Lamentation, Ken Scholes first full length effort, is without question one of the most inventive books of fantasy I've encountered. Likely set on an Earth thousands of years into the future, we are introduced to a world which has endured many destructive wars, convulsions that have buried the last remnants of high technological society. What's left are a few communities, eking out their lives in a far more arid land than our own. Nonetheless, there are still centers of learning in the world, mirrors of ancient Alexandria; however, they do not last the first few pages as Mr. Scholes immediately sets about destroying his world and declaring his talent one to remember.
For as nihilistic as the world of Lamentation seems, the societies Mr. Scholes has generated are as fascinating as they are necessarily brutal. Knowledge must be preserved, knowledge and the light, and at all costs. But how? Who? When schemes within schemes must be unwoven simply to discover the name of the enemy? This is a work as political as it is bloody, as witty as it is tragic. It cannot come with a higher recommendation. (5/5 Stars)
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