Once thing I always like to look out for on my re-reads is hints of which characters have been replaced by skin-spies before we actually find out. Here's a list of all the instances I've found. Bolded fragments by me. Spoilers ahead.

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Simas

Simas can read without help despite being old.

As expected, he found Simas hunched over an ancient manuscript. Lantern light glistened across a thin line of spilt ink, which Nautzera momentarily confused for blood. He watched the oblivious man for a moment, troubled by a flare of resentment. Why did he begrudge Simas so? Was it because the man’s eyes had yet to fail, while Nautzera, like so many others, had to rely on his students to read to him?

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Skeaös

During a long climb through the Andiamine heights, Conphas speeds up his climb to see if Skeaös will die of a heart attack due to the strain, but old Skeaös is completely unwinded.

Prompted more by curiosity than malice, Conphas pressed the man to a brisk pace. He’d never seen anyone die of the clutch before. Remarkably, Skeaös did not complain, and aside from swinging his arms like an old monkey, he showed no signs of strain. With easy wind, he began briefing Conphas on the specifics of the treaty struck between the Scarlet Spires and the Thousand Temples—as far as they were known. When it seemed clear that Skeaös had not just the appearance but the stamina of an old monkey, Conphas grew bored.

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Cheperamunni

Even though most members of the Ainoni ruling castes are addicted to chanv, Cheperamunni, a political puppet, is not.

Iyokus was addicted to chanv, the drug that held a greater part of the Ainoni ruling castes within its clasp—except, and this thought often surprised Eleäzaras, for Chepheramunni, the latest puppet they had installed on the Ainoni throne.

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Ikurei Istriya

Istriya is acting unusually, according to both Xerius and Conphas, and is conspiring with Skeaös to stop Xerius' plan to destroy the Holy War. Istriya also asks Xerius how Skeaös was discovered.

“And now with the Holy War, my dear Conphas! You’ll be more, far more than the greatest Exalt-General in our history!”
What is she trying to do? Istriya had always goaded him, but never had she pressed her banter so close to sedition.

“You and my grandmother,” he said, “hope to save the Holy War from my uncle. A commendable undertaking, save that it verges on treachery.

“Tell me, Xerius,” his mother said huskily, “how was it that you discovered Skeaös?”

She also won't have sex with Xerius anymore, sending ‎slaves to him instead. (Discovered by u/BigBouch99)

Xerius couldn’t remember when Istriya had started bringing these men and women to him—these surrogates.

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Somandutta

During their flight through Cil-Aujas, Soma can keep up the pace despite most others falling behind, even carrying Mimara for a while.

She turns and sees Soma pacing her. Caste-noble tall. Lean and broad-shouldered. With his gowns torn and twisted, he resembles the Disowned Prince that the other girls used to dream about in the brothel—the fabled customer who would rescue rather than abuse.
His dark-lashed eyes seem to laugh. There is a relentlessness to him that she does not quite trust, she realizes. A strength out of proportion to his foppish character

She is thrown across a broad chest, hung like dripping cloth from arms.
"You will not perish for me!" She hears his voice rasp. "I'll carry you across the doors of hell! Do you hear me? Mimara! Do you hear me?"

Anyone familiar with Robert Jordan’s extremely flawed and uneven epic The Wheel of Time will know the meme “she said while tugging at her braid and hugging her breasts.” Or some variation of it. Jordan said this way… WAY too often.

Bakker has the same issue except it’s “hot tears.”

Always some variation of hot tears or hot tears sliding down someone’s cheek or seeing hot tears on a cheek.

Prompted by u/Careful_Champion7361 great recent post and my comment on it. Before TUC (or maybe TGO?) reveal what the Inverse Fire truly looks like, given the supposed sci-fi nature of it, I honestly thought it was possibly the visuals of some kind of high-tech data processor only clearly not understood by the ancient Nonmen who tried their best to describe what they saw, using the closest metaphors they could. It isn't exactly as I imagined it but always reminded me of the Inverse Fire, to be honest.

(Granted, it is never explained just what even this thing is, no pun intended, that Kate sees when she enters the UFO's pilot chamber, so I'm speculating here, lol.)

Have you seen the film? Did anyone else have the same feeling?

Tried so many variations, kept coming up "name is already in use". How many of you are out there?

Totally forgot about this episode even

I’m talking proper death rock like Specimen, Alien Sex Fiend, Christian Death.

I envision Eliazares as this kind of decadent, glamorous 80s dark rocker/goth with long black nails and heavy makeup, heavy ornaments.

This series would make a fantastic dark 80s style dark fantasy series filmed on the same cameras they used in Excalibur.

Getting close to finishing the current series I’m on, exploring what I want to read next.

I’ve seen Blood Meridian suggested a few times on this sub and got reminded of it elsewhere, sort of prompting this post. Don’t know a thing about it though.

Would you recommend it to a fellow Bakker fan, and if so, why? Or why not? (w/o too many spoilers pls.)

Hey everyone, first-time reader here.
I’ve been reading the e-book of The Darkness that Comes Before which I bought through Apple Books and have been noticing a lot of what look to me like typos or copy editing mistakes. Below are just a handful that I can remember:
- an instance of Inrau being turned into "lnrau" (lowercase L instead of uppercase I)
- a lot more instances of God being turned into "G od"
- He already lay awake by time Paäta, one of Xinemus’s body-slaves, arrived with a basin of fresh water.
- Such maddeningly subtlety!
These issues are also present in the version sold by Kobo which as it turns out I also bought a long time ago but had forgotten about.
I’m wondering if other e-book readers have also experienced errors like these, and if they have, have they encountered even more serious mistakes that make following these already fairly dense and demanding books even harder than the ones I’ve listed above.
Sadly reading the print versions is not really possible for me because I’m legally blind.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In this alternate timeline, Kellhus was sent to look for his father in the Lands Between!

His sword, Enshoya, is the Uchigatana equipped with Impaling Thrust (a very OP combo btw)

Following the shortest path, Kellhus ignored all the optional early-game content, and after making a pact with Melina, went immediately to Stormveil Castle to defeat Godrick.

Upon leaving the castle, the immensity of the in-game map struck Kellhus breathless… what do you think his next move would be?

Our full series spoiler readalong podcast series continues through The Darkness That Comes Before, we discuss Part II. Links for the audio and YouTube video can be found here: https://pagechewing.com/the-darkness-that-comes-before-part-ii-the-emperor-power-paranoia-and-the-gathering-storm/

Thank you for your support and letting us know what we missed. For first time readers we've done two other full reads through the series.

An Inchoroi statue for sure.

As a servant of Satan himself blessed be his name, one of my many duties I must attend is the infiltration and influence over certain Abrahamic religious institutions.

I thought it would be fun(ny) to have a nice old church lady read Bakker’s work.

She thinks it’s brilliant, you see this woman is a psychologist. She retired but, she spent her life in that field.

I got her to read The Darkness that Comes Before this year and she cannot stop going on about how amazing and thoughtful she found it to be.

I’ve also shared quite a bit of other evil pieces of art with her.

Certain black metal bands, NIN, dark philosophical work.

All kinds of great stuff.

You’d never think this person would be even remotely interested in anything like that but she’s actually found a lot of meaning and fulfillment in the darker arts I’ve shared.

A remote that can only pause (but not unpause, start or stop) exactly one thing, the No-God. There is no mention of it being used to kill Sranc or anything.

Kyraneas and Seswatha literally just hit "System Pause" and it took the Consult another two thousand years to figure out how to unpause it.

Ever since I read they were eating sranc medallions I couldn't help but begin to imagine some riverside tavern, called texsranc roadhouse or something similar (would be a hit in thunyerus) serving sranc fillet, sranc sirloin, sranc ribeye, sranc burger, sranc shawarma, sranc stew, pan-fried sranc, sranc sautee, scranc stew, scranc stew with potatoes, shrimp creole, tinned sranc in anpoi, pickled sranc, sranc enchiladas, sranc gyros, srancakes, sranc fajitas, sranc bowls, sranc bowls (extra fiber), fortified sranc, sranc extract (powdered), sranc liver (pill form), sranc-er-ade, sranc broth, braised sranc. You can see this idea developing the text itself:

Tongues and hearts became the preferred delicacies among the Nansur kjineta. The Ainoni prized the cheeks. The Tydonni took to boiling the creatures before searing them over flame.

Sounds like the menu at my local taqueria

Slaves brought them their repast: small medallions of sizzling Sranc meat, seasoned with blueberries and wild scallions rooted from the seashore.

That shit sounds disgusting bro!

The caste-nobility, as a rule, demanded more in the way of preparation and variety.

Clear evidence of market demand, noble tastes, cultivation of industry. All of this is to say; sranc restaurants coming soon? Lawd knows they got enough dead bodies

My personal take on the taste: somewhere between a dark, firm, dry chicken & steak tartare left out in the sun for a few days... I'd recommend a simple serving on corn tortillas with a substantial heaping of something hot. Zeumi peppers perhaps? Who's got the best food in earwa?

He can definitely blast on demand right

Here’s what you’re up against as a salesman.

Gardens of the moon is genuinely one of the worst books the person has ever read in their life.

A series that takes multiple books in order to get good or start making sense isn’t a good series.

The Malazan fan base is aggressively toxic, to the point where certain book tubers have left that fact in their reviews of Malazan.

The author believes he has produced something of academic philosophical and historical significance/brilliance , behaves like serious professor and sociologist in interviews, but has actually produced something that’s closer to Dragonlance and forgotten realms and its quality.

There is a sunken cost fallacy involved with the critical praise this series gets.

Poor structure and abysmal pacing and horrible exploration of the world is being repackaged and sold as “complex” and avant-garde.

The prose is only high to those who haven’t read high prose.

Assume that these are all things, a person believes about Malazan.

Change their mind.

Update

Malazan is the monster truck show of the fantasy genre. Same announcer and commercial voice actors and everything.

I'm on a reread of the book and The Prince of Nothing series in general (I plan to read The Aspect-Emperor directly after this time around), and I have to say that Achamian is my favourite character. I relate to him so much and I feel pity for him. Additionally, I was also happy about him ending up with Esmenet during the Holy War until I reached this foreshadowing passage about what will eventually happen :

One evening, for reasons he couldn’t fully articulate, Achamian followed Kellhus and Esmenet with a candle, his writing accoutrements, and a sheaf of parchment. The previous night Kellhus had spoken of trust and betrayal, telling the story of a fur trapper he’d known in the wastes north of Atrithau, a man who’d remained faithful to his dead wife by fostering a heartbreaking devotion to his dogs. “When one love dies,” he’d said, “one must love another.” Esmenet had openly wept.

I might be wrong on that being foreshadowing but it made me sad man. His happiness will not last. Kellhus is an asshole.

Since all the Chorae were removed from carapace by Muties, the No-God 2.0 can theoretically be destroyed by sorcery, which, in turn, makes it even more vulnerable than 1.0.

Sure, in the last chapters some of the hoard got caught in whirlwind, but it's not like those trinkets constantly orbit around TNG, creating some sort of magic-deadening barrier, right?

...unless these were reattached after Kel was placed there in a super short/limited time the Muties had.

Or have I misread something?

In 'The Thousandfold Thought', he thought he came close to murdering a prophet, and felt the incredible, unspeakalbe urge to *undo* what he had nearly done.

And in the final book, in 'The Unholy Consult', he had asked himself: "What was it? What was that feeling? That desire to blot out all of existence to undo that which was irrevocable?"

Just a nice observation I had. Twice, Proyas had done things that he really, really wished he hadn't. All for the sake of his faith.