The Prince of Nothing. The Prince of Nothing. The Prince of Nothing. I’ll say it as many times as I have to to get people on this blog to read it. The Prince of Nothing Trilogy. The Darkness That Comes Before. R. Scott Bakker.
True, Anasurimbor Kellhus is one of the “mutants”, even to the point of the author explicitly stating the Dunyain spent a few centuries running a eugenics program to get an intellect of that stature. But the later books of the trilogy also go into some detail about the rationalist training Kellhus undergoes with the Dunyain, the methods he uses, and even a little of the social structure of the Ishual monastery. He’s one of the perspective characters, and we see him using his techniques; there’s always a strong sense of “I could do that”, which remains right up until I actually try. And there’s no better work to demonstrate the “sense that more is possible”, or the ways in which a real rationalist would be the polar opposite of the “Spock” prototype, or a bunch of other things (disclaimer: many don’t become fully clear until The Thousandfold Thought, the last book in the trilogy).
The Dunyain conception of rationality isn’t exactly like our own, and rereading it recently there were a few things that bothered me, but overall it’s basically the story of a fantasy hero who is as good at probability theory as Aragorn is at swordfighting, with similar results.
I just finished the first book of the trilogy and it disappointed me. Kellhus is actually much better than Aragorn at swordfighting, which saves his ass all the time when he really should have thought in advance. His other (mental) superpower mostly manifests itself in charming people with NLP-like techniques, not probability theory: some fragments read almost like PUA sequences.
I’m still open for something that would fit your description, though :-)
Started reading the first one—from the prologue alone, Kellhus seems absurdly strong/skilled/fast. He reads people’s minds by looking at the patterns of their facial muscles, catches arrows out of the air, kills large groups of enemies by himself in hand-to-hand combat, etc. I’m not sure what lessons could really be derived from this, since these actions are far beyond the realm of normal human ability. Does the series/book get any better, or am I missing something here?
I’ve heard this complaint from others, and it’s valid. Where the series really starts coming into its own, in my opinion, is around the end of the first book/ start of the second where Kellhus gets involved in politics and persuasion. This is the part that gives me a better understanding of “superintelligences” and what they might do.
I’ll agree that the Scott Bakker’s stuff is great rationality fiction.
I love the protag heading into the wilderness with his rationality training, encountering evidence that indicates error, and updating his beliefs. I think its awesome when he integrates the new evidence into his model of the world, investigates the confusing things about the world and resolves them. Then he exploits his greater knowledge of the world’s structure to achieve amazing things.
I searched the site to see had anyone else here read this series, and specifically if anyone else had put quotes in the quotes thread. There’s some great dialogue in book one that I think would fit well. (There’s less in book two, and I’ve just started book three.) Glad to see people have heard of it!
I agree some aspects of Kellhus’s abilities are a little cheesy (the probability trance and the NLP-style memory hacking come to mind), but he is still essentially a rationalist character, though his lack of morality means I can’t really class him a hero.
The author blurb seems to indicate he’s a professional philosopher—I’d be curious to read some of his writing.
The Prince of Nothing. The Prince of Nothing. The Prince of Nothing. I’ll say it as many times as I have to to get people on this blog to read it. The Prince of Nothing Trilogy. The Darkness That Comes Before. R. Scott Bakker.
True, Anasurimbor Kellhus is one of the “mutants”, even to the point of the author explicitly stating the Dunyain spent a few centuries running a eugenics program to get an intellect of that stature. But the later books of the trilogy also go into some detail about the rationalist training Kellhus undergoes with the Dunyain, the methods he uses, and even a little of the social structure of the Ishual monastery. He’s one of the perspective characters, and we see him using his techniques; there’s always a strong sense of “I could do that”, which remains right up until I actually try. And there’s no better work to demonstrate the “sense that more is possible”, or the ways in which a real rationalist would be the polar opposite of the “Spock” prototype, or a bunch of other things (disclaimer: many don’t become fully clear until The Thousandfold Thought, the last book in the trilogy).
The Dunyain conception of rationality isn’t exactly like our own, and rereading it recently there were a few things that bothered me, but overall it’s basically the story of a fantasy hero who is as good at probability theory as Aragorn is at swordfighting, with similar results.
I just finished the first book of the trilogy and it disappointed me. Kellhus is actually much better than Aragorn at swordfighting, which saves his ass all the time when he really should have thought in advance. His other (mental) superpower mostly manifests itself in charming people with NLP-like techniques, not probability theory: some fragments read almost like PUA sequences.
I’m still open for something that would fit your description, though :-)
Started reading the first one—from the prologue alone, Kellhus seems absurdly strong/skilled/fast. He reads people’s minds by looking at the patterns of their facial muscles, catches arrows out of the air, kills large groups of enemies by himself in hand-to-hand combat, etc. I’m not sure what lessons could really be derived from this, since these actions are far beyond the realm of normal human ability. Does the series/book get any better, or am I missing something here?
I’ve heard this complaint from others, and it’s valid. Where the series really starts coming into its own, in my opinion, is around the end of the first book/ start of the second where Kellhus gets involved in politics and persuasion. This is the part that gives me a better understanding of “superintelligences” and what they might do.
I’ll agree that the Scott Bakker’s stuff is great rationality fiction.
I love the protag heading into the wilderness with his rationality training, encountering evidence that indicates error, and updating his beliefs. I think its awesome when he integrates the new evidence into his model of the world, investigates the confusing things about the world and resolves them. Then he exploits his greater knowledge of the world’s structure to achieve amazing things.
I searched the site to see had anyone else here read this series, and specifically if anyone else had put quotes in the quotes thread. There’s some great dialogue in book one that I think would fit well. (There’s less in book two, and I’ve just started book three.) Glad to see people have heard of it!
I agree some aspects of Kellhus’s abilities are a little cheesy (the probability trance and the NLP-style memory hacking come to mind), but he is still essentially a rationalist character, though his lack of morality means I can’t really class him a hero.
The author blurb seems to indicate he’s a professional philosopher—I’d be curious to read some of his writing.