The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker

These maps are drawn in a deliberately Tolkien-aping style by the author himself, based on map he started creating when he first conceived of the series in the mid-1980s. Scott Bakker has planned the final act, which will apparently consist of two volumes, but cannot reveal the title yet without it spoiling the events at the end of The Aspect-Emperor.Īs with most works of epic fantasy, the series is accompanied by maps.

The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor form the opening two acts of a three-act story with the over-arcing title of The Second Apocalypse. Scott Bakker’s own hand-drawn map of Earwa for The Darkness That Comes Before. The Great Ordeal will be published on 5 July in the United States and 29 September in the UK, with The Unholy Consult to follow in (hopefully early) 2017. Due to its length, it has been split into two volumes: The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult. Nevertheless, Bakker completed the book last year. The series continued with The White-Luck Warrior in 2011, but work on the concluding volume of the then-planned trilogy was delayed by real-life issues. The Inchoroi and their human servants, the Consult, seek to resurrect the No-God, a nihilistic force of annihilation, so as to reduce the human population of the world to more manageable levels and, in time, help them escape. This time their target is Golgotterath, the crash-site of the Ark of the Heavens, a star-spanning vessel which brought the dread Inchoroi to the world. The Judging Eye picks up the action twenty years on, with the Three Seas now united and preparing the Great Ordeal, a second massive crusade. In 2008 Bakker began publishing a follow-up series.

Please click on the map to see its full, impressive detail. More of his work can be found here, along with his illustrated trailer for the books here. This striking map was created by Jason Deem, aka Spiral Horizon. A spectacular map of the continent of Earwa, the setting for the seven novels that make up The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor (as well as presumably the two novels to follow).

The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker