(This turned out to be a recommendation for Ken Scholes’ Psalms of Isaac series)

Took a quick break between Canticle (book 2) and Antiphon (book3) to stop in and check on my pal StarDoc, with Plague of Memory.

She’s doing alright, had to perform battlefield surgery on her hubby again, making new genetically-impossible friends, finding antidotes for inter-galactic chemical weapons, coming to terms with her multiple-personality issues… You know.

Anyway, just started Antiphon: Rafe Merrique’s boat was ganked out from under him! How rude!

I had to look this up, too. Antiphon is the response from the, uh, audience, I guess, in a ritual, most familiarly as done in a Catholic or Orthodox Mass. Head Priest Guy says “blah blah something” and we dutiful Catholic school kids would say “blessed is the fruit of the loom Jesus.”

This makes sense to me in relation to the story. *thinks, eyes wander* There are five books to the series: Lamentation (grief over a tragedy), Canticle (a hymn), Antiphon (or “response”), Requiem (a mass for the dead), and I don’t know what the fifth will be titled.

I’m NOT giving you any spoilers because the surprises in the stories were so delightful to me. They cover fantastical archaeology, I guess you could say, with a Medici-like family pulling political strings, he’s got the Great Schism complete with Pope and Antipope thing goin’ on, a Mighty Weapon, a pee-and-see pregnancy test… The world and its history keep getting bigger and deeper with every chapter. The characters grow and change, become People in my mind, not just characters. The old people are old with cricks in their bones, and the adolescents are adolescent with their shyness and impulsively dumb ideas.

I’m trying to think which is my favorite character, but they’re all so unique and interesting. In Lamentation I wanted to make cookies for Neb but now in Antiphon he scares me a little. Winters is utterly real. And if I ever meet that Ria chick I’m going to bust her face open. Characters that were in the “good guy” column are in the “bad guy” column later, and then back again. They’re all just folks, with conflicting motives.

So. I’m going to return to Rafe and see how he’s doing, and what gives with those dudes stealing his boat. How rude.