The Second Apocalypse

Pros

• The Second Apocalypse by R. Scott Bakker, starting with **The Darkness That Comes Before**, is a dark, beautifully written, fucked up, epic fantasy series, with complex characters, rich world building, and powerful magics.
• This is the series with an artificial godlike construct whose mere appearance reduced the global birth rate to zero for many years resulting in millions of stillbirths. This absolutely is the bleakest setting I've read about.
• It is my favorite book series of all time. I think it’s on a league of its own (especially the first trilogy) and to describe it as just a ”grimdark fantasy series” is selling it short.
• I'm midway through the second book, and this doesn't resonate with me at all. The significant rapist in the story is a closeted gay guy in a warrior culture who killed his own father for his male infatuation, and is presented as pathetic...
• It takes away from what the series is: A huge, sprawling, mature, work of epic fantasy with some of the most intricate world-building and character work in fiction. It has quickly become my favorite stoey.

Cons

• Parent context: One of the books (I believe the second) graphically describes how a family is raped by monsters. It’s more than just a PR problem Reply: The goblin analogue that is one of the main antagonists of the second series are lit...
• It's the rape. The constant raping, that's the biggest issue. Like... The authors view on a man's propensity for rape is very apparent and it's kind of hard to get away from if that's your problem with it.
• Its a series that is not kind to its female characters. Which makes sense based on its setting but Bakker seems to have some odd tendencies that my female friends hate. The story and lore is top tier but not many publishers will touch this.
• The biggest deterrent to Bakker’s works is that he writes exclusively for men and has his view on male sexuality, that is men are biologically wired to want to rape women. Chivalry is not defending women, but women should be grateful men...