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Tom's life is not what it once was. His marriage to the beautiful Nora is on the rocks and he now sees his two young children only on her say-so. His best friend Neil has moved to California to teach neurology. He has one success - a book on human psychology. Tom wiles away the time trying to teach bored grad students. But that all changes when Neil comes back into his life. For it seems that Tom's best friend was working for the National Security Agency, cracking the minds of suspected terrorists. Now it is Neil himself who has cracked and gone AWOL - what's more, he has left behind evidence that he has been employing his unique skills on civilians - obsessed with the idea that he can control the human brain.

Thus begins a terrifying sequence of events as Neil starts to kidnap and mutilate people with a connection to Tom. He damages their brains and then releases them - often leaving them mad. But only when he gets near his ultimate target does he reveal the full horror of his plan . . .

A crime thriller from an acclaimed master of speculative fiction

“And you wonder why I’m cynical. I’ve literally ‘seen it all before.’ The truth is we all have, every single one of us past the age of, say, twenty-five. The only difference is that I remember.”

No matter how hard he drinks, gambles, or womanizes, Disciple Manning simply cannot forget: not a word spoken, not an image glimpsed, not a pain suffered. Disciple Manning has total recall. Whatever he hears, he can remember with 100% accuracy. He can play it back in his head for an infinite number of times without a single change. This ability makes him a dangerously unorthodox private investigator.

When a New Jersey couple hires Manning to find their daughter, who joined a religious cult before vanishing in a small rust-belt town called Ruddick, he finds himself embroiled in a mystery that will pit his unnatural ability to remember against his desperate desire to forget.

A cult author now in the mainstream, the thrilling return of R. Scott Bakker and The Prince of Nothing universe.

The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior Prophet, and The Thousandfold Thought --collectively the Prince of Nothing Saga-were R. Scott Bakker's magnificent debut into the upper echelon of epic fantasy. In those three books, Bakker created a world that was at once a triumph of the fantastic and an historical epic as real as any that came before.

Widely praised by reviewers and a growing body of fans, Bakker has already established the reputation as one of the smartest writers in the fantasy genre-a writer in the line stretching from Homer to Peake to Tolkein. Now he returns to The Prince of Nothing with the long awaited The Judging Eye, the first book in an all-new series. Set twenty years after the end of The Thousandfold Thought, Bakker reintroduces us to a world that is at once familiar but also very different than the one readers thought they knew. Delving even further into his richly imagined universe of myth, violence, and sorcery, and fully remolding the fantasy genre to broaden the scope of intricacy and meaning, R. Scott Bakker has once again written a fantasy novel that defies all expectations and rewards the reader with an experience unlike any to be had in the canon of today's literature.

Widely praised by reviewers and a growing body of fans, R. Scott Bakker has already established his reputation as one of the few unique new talents in the fantasy genre. Now he returns with the long-awaited The White Luck Warrior--the second book in the Aspect-Emperor series.

As Anasurimbor Kellhus and his Great Ordeal march ever farther into the wastes of the Ancient North, Esmenet finds herself at war with not only the Gods, but her own family as well. Achamian, meanwhile, leads his own ragtag expedition to the legendary ruins of Sauglish, and to a truth he can scarcely survive, let alone comprehend. Into this tumult walks the White- Luck Warrior, assassin and messiah both.

The White Luck Warrior is a story filled with heartstopping action, devious treachery, grand passion, and meticulous detail. It is both a classic quest tale and a high fantasy war story.

As Fanim war-drums beat just outside the city, the Empress Anasurimbor Esmenet searches frantically throughout the palace for her missing son Kelmomas. Meanwhile and many miles away, Esmenet's husband's Great Ordeal continues its epic march further north. But in light of dwindling supplies, the Aspect-Emperor's decision to allow his men to consume the flesh of fallen Sranc could have consequences even He couldn't have foreseen. And, deep in Ishuäl, the wizard Achamian grapples with his fear that his unspeakably long journey might be ending in emptiness, no closer to the truth than when he set out.

The Aspect-Emperor series is the successor to Bakker's Prince of Nothing saga, revisiting the same world twenty years later. The Great Ordeal follows The Judging Eye and The White-Luck Warrior, and delivers the first half of the conclusion to this epic story. Returning to Bakker's richly imagined universe of myth, violence and sorcery, the Aspect-Emperor continues to set the bar for the fantasy genre, reaching new heights of intricacy and meaning.

The Men of the Great Ordeal have been abandoned by Aspect-Emperor Anasurimbor Kellhus and the formerly epic crusade has devolved into a group of gluttonous cannibals, mere shells of the Believer-Kings of the Three Seas. When Exalt-General Proyas, with the Imperial-Prince Kayutas at his side, attempts to control the lost Men and continue their march to Golgotterath, it rapidly becomes clear that the lost Lord-and-Profit is not so easily shaken from the mission, and the all-consuming desire for Sranc flesh is not as simplistic as the Men may have thought.

Tensions arise when the flesh of the Sranc runs out. When Sorweel, Believer-King of Sakarpus, and Serwa, daughter of the Aspect-Emperor, join the Great Ordeal they discover that the Shortest Path is not always the most obvious, or the safest. Souls, morals, and relationships are called into question when no one can be trusted, and the price for their sins is greater than they imagined.

Strikingly original in its conception, ambitious in scope, with characters engrossingly and vividly drawn, the first book in R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series creates a remarkable world from whole cloth—it's language and classes of people, its cities, religions, mysteries, taboos, and rituals—the kind of all-embracing universe that has thrilled readers of Stephen R Donaldson and George R.R. Martin.

It's a world scarred by an acopalyptic past, evoking a time both two thousand years past and two thousand years into the future, as untold thousands gather for a crusade. Travelling among them, two men and two women are ensnared by a mysterious traveler, Anasurimbor Kellhus—part warrior, part philosopher, part sorcerous, charismatic presence—from lands long thought dead. The Darkness that Comes Before is a history of this great holy war, and like all histories, the survivors write its conclusion.

With this stunning debut, R. Scott Bakker is poised to become one of the next great fantasy writers of his generation. The Darkness that Comes Before proves again that epic fantasy can be intelligent, majestic, and terrifying.

"Book Two of The Prince of Nothing" finds the Holy War continuing its inexorable march southward. But the suspicion begins to dawn that the real threat comes not from the infidel but from within...

Steering souls through the subtleties of word and expression, Kellhus strives to extend his dominion over the Men of the Tusk. The sorcerer Achamian and his lover, Esmenet, submit entirely, only to have their faith - and their love - tested in unimaginable ways. Meanwhile, the warrior Cnaiur falls ever deeper into madness. Convinced that Kellhus will betray their pact to murder his father, Cnaiur turns to the agents of the Second Apocalypse and strikes an infernal bargain.

The Holy War stands on a knife edge. If all is not to be lost, the great powers of the world will have to choose between their most desperate desires and the end of the world. Between hatred and hope. Between Anasurimbor Kellhus and the second apocalypse.

The conclusion to the groundbreaking epic Prince of Nothing fantasy trilogy.