The Judging Eye - R. Scott Bakker

 

 

Picked this up because it clearly stated 'Book One' on the title page. Be nice if it said that on the cover. Also, nice if it said _anywhere_ that this a follow-up series. Either way, as an introduction to Bakker, this entry will suffice. I can at least see what the author's all about.

 

After a few italicised pages and then the mandatory fantasy Prologue, and then a further opening 20 pages of lore dumping, we’re introduced to our first character. First line of dialogue – lore and history. Continued dialogue in robotic voices reading encyclopaedic entries.

The characters first and foremost are simply mouthpieces for history and pseudo-philosophy. They don’t come across as people. He’ll set the scene with landscapes of doom, ancient wars, and “as the chronicles record…” before anyone actually breathes. It’s expository dialogue, and you slog your way through them speaking in dense prattling like pretentious grad students debating ontology instead of actual conversations.

Bakker manages to make his lore-dumping colleagues look rather tempered. It’s absolutely absurd with weaponised exposition. Pages full of laughable historic, geographic and personal names overwhelm the reader as the actual characters in his book are left frozen, static or even speaking. I had to double check a paragraph of it because I thought it was an encyclopaedia entry, but it was actually what appeared to be to be a child’s internal monologue, yet felt as if you’d walked into a lecture for an advanced class you hadn’t signed up for.

When we’re not subjected to such pontification, we’re left with juvenile Saturday morning cartoon dialogue. You’ll feel you’re reading an essay in a foreign language and then the dialogue from Scooby Doo will appear on the page, “his BOONSMEN. His father...! .... HIS FATHER! was there something he wasn't telling him?”  Talk about tonal whiplash. We shift from pseudo-biblical proclamations - a Silmarrilion of cosmic history - straight into cringe-melodrama. I’m surprised there’s not a few anime “NGHNNNNnnn”s in the text to colour the vibe. It’s hilarious. I don’t know if this is 1-star or 5-star material.

The character of Sorweel (also called Sorwa) was introduced in the first chapter, and in the opening paragraphs has been given three descriptive traits. Sad, miserable, depressed. These are used multiple times in describing him. No other attributes or traits are mentioned. Want to mention the characters finally moving over to the Barracks or stables? Quick little lore dump on both buildings respectively as they warm their hands. Bakker can’t resist, and so follows up on the mention of stables with a mini-essay on the anthropological and religious significance of horses in the ancient world of Sakarpi.

Rubbing their hands together around the fire to keep warm, no mention of the characters feeling cold at all, no mention of the fire crackling, or the mist in the air, or other people keeping warm. His father comes in with some dialogue, what are we expecting, a simple “cold night, isn’t it?” Don’t be silly. We get, “Moments of weakness come upon all men.”, just blurted out, like we’ve just sat down to warm ourselves and tuned in to a Radio 4 documentary.

 

This is what makes him so absurd: he never lets people just be people. Every action, every mundane object is smothered under gravitas and lore. The result is a book where characters can’t tie their boots without triggering a disquisition on the ancient boot-making traditions of three extinct tribes. And what do with have with our sole POV character, Sorweel? He’s less a character and more a container for Sadness™, Lore™, and Capitalised Platitudes™ and stunning and insightful dialogue mostly consisting of “Father?” … “Yes, son.” … dramatic pause… “noooooooooo!” when he’s not got his encyclopaedia at hand.

He's a hilarious excerpt:
“"are you such a fool, Sorwa?" the fact that the question was searching, genuine, and not meant as a reprimand cut Sorweel to the quick.”

Bakkerism at it’s finest there. A simple line of dialogue. A question. Instead of letting us judge tone, context, or body language — he tells us the “true meaning” of the line, as though he’s narrating a god’s-eye transcript of intentions and emotions. It’s not even subtle: he delivers it in bald, clinical prose, like a psychology report. No human conversation actually works that way. No reader needs their hand held to that degree — unless the dialogue is so weak it can’t stand without footnotes. This is total factual certainty about the hidden interiority of people who haven’t been developed enough for us to intuit anything ourselves. And how did Sorweel respond after the grandiose, psychological over-analysis?
“No, Father.” It's like 90s dubbed anime.

What about a little introspection? Look what happens when Sorweel simply looks out the window (and of course, judges the landscape as MISERABLE, because he himself is). Not just a simple dressing of the scenery and atmosphere, some visual tones, no, the rain and grassy slopes outside the window become a catapult into theology and esoteric ritual: suddenly we’re in Theological Exposition Hour: prayers of Gilgaol, Fate, the Whore, the Aspect-Emperor… all sparked because Sorweel glanced outside. Every mundane moment is hijacked by lore. Stables? Lore dump. Rain? Lore dump. Fire? Lore dump.

I don’t know if it’s unintentionally hilarious, or perhaps a parody of fantasy writing. No, Bakker’s deadly serious. There’s no winks or punchlines here. It’s like a classic B-movie trying so hard that it’s just slapstick comedy.

Conclusion:

The Judging Eye is a work where the author spends more time worldbuilding his footnotes than breathing life into his characters; a book that reads like someone translated a PhD dissertation into anime subtitles. Bakker writes as if story is beneath him. He wants to be taken as a philosopher who happens to wear a fantasy skin, but when he’s forced to do “human stuff,” it comes out stilted and drifts into the arena of comical absurdity.