The Closing and Opening of Covers
by rsbakker
My agent has the book, and I’m having several copies of the manuscript printed up and bound to distribute to some keen-eyed friends today. That’s as much as I can say detail-wise, at the moment. As soon as my publishers and my agent and I have the details hashed out I will post them here post-haste.
I also finally managed to trap True Detective on my PVR. People have sent me so many links (such as this and this) to mainstream articles on the character of Cohle and his creator Nic Pizzolatto’s inspirations that I thought it worth a looksee. I haven’t watched an episode yet, but the notion of Mathew McConaughy (a devote believer) playing a nihilistic prophet appeals to my sense of cosmic perversity. I suppose he would make a good Disciple Manning. Who knows, maybe a thunderbolt will strike someone at HBO–they’ll take a sip of latte and wonder, “Egad! What if we take True Detective and Game of Thrones and mash them together!” Either way, given the way society continues to inexorably creep toward Golgotterath, the popularization of this fact has got to be a good thing… if it’s true that informed gamblers enjoy better odds than sleepwalkers, that is.
Three Pound Brain 
Very glad to hear this.
Congratulations, are there going to be any advanced reader copies?
Thanks. Hopefully my publishers will make ARCs a priority. You never know anymore though.
Fantastic news about the book Scott. Please keep us posted as soon as you have *any* sort of publication news.
You just made my day.
Scott, is there any sense of relief now? Or is it too early for that?
You mentioned last year I believe that you thought the manuscript would be about half as big as WLW. Did it really turn out to be that big?
The ms is substantially bigger than WLW, actually, and about twice the size of TJE. The process is complicated enough that there’s always something to be done up to the point where the final proofs are sent away, but this is without a doubt the biggest finish line, particularly when the rewrite turns out to be as a thorough as this one was. I’ll be able to talk about all this more freely once everything is settled with my publishers, but the fact is these past 3 years have been manic, almost unbelievably productive for me – especially given that I have a small child! It’s nice to stand on a mountain of words as opposed to a gorge frustrated expectations, for sure.
It is a *giant* accomplishment Scott.
It’s unbelievable to think the final book of the trilogy is actually within grasp.
Yeah, I almost fainted when I heard the news at first. To think that I’ll finally get my hands on the book that will answer so many legendary questions (I’m hoping) such as what’s the No-God, what is Kellhus planning, and how many holes does an Inchoroi have…
Hopefully there will be a sample chapter sometime soon.
Yes – which reminds me that I need to get a hold of Pat, wherever he is, galavanting around the world…
Yay!
It pleases me immensely that there are people out there who can read TUC today :)! Kudos to you lucky keen-eyed friends.
Congratulations, Bakker. With the closing of one chapter shall come the opening of another.
You’re on that list Mike!
I’m almost pleased enough by this excellent news to ignore my jealousy!
I’ll probably ignore Mike’s posts on TSA forums to avoid spoilers though. 😉
But well done Scott, a fantastic achievement and I eagerly await my own fateful read.
Thanks, Curethan. Hopefully the book delivers! I spent quite some time writing this with my 17 year old self, and he seems pretty stoked at least.
:o?!
If true, my forum life would be altered for some time, Curethan. Lol… any trauma endured so that I might honour the balance of my positions. Having that experience would come before me in ways I can’t guard for and I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) risk poisoning the SA noosphere – no matter how I tried, my knowledge would seep through my words.
One member posting less shouldn’t any difference make… I do have outstanding commitments like school to finish and extracurricular projects to work on – not mention admin and mod duties ;).
Are you saying you don’t want me to send you the copy, Mike?
Haha. Much respect, brother. A worthy reward for your toils.
Really, it would be quite difficult to read TUC and not be able to discuss it.
Nevertheless, your balanced viewpoint shall be missed.
Am I on the list Scott! 😀 Can’t wait for this to hit the shelves man!
For the video game version – certainly! Thanks Lars. Say hi to the gang!
Holy hell. You lucky son of a gun Mike. I think of all those I know who are an integral part of the TSA community at large, none are more deserving of an advanced copy than yourself.
Yeeesss!!! To the Coffers, boys!!!!!
THE SLOG OF SLOGS!
Scott – How amenable to threats of plying are you? Because if threatening to ply you would get me on that list, I can make threats! Although I suppose threatening to ply someone is not really the behavior of a keen-eyed friend.
When you’re a Jeremiah like I am, you need to reach pretty deep into the threat bucket to impress me, Triskele! Bribes will take you much, much further.
Farther, perhaps, by will the ever get you far enough. Is not bribery infinite?
“Egad! What if we take True Detective and Game of Thrones and mash them together!”
Haha… that would be great! I guess you probably like Derek Raymond, Ken Bruen, Ray Banks, Declan Burke, Jo Nesbo? Dang noir is my middle name… loved both your works. I really need to finish your first trilogy… time to settle back and find one day a week to do just that!
Either way, gratz, buddy!
Thanks Craig. Although we’re talking book SIX at this point, which means a long weekend, given your frickin voracious, rapacious, capacious ability to read!
if it’s true that informed gamblers enjoy better odds than sleepwalkers, that is.
Humouring an if? Nice to see someones cheerful!
I guess you’re mostly on a roll with this sort of thing after all the other books, but how does it feel to have gotten there, Scott?
In a word… wordy! Thanks, Callan.
Yeah.
The bad thing about True Detective is that it’s a lesser Disciple of the Dog.
Sadly after the third episode it normalizes itself too. But Rust stays awesome even if the show is rather conservative.
Oh, and please do your best to make the publisher do the book as one volume. 300k isn’t the end of the world… (or it may be, given the theme)
That’s dissappointing to hear, but not surprising. The imperative ‘Believe’ is written into narrative DNA, I swear.
Great news,congratulations Scott!!!I don’t know if you can answer this at the moment but what about the new Glossary?Will it be sold separately?
Thanks Mog! I don’t have any details regarding anything yet. But I will post when I get them.
Hooray! Its time to start rereading the first five books.
You and me both!
The Glossary would be amazing as an ebook if there is no place to print it in TUC (which sounds like it is an ADWD sized behemoth) and likely scarce demand for the glossary to be printed for a trade edition. But I bet that Subterranean Press would run a 26/500 lettered/limited print version of the glossary for their usual $250/$80. Clearly, there is a fan artist or two you could commission for the Sub Press Glossary cover. 🙂
My wife would be so angry at you, Scott, if you had Sub Press do limited edition versions of The Second Apocalypse, because I would have to buy them.
The guys at Subterranean have really got something special going on, that’s for sure. I would love to work with them at some point – you’re wife’s scruples notwithstanding!
Also, any chance of your publisher reissueing the first five books finally in Mass Market Paper Back editions to go with the release of TUC in Hardback? I know wert and others say that MMPBs convert a lot more browsers into new readers than Trade paperbacks do.
This is a debate I’ve had many a time.
Hi Scott, I’m a Turkish fan of TSA, (assuming the books are not translated to Turkish yet I might be the only one :). I just finished reading the first trilogy and was trying to decide if I should start with TJE rightaway or wait..and this news doesn’t make the decision any easier somehow!
You think the last trilogy will be somehow easier to write? As in, you got past the point where you thought would be the hardest part? OR the real challenge for the writing is yet to come?
Love from Istanbul, and congratulations!
Love back to Istanbul. What a fantastic place your city is.
The ease or difficulty of the final instalment is a question I’ve been asking myself. I write everyday, without exception. These past 3 days have been the first where I haven’t written original material in a long, long, time. But I’m a bad one for being disgusted with yesterday. Whether I will be or not always depends on tomorrow…
In other words, I haven’t the faintest clue.
This is probably weird to post, but I had a dream that I got to read an advanced copy? Perhaps my dreams are as accurate as Akka’s?
In all seriousness, congrats! Huge accomplishment and I’m thrilled at the news (and the book’s length)! You inspire me to get off my butt and get back to my own writing.
Sorry Greg. What you call dreams are just a pack of neurons snoring. The things are actually quite expensive to have made up!
Printing ink is such a scam. I remember a few years back it would cost approx. $20 to print roughly 200,000 words on the weakest setting.
Congrats on completion & shipping your latest baby out to the larger world. Can’t wait for the sample 1 chapter to be released in full, so we can get a larger scope on Ishual.
Haha, ah well, it was worth a try. But what you say is true. I’ve done the printing thing before and even in super-budget mode (a three-ring binder and my own printer with after-market cartridges) it is way more expensive than it has any right to be. No hard feelings 😉
And what does Achamian call dreams? That’s the REAL question here.
Congrats, Scott. The copies of The Judging Eye and The White-Luck Warrior have been staring at me from my shelves, begging to be read for years. Now I can tell them, just a little bit longer and the third volume will be out so I can crack you open and tear through all three! Can’t wait!
You’ve documented your difficulties in the writing and sales process for the series here and on The Three Pound Brain, so would just like to say I hope the third and concluding series to The Second Apocalypse is given the chance to be realized in some form or another. If The Unholy Consult is as powerful a conclusion as The Thousandfold Thought, then I will be even more optimistic.
Here’s hoping. People like what people like, and I’m trolling many difficult themes, so I think any kind of mass commercial success is a longshot. But this story… It is just too fucked up not gain some kind of notoriety, I think.
[…] -R. Scott Bakker has delivered The Unholy Consult. -A new trailer for season 4 of Game of Thrones -An interesting Recluce […]
Congratulations!
I watched the first episode of True Detectives last night and I enjoyed it very much. McConaughey’s Cohle seems like he would be quite at home in a Gaspar Noe film.
I would much rather smoke a joint with Diss than Cohle.
Thanks dharm – still haven’t had a chance to check any of them out, but the Noe plug is high praise indeed. Imagine McConaughey in Irreversible…
I’m convinced you or your agent should send copies of your novels to Gaspar Noe and try to convince him to adapt and direct them.
Sadly, True Detective gave in to cheap sentimentality in its Season 1 finale.
Like, it was actually disgusting to me.
Rust Cohle don’t know shit about endorphins and the effects of hypoxia on the temporal lobe.
Neuroscience is really the bullet that kills.
Is okay…disgust is just some hypothingio on the temporal lobe as well. So why weigh that as the significant emotion in the equation?
(side note: I haven’t seen any full episode of TD)
Actually, disgust seems to be located in the anterior insula. I understand it’s evolutionary purpose quite well (avoidance of biological contamination, co-opted to use in moral judgment).
C’mon, Jorge, you knew what I meant! It’s like picking at my anatomical grammer when I said hyperthingio to show I had no idea what naming rights have been declared as involved!
Anyway, why can’t cheap sentimentality be as significant as disgust? Maybe because disgust developed much earlier in our ancient history – and so has more integral weight?
No, I think cheap sentimentality is actually even more hardwired into our constitution.
The reason I brought up disgust was because in its early episodes the show is pretty goddamn grim, brushing up against the dark philosophies of Lovecraft and Lugotti. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I can say that the ending, despite being a disappointment to me, was at least consistent.
There is a revelation, and the interpretation a certain character gives that revelation is within what might be expected for that character given that character’s history (if you consider it on the whole).
The show is actually phenomenally shot, directed, acted and scripted.
Maybe my reading (and not the writer) is off.
😉
Like admiral Akbar, I suspect a trap! The reported overly long sex scene was a trap in regards to viewer expectations and here – well, were stuck in terms of spoilers, so this is a rhetorical question – but did they find the killer of the woman, or did the finale focus on a mans redemption/revelation?
No spoilers! Like I said, I find it hard to believe that a character like that can’t have some revelation regarding the truth of anodyne sentimentalism.
Thats such great news I can’t wait to read your book!! I have so many ideas about what might happen swimming around in my head and I can’t wait to see what happens!!
Thanks, Prince100!
I feel sranctacular about this news (i.e. I am rutting with a pile of rotten meat and howling glass-eyed at the night sky tonight in celebration)!
And here everyone thought it was an ink malfunction at the printers!
Scott, glad you finally finished the book. Can you clarify whether The Unholy Consult will completely end the story or not? Because on some parts of the internet the possibility of a third series has been written off based on that one comment you made here…
I’m guessing you’re referring to some mention I made regarding the story as I first conceived it in my teens. That story does end with TUC. So I’ve always said that I could drop dead of a heart attack a happy man having finished that particular wish. But it does continue – for two more books, I’m thinking. There’s nothing I can say other than that all will become clear in due course.
the story as I first conceived it in my teens. That story does end with TUC.
Wow. What I don’t understand is how BBT seems built right into it, but isn’t BBT a more recent invention of yours, Scott? If the story didn’t change ever since you were a teen, but BBT is so integrated…? How does that work?
“All will become clear in due course.” That vagueness (you’ve fallen back on it before when asked) makes me more anticipatory for this book than any in recent memory. So congratulations not just on finishing but on seriously piquing my curiosity (which is harder to do these days)
Am I one of your keen-eyed friends? I hope so! Anything to get me away from all this damn philosophy…
The keenest! Of course!
Seeing this post had the same effect on me as a sudden solar eclipse.
Comgratufuckinglations, Scott. You’ve earned it. I giddily anticipate the final product.
Thanks Mike.
RSB, did the word count of the book change with the edit/rewrite?
Also, what chances of posting the new Appendix as an e-book for sale on your website? There is a substantial enough community of readers, I think, to make such an effort profitable.
Maybe it’s a bit beefier. It’s hard to tell. I killed alot of babies, and hatched a bunch more as well.
Awesome! But do you have my address? I’ve moved… a lot…
Golgotterath seemed so far, the path so narrow… but those might be the Horns on the horizon.
Congrats this is awesome news. Can’t believe I just found out about this today. What you have created in the Second Apocalypse is remarkable. What should be required reading for fans of speculative fiction. Can’t wait to read The Unholy Consult. I hope you sell a shit ton of copies. You deserve all the success in the world. Peace and respect.
Whoa.
How awesome is this? Fashionably late, as always, but glad I finally made it to the party.
Congrats!
I’m having a hard time thinking of the last time I had this much anticipation for a book. Maybe the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition when I was 13.
May the wrath of 10,000 suns fall on every publisher in existence if the two books after TUC are not brought into reality. I will personally stalk every one of them, and then haunt their entire lineage after I die.
What’s the news on this? I want to read it!!!