Ken Scholes

This was a great book. Very fast paced with some very interesting characters and story lines. It did suffer from a few first novel issues but they were small and didn't bother me that much.

I liked that the book ended with the completion of a story line and the hint of the future mystery. I have always felt that series books should do that. I hate feeling like I go to the end of the book with no resolution what so ever.

I also thought Scholes did a very nice job of laying out his world. Giving us hints here are there but not revealing everything. There is a big mystery in the background of this book and he hints at it all the way through. I liked his mix of fantasy and tech. Will read the next one when it come out in October.… (más)

I'm not too happy with this series. There are aspects to it that are very attractive and make me want to read all the way through to the end. I think the author has created a fascinating world filled with fascinating characters and stories. I just wish that he would get out of the way and let the characters and stories come through.

One problem is that there are plenty of hints that there is a lot more going on than meets the eye, but very few of these hints get born out into fulfilled promises. Another problem with this book (that I don't remember from book one [b:Lamentation|3531469|Lamentation (Psalms of Isaak, #1)|Ken Scholes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312029311s/3531469.jpg|3573263]) is that the fascinating characters spend too much time ruminating, instead of being fascinating. This slows things down even more.

My biggest issue, and I'm still deciding if this is insurmountable, is that there are too many logic problems with the world. This is supposed to be a big world, with many different peoples and thousands of years of history. Yet, they all speak pretty much the same language, using the same stale metaphors in both speaking and the aforementioned ruminating, using the same stagnated (lack of) technology. This cannot be. With that much history, there must be scientific and technological breakthroughs every now and again. There must be bigger cultural differences than the ones we have been shown.

And maybe that's the problem. The author doesn't want to show us. But if there has been some sort of brake put on advancement, at least give us more than a hint of it. Show us the real consequences. Show us the rebels. Show us this big world you've invented. I'm getting impatient.… (más)