[What Came Before]

Considering the sheer number of themes and ideas that TSA explores, I think a reading list is in order? I keep hearing references to other other authors on TPB that are relevant to ideas in the series, but I think it might be worth listing all of them in one place, for new readers as well as re-readers like me?

I would obviously list Tolkien and the Dune series as required reading material, but I am sure others can add more, especially the philosophical works that influenced RSB (obviously Nietzsche, by his own admission) or books that explore similar themes?

And other speculative fiction works that are similar?

[What Came Before]

I'd recommend Dan Simmons' first Hyperion duology. 
I didn't rate it super highly as a work of fiction in isolation, but I am often reminded of his major theme (a deliberatly evolved racial morality) when considering Bakker's ideas.

[What Came Before]

I second Hyperion.

Blindsight by Peter Watts is a gem of a SF book.  Best Hard-sci-fi writer around

[What Came Before]

The cognitive science would seem axiomatic.

Self-Insight - David Dunning
A Mind of Its Own - Cordelia Fine
Kluge - Gary Marcus
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
The Naked Brain - Richard Restak
Incognito - David Eagleman
The Tell-Tale Brain - V.S. Ramachandran
The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge
The Mind & the Brain - Jeffrey Schwartz

The latter three are more inspiring then the former. However, for some more hope from neuroscience check out anything by Bach-y-Rita, Michael Merzenich, Edward Taub - this is the same Taub from the Silverspring Monkeys, however, haters should look into his ongoing research rehabilitating victims of stroke and serious brain injuries.

Also, I'd recommend anyone reading TSA to simply read Bakker's other titles. Skin-Spies terrified me all the more after reading of the Neuropaths secretly permeating society's hierarchies and Neil is, by some arguments, the philosophic inverse of Kellhus and the Dunyain. Disciple is a cipher for Memory and thus the Nonmen and, probably, Meppa. Where Disciple remembers everything, people, places, and things, all experienced as horrendous amalgamations of all their momentary iterations, the Nonmen remember only their acts terrible enough to remind them of those they've lost.

I would also recommend anyone wishing to experience and explore fiction and human narrative more deeply to read The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Georges Polti.

[What Came Before]

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, as this has clearly provided RSB with a huge amount of material (and it's also about one of the craziest books I've ever read)

[What Came Before]

Thanks for the big list, Madness, exactly what I was hoping to get from this thread , some of the names come up all the time on TPB and it's good to know what books to start with. And Church, I did hear about Blood Meridian but forgot about it, thanks!
Ajokli, Blindsight sounds interesting, I should give it a go... so many books to read!!

Curethan, it's been a while since I read Hyperion, could you please explain how the themes are similar? When you said deliberately evolved racial morality, are you referring to the Ousters? [Actually, I don't remember much from Fall of Hyperion. My favourite bits are The Scholar's Tale and The Priest's Tale from Hyperion. I find that Simmons doesn't seem to do the sequels all that well - I found Ilium really interesting but Olympos was meh...]

Also, anyone know how to SPOILER tag and hide text under a button as on Westeros?

[What Came Before]

(click to show/hide)

Got it working. It wasn't enabled. Same [ spoiler ] [ /spoiler ] code.

[What Came Before]

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, as this has clearly provided RSB with a huge amount of material (and it's also about one of the craziest books I've ever read)

Seconded. I can't tell you how overjoyed I was the first time I read TJE and WLW and seeing the mounds of Blood Meridian nods. Hell, Cleric is just a slightly more insane version of The Judge. The Captain had an excellent Glanton vibe. It was marvelous.

I'd also second Blindsight. Any of Watts' work is great (and free on his website).

[What Came Before]

Curethan, it's been a while since I read Hyperion, could you please explain how the themes are similar? When you said deliberately evolved racial morality, are you referring to the Ousters? [Actually, I don't remember much from Fall of Hyperion. My favourite bits are The Scholar's Tale and The Priest's Tale from Hyperion. I find that Simmons doesn't seem to do the sequels all that well - I found Ilium really interesting but Olympos was meh...]

As I recall,

(click to show/hide)

the human federation is revealed to be a stagnant dead end that is slowly suffocating humanity.  In order to avoid being rendered functionally extinct by the machine intelligences (a fraction retained only as a means to power their quantum processors or some such) humanity has to define a new morality that embraces diversity and subdivision or something.  The shrike and the time tombs were artefacts created by some kind of future messiah to cause the flashpoint that would enable this.


The parallels to Bakker's semantic apocalypse comes in the idea of recognizing that our cultural morality is a merely a slapdash amalgamation of taboos and paradigms rendered by environmental and incidental happenstance and evolutionary pressures that have often have little relevance to the modern situations we find ourselves in. 

That is to say, I felt the same realization of humanity finding itself in an uncaring, random universe where the fruits of our ingenuity were rapidly escaping our ability to comprehend or control them lay at the thematic heart of the story.
Simmons's denoument was interesting in that he seems to conclude that humanity must deliberately evolve its cultural morality to match its situation.

In TSA we kinda have the opposite situation, humanity stagnates in a universe that not only cares but judges.  The threat of extinction comes from humanity's animalistic tendencies made flesh (the inchies and later joined by the sorcerers of the consult) instead of cold machine intelligence, but both have the drive to evolve and survive (despite both of them being unable to reproduce except by effectively superceding themselves) at the expense of humans.  Kellhus rewrites scripture in order to defeat the consult, and in doing so frees (steals?) souls from the yoke of the old gods (although of course they are in turn bound to his purpose) thus modernising and redirecting humanity.  Whether the shrike and the no-god play a comparable role, who knows?

As I say, I only read the first two.  There was a bit too much agnostic hand wringing and badly done space opera to keep me interested, but I think thats just a question of personal taste YMMV.

[What Came Before]

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, as this has clearly provided RSB with a huge amount of material (and it's also about one of the craziest books I've ever read)

Seconded. I can't tell you how overjoyed I was the first time I read TJE and WLW and seeing the mounds of Blood Meridian nods. Hell, Cleric is just a slightly more insane version of The Judge. The Captain had an excellent Glanton vibe. It was marvelous.

Blood Meridian is actually my favorite novel.  Nothing else, in my opinion, is to powerful, comprehensive, and utterly devastating and inspiring all at the same time.

I often describe The Judging Eye to my friends as "Blood Meridian meets Fellowship of the Ring."

[What Came Before]

Agreed blood meridian is the best book I ve read! I would suggest such books as moby dick, light I'n august, Homeric epics and other Greek tragedies .

[What Came Before]

Cormac McCarthy is my favorite author. I really need to go buy Blood Meridian and re-read it. It's so dense, but there's so much to get out of it.

I'm currently reading The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham (first thing of his that I've read). It's pretty damn good. Different in a lot of ways, and the characters are fairly original as far as fantasy goes. I love Cithrin and Master Kit. I'll almost certainly read the sequel once I'm done.

[What Came Before]

I'm currently reading The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham (first thing of his that I've read). It's pretty damn good. Different in a lot of ways, and the characters are fairly original as far as fantasy goes. I love Cithrin and Master Kit. I'll almost certainly read the sequel once I'm done.

I found it interesting how Kit sometimes speaks about dangers of certainty. Is sure does seem those passages are influenced by Scott's work.

[Kein]

I don't want to make separate  thread and since my question is kinda related I will ask here.

Usual question: can someone recommend something a-la TSA series? I don't mean just fantasy belletristic book series, I mean approx. level of writing and execution. In other words "Legend of Seeker" we are ruling out at once.

I love Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, but Robin Hobb and his Saga's didn't really pick me up, for example.

[Wilshire]

I might direct you to this link, some similar questions where asked:
http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=760.0
There might be another thread around here that has a similar topic but I don't know where it is.


I find picked up China Miéville's "Perdido Street Station" as someone suggested in that thread. It was spectacular. A terribly dark fantasy, even depressing at times, which reminds me of TSA. Though to be sure its not TSA. Also keep in mind the China sees himself as a 'rule breaker' I think, so he likes to include strange and weird things into all his books.

EDIT:
here is another one:
http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=443.15