Have you read the Second Apocalypse books and if so, what’s your opinion of them( politically, literary, horror-wise, etc?)

So I have a longer version of this that’s part of the Kickstarter bonus essays, but here’s the short version.

I have indeed read the Second Apocalypse books. I only really like the first trilogy, which did a really interesting job of adapting the First Crusade into an epic fantasy series. The second trilogy has gotten successively less interesting as we depart further from historical analogy and more of the material becomes about R. Scott Bakker’s particular interests and hangups. 

And it’s those last things where I start to get tired of Bakker’s writings. As I have said, GRRM makes the lows lower to make the highs higher. But Bakker, and a lot of other “deconstructionist” fantasy writers, seem to just go for the lows and stay there. And to me, that lacks the variation that is the basis for sustained novelty and interest.