One additional note on The Unholy Consult: my hat goes off to Bakker, partly but not entirely in mockery, for managing to pull off the single biggest make-the-audience-choke-on-this moment I’ve ever seen in fiction.

[spoilers below the cut, don’t read if you want to remain unspoiled for The Second Apocalypse series]

So…in literature, when geniuses are revealing their master plans during moments of high drama, there’s often a certain element of “ah, but while you weren’t paying attention, I did The Thing offscreen!”  It’s kinda cheaty, in that the reader is prevented from fully understanding plot and character just for the sake of the flashy reveal, but it’s usually fine.  And the more convincingly smart your genius character is, the more you can get away with in that vein.

Anasurimbor Kellhus is very convincingly smart indeed.  I can accept all sorts of Xanatos Gambit nonsense from him without blinking.

Nonetheless.

“Ah, but while you weren’t paying attention, I became a demon god and conquered Hell and completely changed the metaphysical role of suffering in the universe”  –

– that may be pushing it a little too far, in terms of “things you’re allowed to do offscreen.”

[Even if it ends up not exactly working out.]