Elitist Book Reviews

Is it just me, or is Ken Scholes getting better with every book? What’s that you say? You haven’t read his latest novel, ANTIPHON, yet? Well, then let me tell you. Ken Scholes is getting better with every book.

I won’t bother telling you the plot of the book. For one thing this is the third book in the series and the plot has gotten far too complicated to explain well here. Let’s just say that Scholes’ Psalm of Isaak series is a fantasy series set in a unique world full of well-rounded characters and more plot twists and turns than you can shake a stick at. The first book, LAMENTATION (which you should buy NOW), started out with the fall of the great city Wind-wir. And when I say fall, what I really mean is that it was destroyed in a giant pillar of fire killing everything and everyone in it. The rest of the series has dealt with the loss of that city. Mostly why it was destroyed in the first place, and who destroyed it. The first book ended with the reader thinking they figured out why the city was destroyed and the one responsible coming to justice. Book two, CANTICLE (reviewed HERE, opened up a much vaster world and new implications that the city may have been destroyed for other reasons. I’m not going to say much more except to say it just keeps getting better.

At each book the reader feels he/she has gotten a good grasp on the world and its major players. Everything seems to fit nicely together and then in the subsequent book Scholes makes his scope just a bit wider, and you see more of the true picture. It’s as if we have been staring at a beautiful painting standing two inches away. Now, with ANTIPHON, we’ve stepped back a few feet and can see more of the painting and how things are coming together.

I have a feeling Scholes has a few more tricks up his sleeve before the entire piece of art is revealed, and I can’t wait to see what it turns out to be. Ken, if you’re reading this, WRITE FASTER! I’m dying to know what happens next. Also, thanks for the ride so far. For those of you who aren’t Ken, go out and read these books. NOW! You’ll be glad you did.

Age Recommendation: 16+ Not much to object too here, a few gruesome scenes and a very complicated plot.
Language: None. A few curses that are made up for the world, but nothing else.
Sex: None in this book. A few scenes implied in previous volumes. Nothing graphic.
Violence: Yeah there’s some violence. There are some torture scenes that are crucial to the plot but I didn’t find them too gory.

Having Daniel Abraham withdrawals? Do you find yourself listless and antsy now that Abraham’s Long Price Quartet is over and we have no book from him to look forward to this year? Might I offer a suggestion? Pick up Ken Scholes' work. Start with LAMENTATION. Go ahead. Do it now. I’ll wait here while you go and read it.

Are you back? Wasn’t it great! There’s no need to worry. CANTICLE is just as good as LAMENTATION, possibly even better.

I’ve tried several times to tell friends and family about these books. It usually takes about half an hour for me to really tell them about the series and why it is so awesome. Upon first glance, you may think that the series is complex with several intricate story lines weaving in and out of each other in a beautiful tapestry that comes together at the end to create something beautiful. You would be right. You may also think that all of those stories and characters would be hard to keep track of. There, however, you would be wrong. Scholes seems to effortlessly weave well-crafted characters together laying them out in such a way that you are never confused as to who you are talking too or about. Even characters that I thought at the beginning were flat and two dimensional turned out in the end to have motivations that suddenly drew the character out and made them more sympathetic.

I just realized I haven’t told you anything about the series yet. All I’ve done is gush about how much I love it (get used to it). This is a fantasy series, CANTICLE being the second of a proposed five volumes. It’s a nonstandard fantasy series in the vein of the before mentioned Long Price Quartet by Abraham, or Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. This is a unique world with new magics, creatures and races to explore and enjoy. The series has an Arabic middle eastern feel to it, with turbans and tents and caravans and large expanses of desert, which gives the series a unique feel that I found refreshing. You can imagine the heroes fighting with curved scimitars rather than the standard medieval blades.

The first book in the series was excellent, and when I got to the end it felt like a tight controlled narrative. There were unanswered questions to be sure, but only enough to keep you interested in the world. The epilogue to the book sets up a larger more mysterious world to be explored in the rest of the series. Book two on the other hand felt looser. By the end of the book less questions were answered and only a hint of what is truly going on is revealed. I don’t mean this to be a bad thing, because it’s not. I figure that Scholes wrote the first book to hook you in and by the time you’re reading through book two you are so entranced by the world and the characters that there’s no chance of not finishing the series. Now Scholes can weave a bigger bolder and more daring story over the course of the rest of the series and thus far it has been wonderful (yes kids, this includes book three, ANTIPHON).

I told my wife that this series was turning into something special and I haven’t revised that statement. These are great books. They deserve to be read. They deserve to be talked about and enjoyed and passed to friends. So what are you doing reading this review. Go out and get it!

Recommended Age: 16+ It’s complicated and there is a few scenes of torture in this book, not graphic, but still a bit disturbing.
Language: None.
Violence: A bit. Like I said it’s never described very fully, but it’s still there.
Sex: A few references over the series but, again, not graphic.