A ‘canticle’ is a hymn or chant, typically associated with a religious text, that forms a recurring part of a church service. R.A. Salvatore’s Canticle, which is the first instalment of The Cleric Quintet, is in its own right a hymn on how to form a brilliant adventure story that turns a clerical character and his monk girlfriend into independent and interesting characters that do not necessarily conform to their atypical roles.
Now, this is a fantasy book, with gripping spellcasting, good sword and sorcery, and an attractive female lead, all tied into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. But before that puts you off, consider this: you don’t need an ounce of knowledge about the Tabletop RPG, just an interest in a gripping adventure book!
Anyway, let’s give this a go, and, of course, beware traveller, for there are spoilers below the thing!
Salvatore is one of my personal favourite authors. His world building and story craft rarely leaves me wanting more. Although he is more famously known in the Dungeons & Dragons community as the creator of the Drow Ranger Drizzt Do’Urden, I think his Cleric Quintet is my favourite series. It has a more focused setting that allows the story to build up the emotions and tension surrounding the main plot, and the relationship between main protagonists Cadderly Bonaduce and Danica Maupoissant is pleasant to see blossom.
Don’t worry, this discussion isn’t a comparison between his Drow series and The Cleric Quintet.
Setting the Scene
Canticle is set in the Edificant Library, an ivy-veiled stone building and a studious place for monks, bards, and clerics to study. Salvatore immediately makes it known that this isn’t a religious fantasy book but is instead a battle between good and evil in which evil threatens to overwhelm Cadderly and the Library. Cadderly has an appetite to create, as a budding Gondian (a term used to describe followers of Gond, god of invention). His girlfriend, Danica, a generally kickass and feminine monk, is studying Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn teachings, determined to be the next Grandmaster of a form of martial arts that focuses on combining mental discipline with physical training to achieve harmony of the soul. These two characters are, in my opinion, what grips me the most in the start of the series because you want to see them succeed in restoring balance between good and evil, yet the odds are very much against them.
Salvatore introduces the evil society, the members of Castle Trinity, who are hell-bent on bringing tragedy to the Edificant Library. The society is fleshed out very well, and although they initially seem like your typical grungy, cult-like characters, they always made me engrossed in what activities they were engaging in because they were just incredibly creepy, in the best way. From this point on, the story is a bit of a slow burner. It creates a world for Cadderly to be a budding craftsman and young scholar and enable us to see his relationship with his peers. He has a squirrel friend, a girlfriend, a fun friendship with two dwarves, and a good standing with some druids. When I first picked up the book, I was not sure if I was going to make it through the whole thing because it was so slow. That, and Cadderly was so young and inexperienced he was annoying. But sticking with it, I realised that this was not going to be like a cheesecake with a disappointing soggy bottom. No, it was going to be like a sponge cake that does not look all that appetising, but is in fact one of the moistest, fluffiest cakes of all time. And with the cake analogy out of the way, let me tell you why!
Rooting for the Characters
Canticle is charmingly geeky. We have an array of corny wizards and evil doers wanting to unleash The Chaos Curse on a place of religious importance, looking to impart upon its people caricatures of the seven deadly sins. We have the big bag guy, Aballister, creator of the Chaos Curse, following the directions of the lone fiend Druzil, an imp, who was sent to Aballister on behalf of the Goddess of Poison, Talona. Enter in our protagonists and the friendships they make along the way. And of course, with every intense adventure we need some comedic relief, which comes in the form of the dwarven brothers, Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder, the goofy friends Cadderly needs along his very hard and time sensitive journey. Moreover, the fight sequences in the book are incredibly gripping and are easy to imagine. And when Cadderly, our young scholar only looking to do good, has a memory-blocking spell cast upon him, we begin our adventure wherein he must fight back the spell to lift the curse, save the library, and all the people languishing in sin within.
It is important to read the first book of The Cleric Quintet because you need to see Cadderly as his inexperienced self to appreciate what he becomes in the later books. The series is not only an adventure to restore balance between good and evil but is a journey for each of the characters. Despite being the one of the main protagonists, many characters aside from Cadderly get a space to develop. It is the characters that makes Canticle interesting, especially because of what they get up to in the second book, In Sylvan Shadows, which is a book that needs an entire discussion dedicated to it just because of how awesome some of the scenarios are.
Conclusion
When you pick up this book, expect yourself to need to get through the first few chapters which are needed to build up the importance of the Edificant Library and all of Cadderly’s geeky and somewhat overly caring nature. Canticle certainly isn’t my favourite of the series, but every good story has a start, and I’d recommend giving this one a chance. Once you get through it, you will hopefully not be disappointed, and can look forward to continuing the journey with Cadderly and friends in the other four books that form this Cleric Quintet.
Create Your Own Website With Webador