The Great Ordeal
core novel 2016 The Second Apocalypse
Record
| First published | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.10 (3,425 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| Page count | 504 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9781468314885 |
| Internal chronology | 6 |
Synopsis
The Great Ordeal continues the Aspect-Emperor series set twenty years after the events of the Prince of Nothing trilogy, following the further course of Anasûrimbor Kellhus's vast military campaign against the ancient Consult. As the Great Ordeal presses deeper into hostile territory on its approach to the Consult's stronghold at Golgotterath, the strain of the prolonged campaign begins to test the loyalty and endurance of Kellhus's commanders and soldiers in ways the earlier stages of the march had not. Elsewhere, threads involving Drusas Achamian's separate investigation into Kellhus's true nature continue to develop, keeping the mounting stakes of the empire-wide conflict tied to the personal quest that has run alongside it since the previous volume.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Second Apocalypse
- Series: The Aspect-Emperor core; position 3 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: R. Scott Bakker
Notes
- From the series record (The Aspect-Emperor): Completed tetralogy, set 20 years after The Prince of Nothing.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Aspect-Emperor: position 3 of 4: previous The White-Luck Warrior (2011) · next The Unholy Consult (2017)
- Internal chronology, within The Second Apocalypse: position 6 of 7: previous The White-Luck Warrior (2011) · next The Unholy Consult (2017)
Sources
← The Second Apocalypse dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.