The Darkness That Comes Before: Prince of Nothing, Book 1 (The Prince of Nothing Book One) [Kindle Edition]

This is another one of those books that assaults you with so many cities, lands, names, factions, races, etc. that for the first couple of hundred pages you don't know your arse from your elbow, despite a couple of helpful appendices.

But stick with it because thankfully in the second half of the book everything settles down. All the major characters have been introduced and you get a far greater understanding of the world in which the story is set.

In style and content the writing is very similar to Steven Erikson. If you are a fan of the Malazan series of books you will enjoy this. Alternatively, if you enjoy this book and haven't read Steven Erikson, I suggest you check him out (first book: Gardens of the Moon).

This is a great fantasy book that manages to build a believable other world which has an unusual medieval Arabic flavour rather than the more common medieval European background. I would recommend it to all apart from younger readers who might struggle with the complexity.

Hope this review helps.

'The Darkness That Comes Before' is without a doubt one of the most detailed fantasy books I have ever read and has an incredibly rich world with dozens of factions and rivalries whether they be political, the classic good vs evil or family. The multiple converging storyline's and sub-plots will keep you gripped whilst the richly imagined world in which the book takes place will draw you in until you could almost believe that the world R Scott Baker has created is actually real.

I bought this book because after a while reading the same old 'Good Vs Evil' and 'Boy and friend grow up to be incredibly important' type books which always had the bad guys being totally evil and the good guys being totally good became very boring. I still like that type of fantasy from time to time but eventually the cynic in me ruins things by pointing that real people are never that heroic, if you'ver ever felt like this then 'The Darkness That Comes Before' is the perfect antidote.

This is not to say that every character in the book is selfish but rather that they make mistakes, they sometimes do things out of self-interest and even the heroes at times have to succumb to 'The End justifies the means' philosphy in order to achieve their goals much as many in the real world have to.

The large cast of characters which include a Prostitute, monk, Emperor and nobles to name a few are also by no means stereotypical; indeed they subvert many of the conventions of the genre and in so doing make 'The Darkness That Comes Before' a breath of fresh air in a at times stale genre.

In short if you've got tired of reading Aes Sedai smooth their skirts in 'The Wheel of Time' or you can't take the thought of reading about anymore elves or dwarves without feeling suicidal then you should definitely read 'The Darkness That Comes Before'. It's every bit as epic as Lord of The Rings and the world R Scott Baker has created feels just as well imagined as Tolkien's middle earth. If however you're a bit of a fantasy romanticist you should probably buy something more 'conventional' like Robert Jordans epic 'The Wheel of Time' or Raymond E Feists excellent 'The Riftwar Saga'.

Despite reading complaints regarding the highly detailed and complex world created by Bakker which stated his book was quite hard to get into i bought it because of the promise of a darker, more mature fantasy than normal. I was not disappointed. Bakkers writing and the world he creates have a depth and subtlety which are all to rare in the fantasy genre and the story/characters are as dark as anything those other masters , George R.R Martin and Steven Erikson, could hope to conjure. I hesitate to go into any great detail on the book itself for fear of introducing spoilers but suffice to say that the writer and book are of the very highest class and have even attracted deserved praise from the quality, literate papers such as the Guardian as well as his successful peers.