The Second Apocalypse Book Tag + Major Development With No-God Series?
Recently, a group of booktubers decided to do a livestream where they went through a series of questions related to R. Scott Bakker's fantasy series The Second Apocalypse. They didn't tag anyone because they didn't think that anyone would want to take part, but I figured I might do it, just for fun.
I was further driven to this video when I found out that Bakker had recently started posting on his blog again. All of the entries are about AI and are political in nature, but in one comments section, he actually responds to some comments about the No-God series that may or may not be coming out in the future. I have a number of the comments highlighted, and I decided I should probably discuss that in a video.
This video is the result. A book tag, plus a discussion of his recent comments about the No-God series. Do you have hope?
Why did you decide to read The Second Apocalypse? [SPOILER FREE]
I originally decided to read The Second Apocalypse through the channel Slowly Red, which is a former booktuber who specialized in books that were dark. He said that this series was the darkest set of books that he has ever read, and that alone was enough to draw me in.
Slowly Red didn't really lean into philosophical topics, so I was actually taken off guard and shocked by what greeted me when I sat down to read the prologue of the first book. And it led to the longest series of reviews that I have ever made.
What, for you, was the highlight of the series? [SPOILERS START HERE]
I think the highlight of the series has to be the confrontation in the Golden Room at the end of The Unholy Consult. In particular, I am referring to the way that Bakker tied together the concept of the underdetermination and applied it to the Dunyain. From here, he could show how determinism extends further to consume even the apparent self-moving souls in the series.
It actually started with the revelation at the end of The Great Ordeal. Kellhus' son had this sudden realization that his principles were wrong, and that the correct truth, which they referred to as the logos, was actually The Judging Eye. It was a kind of magic that he had never encountered before, and he was forced to reconceptualize his entire worldview because of it. He concluded that everything that the Dunyain believed was wrong and even evil, and followed the Judging Eye's implications to its natural conclusion: he committed suicide. The book ended with the implication that the Judging Eye was the truth, and that everyone else in the series was woefully misguided.
But in the Golden Room, Kellhus talks about how he was forced to change his views in response to discovering magic, especially the Gnosis. Notably, the Dunyain had no knowledge of magic in their abode. And this is compared to the path taken by the Dunyain who were captured by the Consult. They also had to change their entire worldview in response to their encounter with the Tekne, which is the "magic" of the Consult.
The implication is that these revelations in response to the Gnosis and the Tekne were historically contingent. The reader also has the Dunyain encounter with the Judging Eye in the back of their mind, namely that it is also historically contingent. In every case, the Dunyain responded to some kind of magic that they were first to encounter, and they reoriented their whole worldviews accordingly. The Judging Eye said the Dunyain were evil and suggested death, the Tekne brought materialism and the fear of hell and suggested joining the Consult, and the Gnosis brought the Daimos, which ultimately led to Kellhus' plan to master both Earwa and hell itself. But which is the right path? They are underdetermined.
All of the sudden, the true path one must follow falls into greyness again.
But beyond this, there is an underlying commonality in all three approaches. Namely, this was the conviction that one must master (dominate) the world around them. The Judging Eye simply said it was evil to do such a thing, the Tekne oriented it in favor of the Apocalypse, and the Daimos oriented it against the Apocalypse, or it skin-suited such an endeavor. Crucially, none of the Dunyain ever stopped in their endeavor to master the world save for Kellhus' son, who had to die in order to cease the exercise. This is because the Dunyain have a nature. They are biological organisms just like any other, and there is one universal pattern of behavior that they can never escape, but simply recontextualize.
As such, these self-moving souls are . . . determined.
Fear Factor! Most scary/horrifying part of the series?
There are countless things that I could mention here. If I listed off all the potential candidates, it would take over the entire video. The gay cannibal holocaust was one such possible choice. The ending of the series, with the activation of the No-God, is another possible choice. But my fears tend to be more abstract. I think the Lovecraftian elements of the story were ultimately what horrified me the most, and are what stick with me to this day.
What do I mean by this? Take everything that I laid out in my previous answer and draw out the implications to its furthest extent. What is the metaphysics of this world?
The Dunyain are no less determined than anything else. Kellhus was skinsuiting the Great Ordeal for some alternative purpose: to dominate humanity and dominate hell as well. He may have been used by Ajokli, the trickster God. His efforts to stop the apocalypse escalated to such barbarity that it matched and maybe even eclipsed that of the reviled Consult. And we're left to wonder if stopping the apocalypse was ever the point.
All of this is in the context of a world that actively torments people, and then damns them eternally anyway.
Morality is stripped bare. Even the Gods just feed off people.
And you realize that all of existence is an eternal cycle of organisms eating, shitting, and fucking for no reason other than the fact that it's in their nature to do so. The apocalypse simply happens within the context of the catastrophe that is existence itself.
That was my reading, at least.
Prince of Nothing or Aspect Emperor?
Aspect Emperor is far more interesting in terms of its themes, but it gives itself over to bloat and other problems of execution that the Prince of Nothing was far better at controlling. Prince of Nothing, at the same time, is kind of a prologue in the grand scheme of things. It's a good one, but the story really begins with Aspect Emperor. I think the prose is much better in Prince of Nothing. In Aspect Emperor, it distends into tangled mazes, where the independent clause is lost in verbiage. This can be exciting, especially for effect, but he easily takes it too far. I also think that Prince of Nothing is much easier to read.
I can't really choose. They each have their benefits and drawbacks.
Which character are you taking out to lunch?
One part of me wants to take Achamian out so I can ask him what he'll do once Kellhus is looked upon with the Judging Eye. The other part wants to sit down with Kellhus, if only to learn about the nature of everything; but that's not terribly clever.
What for you is the most powerful part of Bakker’s writing?
The worldbuilding is probably the most powerful aspect of Bakker's writing. It reminds me slightly of the book Piranesi. In that book, the basic concept is actually quite simple. A man is kidnapped amid squabbling occult academics, and is now trapped in another world because of it. But the book feels otherworldly and fresh because of the slight twists in execution, namely when the story begins and the perspective that the reader occupies.
The Second Apocalypse is very similar, as it actually is a fairly simple premise. There is an alien invasion. But the aliens crash-landed thousands of years ago, with whole mythologies having been built up around the space ship, with a distinct lack of understanding casting a veil over the terminology and technology. Science and electronics become conflated with magic.
This series is a testament to the idea that it's not simply what you do, but how you do it.
What was your reaction upon finishing The Unholy Consult?
I was somewhat bewildered by the sudden flashing back and forth between perspectives and how Kellhus' demise was executed. That said, as for the last lines of the book, I was exhilarated. To finally come across a series with the balls to follow through on its themes and bring forth the vision was fist-pumping madness.
Where do you recommend Bakker fans go next with their reading?
Part of what makes Bakker as great as he is considered is the fact that he is unique. He has changed my view of fiction completely. I don't know if there are any other books out there that are like Bakker. There are some Lovecraftian elements, some Homeric elements, even some elements pulled from Blood Meridian, and especially the bible above all.
Beyond those suggestions, there is the Gap Cycle, by Stephen R. Donaldson, and also his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, especially as you get deeper into the series. I just finished The Wounded Land as I write this. The Gap Cycle is science fiction, but it is dark and uncompromising; it starts out small and brutal, but it expands into a consuming space opera. Thomas Covenant starts out as an unfortunate victim of Tolkien cloning, but with a serious thematic and character twist. Donaldson plays around with his various concepts throughout the series.
And while I did not read the series until I was several drafts deep into Paths, he did and will have profound influence on my own series. That said, I think my series is also deeply related to A Song of Ice and Fire and The First Law. My connection to Bakker probably doesn't come out until later in the series, namely works that I have not written yet.
Major Development
Finally, I want to talk about the major development.
In 2026, R. Scott Bakker started posting on his blog, Three-Pound Brain, again. As I mentioned, the content has mostly touched upon AI and some commentary about the current state of the world. But deep in the comments section of one of the posts, he has also commented on the prospects of the No-God series that was apparently supposed to follow up the Aspect-Emperor series. It started out indirect, but by the end, he got very direct. All that said, his manner of speaking is clipped and kind of confusing, so there will have to be an element of interpretation here.
Of course, it started with a commenter with the decidedly apt name, WhereDaNoGod.
As you can see, he's being cheeky about it. He doesn't even finish the word "middle," in order to communicate that everything came to a stop part way through. At the same time, you can kind of fill in the gaps?
Next, he was asked about a specific lore question.
My reading of this is that he is "just another reader" of his own books now. He uses an esoteric metaphor to imply that the writer of the books is gone. This has serious implications on its own, but there's no need to dwell on this without further context.
In the next comment, he was asked about other things that he is planning on writing, and he said two things that I think have major implications.
The first thing I want to cover is the highlighted portion. He creatively states that our current state, wondering whether the story will continue or will be maximally horrific, constitutes the "No-God." In other words, the No-God series is non-existent, and the point is that we are left wondering about if it will continue.
The second thing is the statement above that. He mentions the possibility of a prequel. That is a thing of its own. He also mentions hundreds of scenes that he has written that are inconsistent with one another, something that he might return to when he gets older. He said he has "long thought" that the "No-God" would be a good title for it. But he downplays the possibility, suggesting that it would just be a cash grab.
So, he has written hundreds of scenes taking place after the events of The Unholy Consult, but they are not consistent. He has long considered these to be the "No-God." But he doesn't want to put it out there, because it is a cash grab. Why though?
Obviously, all of this is either playful or indirect, even as a general idea of what is going on begins to form in our minds, but he gets much more direct in the next two comments.
Here, he talks about his original intent:
Apparently, the original intent of the story was to have the No-God be "notional" or theoretical. In other words, the No-God series was never supposed to exist. The way he talks about it, he was also leaving the door open. He would "sometimes hope" but that was never guaranteed. When he says that he "shoulda continued using it this way," he seems to be saying that his intentions changed over time. Again, the door was open. And this would also explain why there are hundreds of scenes that happen after The Unholy Consult. It would also seem to explain why he thinks it's a cash grab to go back to them. He thinks that his theme, the breaking of meaning, only really works if expectations are left hanging. So, this implies that the series has a kind of ergotic structure, at least insofar as it breaks meaning and takes away your answers by taking away the last part of the book that was always hinted at.
He becomes even more blunt in this last comment:
Now, there are multiple things that we can talk about here. I don't want to bog things down with too much ancillary speculation, but it is worth mentioning that he says Kellhus becomes the No-God. This is not what happens in his book. His youngest son, Chucky, becomes the No-God. I guess it is through Kellhus that Chucky makes it to that point. And I have a hard time believing that Bakker had multiple drafts, where all of the foreshadowing for Chucky was simply overlooked. Unless significant rewrites were in order; maybe he simply confused which version got published. I still prefer to think that Chucky is essentially an extension of Kellhus, biologically, and was there because of his actions, so Kellhus still brought about the No-God. Through everything that we saw in the last few books, Kellhus essentially synchronized the good with the bad, eliminating the meaningful distinction between the two. The story then ends. Meaning is lost, and the story is (intentionally) broken.
As he said before, meaning is really only broken when expectations are left perpetually hanging.
Conclusion
So, what can we conclude? There is no No-God series coming. Further, the original idea was to just leave it hanging, with a small promise of hope that another series might come, for both himself and for the readers. While he might have oscillated back and forth on what he wanted to do, he has ultimately concluded that the best way to carry through the loss of meaning (between good and evil) is to just leave the story hanging. The No-God is just a box to place the promise of redemption and the resolution to meaning, but you never get to resolve the problem because no series resolution exists.
Maybe this is just nonsense he made up to justify why it hasn't been published, but I don't think so. I think the idea that his intentions changed slightly over the course of writing it is an adequate account of everything. It's probably some variation of this. After all, he said he wanted to write a series where the Dark Lord wins in the end. He did much more than that.
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