R. Scott Bakker

Richard Scott Bakker (born February 2, 1967, Simcoe, Ontario) is a Canadian fantasy author. He grew up on a tobacco farm in the Simcoe area, and in 1986 attended the University of Western Ontario to pursue a degree in Literature, and later an MA in Theory and Criticism. After nearly completing, but ultimately abandoning, a Ph.D in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University he moved to London, Ontario, where he now lives with his wife.

Works

R. Scott Bakker's work is dominated by a large series informally known as The Second Apocalypse, which Bakker began developing while in college in the 1980s. The series was originally planned to be a trilogy, with the first two books entitled The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor. The third book has been referred to as The Book That Shall Not Be Named by Bakker, since the title of this book is considered to be a spoiler for the preceding volumes. However, when Bakker began writing the series in the early 2000s, he found it necessary to split each of the three novels into its own sub-series to incorporate all of the characters, themes and ideas he wished to explore. Bakker originally conceived of seven books: a trilogy and two duologies. This later shifted to two trilogies and one duology, with the acknowledgement that the third series may yet also expand to a trilogy.

The Prince of Nothing trilogy was published between 2003 and 2006. It depicts the story of the Holy War launched by the Inrithi kingdoms against the heathen Fanim of the south to recover the holy city of Shimeh for the faithful. During the war, a man named Ansûrimbor Kellhus emerges from obscurity to become an exceptionally powerful and influential figure, and it is discovered that the Consult, an alliance of forces united in their worship of the legendary No-God, a nihilistic force of destruction, are manipulating events to pave the way for the No-God's return to the mortal world.

The sequel series, the Aspect-Emperor trilogy, picks up the story twenty years later with Kellhus leading the Inrithi kingdoms in directly seeking out and confronting the Consult. The first novel in this new series, The Judging Eye, was published in January 2009.

While working on the Prince of Nothing series, Bakker was given a challenge by his wife to write a thriller. To answer this, he produced a science fiction thriller based around a serial killer who can control and influence the human mind. This book, Neuropath, was eventually published in 2008. Bakker has indicated a desire to write a second thriller, with the provisional title The Disciple of the Dog, which he hopes to complete in 2009.

Bibliography

The Second Apocalypse

The Prince of Nothing

The Aspect-Emperor

The Judging Eye (2009)
The White-Luck Warrior (forthcoming)

Stand-alone novels

Neuropath (2008)
The Disciple of the Dog (forthcoming)

External links

R. Scott Bakker's Official Forum at SFFWorld
R. Scott Bakker at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
The Skeptical Fantasist: In Defense of an Oxymoron an essay by R. Scott Bakker for Heliotrope Magazine

Interviews

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