I didn’t realize when I started reading this series that, though three books had already been published, many more (as many as four more) had been planned. I wound up doing something I hate doing; I started reading a series before all the books were published. And now I’m stuck not knowing how it’s all going to turn out, with no recourse but to wait and hope the author doesn’t up and die on me or something. It is some small consolation that the books have been good enough that waiting, hoping the author doesn’t die, is in fact something that I’m perfectly willing to do. The Thousandfold Thought picks up on most of the issues that I discussed in my last two entries, particularly doubt and betrayal. I found myself liking only a single character in the entire book, a sorcerer called Drusas Achamian, and even then he’s a weak, weak man, though he means well. The other characters are often weak, but do not even try to be strong, cannot see beyond the horizons of their own selves, or else they are cruel for no better reason than because they can be, because it confirms, in their own minds at least, their superior position in the world. This book was full of emotional, intellectual, and physical manipulation, of deceit and pain and the worst sort of hero-worship. At times it was difficult reading, not because Bakker’s powers as a writer failed him, but rather because they succeeded too well, and the worst these characters had to offer was simply too much to look upon. I’m looking forward to the next volume, due out sometime late next year.
Next: Nathan Sellyn’s Indigenous Beasts.
