with manipulation after manipulation, seeing how one after another succumbs to him so easily, is at times horrifying, and definately gripping, which is part of the appeal.

Quote

I am absolutely stumped how so many people can praise this piece of !@#$ book.

His characterisation of Kellhus - and to a lesser extent Akka, Esmenet and Cnaiur - is bloody amazing, that's why - and his writing is just as good.

_____________________________

Darkwatch said:

You obviously haven't read anything by Hélène Brodeur or Alice Brochart(probably mispelled but I don't care)

I've never heard of either of them.

[Darkwatch]

Thank you Murrin for making the case for Bakker, nice work.

As for the two authors I mentioned, the first is a franco-ontarien writer I had to read as mandatory class reading. The second is some sort of Anne Rice wannabe. Be happy you don't know them.

[Brys]

I'm really jealous of everyone who's got an advance copy of The Thousandfold Thought - it's my most anticipated book of next year except for the Bonehunters, and after the Warrior Prophet it's been that, not A Feast for Crows, which has really been what I'm waiting for. And the end to a series! They're so rare these days, it's impressive that Bakker's managed to pull it off.

[Brys]

But it's still more fo a completed series than anyone else has offered. I would think that it'd be more like Feist's series (not implying that there'll be any drop in quality though), with quite a few series set in the same world, all with a relatively short number of books, but with a few continuing threads that are basically standalone stories - or like Mieville's New Crobuzon books (replacing the single book with a single trilogy). It can still be counted as a completed series, it's just that we also have more to look forward to.

[Monoch Ochem]

Sorry but for the most part, I agree with Fool's evaluation. The Kellhus-fawning admirers were plain sickening. I couldn't make the transposition to see any of it as likely....it wasn't very compelling. At times nothing seemed to be happening. As far as the sorcery was concerned, it wasn't particularly impressive...I really wanted it to be. There seemed to be a lack of tactics. I suppose I'l read the last book for 2 reasons:
1. There's nothing betterto do until TB comes out;
2. For completeness (closure).

[Dassem]

OMG 92 dollars. I bought this for 12 euro in ireland and its not even that good.
Next one might be better.

[McLovin]

I can't wait for TTT. Kellhus and Cnaiur are two of the most fascinating characters ever.