Two novels by friends have recently come out:

• the first is Ken Scholes‘s Canticle, sequel to his awesome Lamentation. It’s already received rave reviews in many places, and I’m not surprised (I was lucky enough to read a draft of this, and it was already amazing at this early stage). Ken merges political and religious intrigues in a setting reminiscent of a Canticle for Leibowitz, where the order of the Androfrancines painstakingly gathers the knowledge that was lost during the Age of Laughing Madness…

  

  Come back to the Named Lands in this compelling sequel to Ken Scholes amazing novel Lamentation.

  It is nine months after the end of the previous book. Many noble allies have come to the Ninefold Forest for a Feast in honor of General Rudolfo’s first-born child. Jin Li Tam, his wife and mother of his heir, lies in childbed.

  As the feast begins, the doors of the hall fly open and invisible assassins begin attacking. All of Rudolfo’s noble guests are slain, including Hanric, the Marsh Queen’s Shadow. And on the Keeper’s Gate, which guards the Named Lands from the Churning Waste, a strange figure appears, with a message for Petronus, the Hidden Pope.

  Thus begins the second movement of The Psalms of Isaak, Canticle.

• Second up is John Brown‘s Servant of a Dark God, which boasts splendid cover art. The book has a fascinating concept: what if the days of your life could be harvested, and used by someone else?

  

  Young Talen lives in a world where the days of a person’s life can be harvested, bought, and stolen. Only the great Divines, who rule every land, and the human soul-eaters, dark ones who steal from man and beast and become twisted by their polluted draws, know the secrets of this power. This land’s Divine has gone missing and soul-eaters are found among Talen’s people.

  The Clans muster a massive hunt, and Talen finds himself a target. Thinking his struggle is against both soul-eaters and their hunters, Talen actually has far larger problems. A being of awesome power has arisen, one whose diet consists of the days of man. Her Mothers once ranched human subjects like cattle. She has emerged to take back what is rightfully hers. Trapped in a web of lies and ancient secrets, Talen must struggle to identify his true enemy before the Mother finds the one whom she will transform into the lord of the human harvest.

Now go forth and read. I know I will 🙂