That Which is Sown
by K.G. Caddzanoff

reviewed by Byron Merritt

Scena, a priestess of the northern land, is assigned the task of retrieving the Borealis Crystal from the dark and dangerous lands of the Angrist. With her on her journey comes her cousin Hedgrin, Maeywn, her brother, and Aymire, an elderly mage. They land a boat in Marfaxen, the northern most seaport of the Angrist, and quickly set out for the lands to the south known as Taru’Anan, an evil and forbidding place full of dangerous half-elves, devious fays, and questionable men (there’s even a few vampires thrown in here, too). Scena and her entourage soon encounter Khryorian, an Angrist “Ranger” who wanders the lands and reluctantly offers to guide them to Taru’Anan after he begins to fall for the lovely Scena.

As Khryorian and his new found group of travelers move south, they encounter plenty of trouble and mixed messages from acquaintances who are supposed to be their friends, and others that are supposed to be enemies.

A tangle of misunderstandings leads many to believe that Scena and her gathering are going to release an ancient and angry God onto the Angrist, a God who has been locked behind “The Forbidden Door” for many millennia. A race by friends and foes alike soon ensues, trying to catch up to Scena and her clan and stop them from opening “The Forbidden Door.” But is there really a terrible God behind this door? Or have myths and the truth been mixed beyond coherency? And what of the love that begins to blossom between Khryorian and Scena? Can two people, coming from two different backgrounds and with opposite understandings of their lands, really make a go of it?

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When I first started reading this book, I actually got a little excited. I’ve read a lot of fantasy stories and I enjoy them. They’re a great way to have your mind take a little reality break from the workaday world. And “That Which is Sown” seemed to have some decent writing ...in the beginning.

The Good: The characters in this story are pretty good. There’s a mixture of good and bad (often times within the same individual), so that made for some fairly complex situations and personalities.

The Not-So-Good: This category is, unfortunately, going to weigh much heavier than “The Good”.

The rush to publish has gotten so great for many authors that self-publishing often seems the only way to go. Now self-publishing isn’t always bad (Hell, Mark Twain did it!), but there are often reasons why self-publish authors choose this route rather than heading to a traditional publisher. The most obvious reason is quality. People who have no background in literature (who’ve never even taken a creative writing class) often believe that their story is “the best thing out there today.” A delusion. I’m not saying that this author is, I’m just making a general statement about a pattern I’ve seen emerging surrounding self-published authors. That being said, let’s get into the “Not-so-Goods” of this book.

1. The first thing that struck me was punctuation. Not a big deal usually. But it is the responsibility of the writer—before his/her book goes to print—to look over the final draft for errors and fix them. Barring that, they should hire a professional proofreader. In this novel, on almost every page, you’ll see things like this: “I’m off.” He said. Note the period and then the capital “H” in “He”. This not only causes English teachers to cringe but it also causes the reader to stumble. I can forgive one or two or even a dozen of these in a book, but not hundreds.
2. Switching perspectives. Once I got about 100 pages into the book, I found that the author loved to jump back and forth and back and forth between groups of characters looking at sometimes the same scene and sometimes different things. On ONE page I found changes in perspective 10 times! Very confusing.
3. Copying from literature of the past. Many authors hop onto the backs of literary giants, trying to create a new concept off of old ones. No biggie. But the smacking obviousness of the "Lord of the Rings" (LOTR) concepts came glaring off the pages of this book. For instance: Khryorian is a “Ranger” who wanders the lands of the Angrist. Hmm. Sound a lot like Aragorn in LOTR. And Scena carries a sword called Erlindele. Does that sound a lot like the light given to Frodo? There are many, many other “coincidences” that I could comment on, but I’ll stop there.
4. And the death sentence for this book was the lack of description of place. I had NO idea what things looked like—even “The Forbidden Door”, which was supposed to be such a vital part of the story. I have no idea what the castle at Taru’Anan looks like, what the surrounding area looks like (at first I thought it was desert, but then there are trees and brush around), or what the place is supposed to feel like.

I actually feel kind of bad giving this book two quills, as I believe that the story itself holds promise, but in its present form, it simply can’t hold together as an interesting and unique read.