Speculative Fiction Junkie

Ken Scholes

For the second review in a row, I'm going to have to go against accepted wisdom and review a book months before it's published. In my defense, the reason for this unorthodox departure is that I got the chance to read Canticle by Ken Scholes and I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity. Canticle is the second in his Psalms of Isaak series, and I was pretty impressed with the first book, Lamentation, when I reviewed it a few months ago (review here).

Canticle picks up almost a year after its predecessor left off. As the story opens, many are gathering in what looks to be become the center of the new world, the Ninefold Forest, for a feast to celebrate the arrival of Lord Rudolfo's first child. Unfortunately for those in attendance, the festivities are abruptly interrupted by assassins and many of the guests are killed (I normally try to avoid spoilers but this turn of events is mentioned on the back of the book itself). Mr. Scholes thus begins Canticle with a bang and the action is propelled forward at lightning speed for the rest of the book.

Structurally, Canticle and Lamentation are very similar. Both books contain a number of separate storylines that are told from the perspective of point-of-view characters in relatively short increments and as a general matter the style and tone of both books are nearly identical. In fact, more so than many other multi-volume works of fantasy, the books that make up The Psalms of Isaak really do tell a single story; so much so that I would have to strongly advise against reading Canticle without first reading Lamentation, despite the laudable lengths to which Mr. Scholes goes to inform the reader of Canticle about the events that happened in Lamentation.

Despite their similarities, Canticle is unquestionably a better book than Lamentation for the simple reason that all of the unfolding storylines get drastically more interesting in Canticle, especially the Vlad Li Tam storyline. This is true to such an extent that Canticle left me feeling like Mr. Scholes must have been holding back in Lamentation. The truth, of course, is that Lamentation merely laid the foundation for Canticle, and we'll probably be saying something similar when Antiphon, the next book in the series, is released.

Even though Canticle is an even better effort than its predecessor, it is not perfect. In my opinion the story still suffers from the one problem I had with Lamentation, which was a lack of worldbuilding. Here, I'm not talking about worldbuilding in the sense of mountains of superfluous history and unnecessarily detailed visual descriptions, I'm talking about the level of description that is the bare minimum needed to provide a context to the plot and characters sufficient to allow the reader to understand them at a fundamental level; to take their true measure, so to speak. The Vlad Li Tam story is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: Mr. Scholes does an excellent job of fleshing out Vlad's character and the Vlad Li Tam storyline is one of the best; but practically all I know about where he came from is the name of the place and the fact that his family was a powerful banking family. This limits the extent to which I, as a reader, can come to know the character of Vlad Li Tam. Feel free to ignore me in this regard, though, as no one else has had a similar criticism as far as I know.

If you enjoyed Lamentation, you're going to love Canticle. Mr. Scholes ramps up every aspect of the story in this latest book and simultaneously lays the groundwork for what will surely be excellent future installments. While Mr. Scholes has long been in the upper echelon of short story writers, with Canticle he definitively proves that he is here to stay as a novelist as well.

Rating: 8/10

The True First

Canticle will be published in October of this year by Tor.

[This review was based on a review copy]