So, I'm putting this one up for Ookla because he asked me about my poor opinion of this book. For those others interested, I'm referring to Lamentation by Ken Scholes. It's his debut novel. He's a Writers of the Future winner (3rd place, I believe). Anyhow, on to the opinion.
I had really heard a lot of good things about this book before getting it. Granted, I only searched around about a week or so for opinions before grabbing it from the library. So, I don't think this is a case of having my expectations set too high.
The story started off pretty well. I liked the setup (despite the fact that I didn't understand the prelude/prologue at all). He had a good handful of characters, and even though he switched between them quite often, I felt like I was able to get a good handle on each of them and where they had come from.
The first half of the book was good. I enjoyed it enough to keep reading anyhow, and I was curious to see how everything would all play out. Then, about halfway through, things really started to change for me. I lost my ability to "suspend my disbelief" shall we say.
The first thing that I began to notice was that for some reason he began to pull back from the in-depth POV he had used earlier on. Instead of seeing how events were impacting characters, it began to feel more like I was getting the Reader's Digest condensed version of it. A swerving from the "rule" of show-don't-tell. I felt like it was becoming less of a show, and more of a tell. But I pushed on because I still felt invested. Unfortunately, this trend continued in the same direction. It became more tell and more description of what was going on and what was going to happen instead of the in-depth character view that I love, which I really thought was present at the beginning of the book.
A second thing that began to bug me was a lack of scope.
The world felt very small to me. Travel across the entire map took only a few days (minor)
Messenger birds were able to fly directly to a person despite the location of where they might be. Somewhat ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that it hasn't been mentioned if the birds are magical or not (fairly major) This seemed integral to the movement of the plot, as it provided the means of information disbursement amongst all the various parties.
It felt like the book was building up to have some "war scenes" in it, but then everything fizzled and the war was pretty much skipped over when it came to possible battles (major). The war seemed fairly integral to the plot to me, but instead of a few brief battles/skirmishes, we get a description of what happened, and who went where, and what impact that had on the way things were going.
Large chunks of time were skipped over and then summarized by characters in scenes that seemed built for "covering the part that has been skipped" (fairly major, but I've looked over construction-type things like this before if I was enjoying the story enough)
The big one though, the HUGE one for me, was the building of Rudolfo's character. He is, in essence, one of the major foci of the story. His character arc should have been important, detailed. There is some great building that we see through the eyes of Jin Li Tam, through the revelation of Rudolfo's familial history. I loved that. Then his friend Gregoric dies. And yeah, it's been said that they've grown up together and are obviously familiar in conversation with one another, but I never got that feeling that they were "best" friends or anything like that. I never got that feeling of connection. So, when Gregoric is gone, it didn't really hit me, and I didn't feel the loss that Rudolfo was apparently feeling. And then, the climax. The point where Rudolfo should be hit the hardest: when Sethbert tells him that Vlad Li Tam was responsible for the death of his parents. One, why should he believe the man in the first place, but two (because he obviously does), where is the impact? The scene just kind of flops over dead and Rudolfo walks away with seemingly no change to his own person. Until we get told about it a little later on in some removed description of what he's feeling. Then he confronts Vlad Li Tam, and gets distracted. And then he talks to his fiancee, Jin Li Tam, and decides that he's not going to worry about it. Blah.
For me, it was almost like two different people had written the book. My impressions of the two halves of the book are that disparate. I don't know. I can get past my minor annoyances. But there was just so much about how this story was presented that just gave me a sour taste in my mouth. I don't expect perfection (although I enjoy it when authors get close
), but this was just so far from the mark that I just don't think that I'm going to be picking up any more of these because I don't think that I'd enjoy them. Besides, there's too much other stuff out there that I can enjoy.
That's most of what got me. Hope I didn't come across too harsh, or confrontational. For some reason, the things I write tend to do that sometimes. Just speaking a piece here.
