When I initially began to read this book I read it very fast (as I sometimes do with new authors at first) in order to ascertain whether or not I liked the writing style. But - as I came to discover - I was far too hurried on that day for whatever reason to appreciate what I was reading. So I put the book down and did not try it again until several weeks later.
I am very glad that I did.
When you begin reading The Song and the Pendant, be sure to approach the first five paragraphs with care and patience. Read them slowly and really try to conceive of the meanings and emotional significance they carry. Not to mention, enjoy the relative calm they embody, for at about the 578th word the story kicks into a page-turning adventure the likes of which you have never before imagined.
In this book, the markedly perspicacious author Magnus Von Black takes the reader on an epic and multifarious journey consisting of temporal oddities, amazing artwork, consistently insightful social critique, intensely beautiful music, as well as numerous and varied reflections on immortality. Generally speaking I would characterize The Song and the Pendant as a strikingly honest and down-to-earth albeit out-of-this-world escapade featuring extremely strong characters and a nonstop symphony of ideas and possibilities that will endlessly activate your mind.
Epic in every sense of the word, this book perceptively and timelessly examines the origins and fates of amazing heroes (some you have heard of, others you have not), epoch-making religions (some you have heard of, others you have not), as well as inhabited-culturally-complex worlds (one you have heard of, the other you have not).
The plot will twist and turn your expectations inside out. Just when you think that things have gone as crazy as they can go, they get even crazier, in one unexpected development after another. Even so, the twists never come completely out of left field. They are always wholly consistent with the nature of the characters and settings. The effect is difficult to describe, because when each twist occurs it is like an alien light bulb turns on, and what is revealed is completely surprising even though logically it makes perfect sense.
I highly recommend this novel to anyone who is open to perceiving the history and future of the universe in a new way. Should you dare to read it, you will undoubtedly get more than you bargained for.