New This Month: The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker

In a very short time, author R. Scott Bakker has proven that he is well on his way to building a universe that is arguably comparable with those created by the likes of Frank Herbert (Dune) and Isaac Asimov (Foundation). What Bakker does that -- again, arguably -- his contemporaries do not and that those SFF luminaries did was completely imagine -- from the ground up -- a universe so satisfyingly detailed you felt as though you could slip inside. The politics, the religion, the very ground beneath your feet. Many have tried but do not have that gift. But Bakker? Bakker has it, is doing it, will do it, or so I predict.

Barely into his forties, Bakker now backs up the first part of his story -- the three books of The Prince of Nothing series -- with a new series, The Aspect Emperor. The first book in this new series, The Judging Eye (Overlook) will be released later this month. It takes place roughly two decades after the events in 2006’s The Thousandfold Thought, where we find the Prince of Nothing himself now made Aspect-Emperor of a huge holding and claiming that he holds the key to a Second Apocalypse which is right around the corner.

The Judging Eye is released just two months before Bakker’s first thriller, Neuropath (Tor Books) will be released in the United States. (It was published by Penguin Canada around the middle of last year, but they seem to have been somewhat secretive about it.) In an admiring review, SFF World called it a “CSI-style thriller with a science fiction edge.” I can hardly wait!