A short life of the author
R. Scott Bakker (b. 1967) was born on 2 February 1967 in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada. He studied literature and philosophy and has a master’s degree in philosophy from Vanderbilt University. His academic work focuses on the philosophy of mind and what he calls the “Blind Brain Theory” — the idea that human consciousness systematically misrepresents itself to itself.
Life and Career
The Prince of Nothing trilogy — The Darkness That Comes Before (2003), The Warrior-Prophet (2004), and The Thousandfold Thought (2006) — is set in a world modelled on the Near East during the Crusades, where sorcery is real and a philosopher-monk named Kellhus, trained to read and manipulate human psychology with terrifying precision, arrives among a holy war and begins to shape it to his purposes. The trilogy is grimdark fantasy of the most uncompromising kind, philosophically dense and morally harrowing.
The Aspect-Emperor quartet — The Judging Eye (2009), The White-Luck Warrior (2011), The Great Ordeal (2016), and The Unholy Consult (2017) — continues the story twenty years later. Together, the seven novels form the Second Apocalypse, one of the most ambitious projects in fantasy literature.
Key Works
- The Darkness That Comes Before (2003)
- The Warrior-Prophet (2004)
- The Unholy Consult (2017)
Collecting Bakker
The Darkness That Comes Before (2003, Overlook Press US) brings $20–$50. The Prince of Nothing trilogy in first editions brings $60–$150 complete.