hostral's review
5.0
Not only am I the first person on Goodreads to review this book, I'm also the first person to rate it. I contacted the author directly and told him to put this up so I could rate and review it.
While I have spoken to Christopher Kellen on occasion, it has largely been in a professional capacity, therefore I don't feel the need to hang any further disclaimers on this review. He has not paid me for this review and I have purchased every book he has written with my own money. He most certainly is not holding a heartblade to my chest with a menacing glare contorting his features.
I say the latter because my rating is five stars, and it's the first self-published book I've rated five stars.
This takes a degree of justification on my part, because in essence what I'm saying is that it's the best of a very good crop of self-published books that I've read over the years. So why did this one in particular stand out to me?
Firstly if you haven't encountered the writing of Christopher Kellen before, I urge you to go and download Sorcerer's Code for free. If you like that tale then this will be right up your street. As a rabid fan of traditional Sword and Sorcery and a zealous advocate for the genre, his style of writing seemed catered exactly to my needs as a reader.
Unlike other novels I've previously reviewed, The Elements of Sorcery is a compilation of short stories set in Christopher Kellen's Eisengoth world. An amalgamation of highlights from the reviews of each individual tale has been pasted below.
Sometimes you stumble across a book and think 'yeah, your influences are apparent and I appreciate them for being that way.' The author even states to the effect that he wears them on his sleeve prior to the tale's commencement.
The Elements of Sorcery is very honest from the outset about the authors that helped shape the tale. You have a snarky first person perspective of a wizard who gets in over his head. Only this wizard doesn't hail from Chicago.
No, instead we have our second influence: pulp fantasy. That golden Weird Tales period of history right before the second World War.
The unfolding introductory tale is what happens when a leading man that could have starred in any of those early Sword and Sorcery works runs into the humorous and calamity-prone protagonist that wouldn't be out of place in any of the modern Urban fantasies littering the bookshelves these days.
The clash of characters makes for an entertaining romp, and the tone is humorous throughout, though it certainly doesn't skimp on the action or suspense.
Kellen packs the action thick and fast into his short stories, blasting us through a series of encounters featuring our protagonist coming to terms with all the changes that beset him. The quality doesn't dip from tale to tale, and the players are introduced in a tasteful fashion that doesn't feel shoe-horned.
There's also a degree of emotional gravitas in the later tales that might surprise you given the previous tone. This only enhances the impact of the work and is both a laudable and appropriate shift given the subject matter.
I concluded in my initial summary that this was a fast and pulpy series of shorts that would please anyone with a remote interest in Sword and Sorcery.
Now I gave each of these tales a solid four stars on their own (go and look), but bundled together like this in a cohesive volume for such a generous price and with a sharp new cover? Well, that just takes it over the edge.
There are a great number of fantasy writers in this world, but there are exceedingly few that draw inspiration from pre-Tolkien pulp in the manner that Kellen does. The only authors I can think of that attempt to resurrect the genre in a faithful fashion would be the likes of Paul Kemp and Saladin Ahmed. Both of these writers are published, neither of them reach the heights that Kellen manages here.
Christopher Kellen is a special writer, and I hope that he returns to the Elements of Sorcery series for another set of tales, because they outstrip his own excellent Arbiter Codex and should be the focal point for Eisengoth moving forward.
In conclusion, he has a fan for life, and anyone with a remote interest in Howard, Lovecraft, Moorcock, Lieber or Wagner owe it to themselves to pick up every Eisengoth tale this man has written thus far.
While I have spoken to Christopher Kellen on occasion, it has largely been in a professional capacity, therefore I don't feel the need to hang any further disclaimers on this review. He has not paid me for this review and I have purchased every book he has written with my own money. He most certainly is not holding a heartblade to my chest with a menacing glare contorting his features.
I say the latter because my rating is five stars, and it's the first self-published book I've rated five stars.
This takes a degree of justification on my part, because in essence what I'm saying is that it's the best of a very good crop of self-published books that I've read over the years. So why did this one in particular stand out to me?
Firstly if you haven't encountered the writing of Christopher Kellen before, I urge you to go and download Sorcerer's Code for free. If you like that tale then this will be right up your street. As a rabid fan of traditional Sword and Sorcery and a zealous advocate for the genre, his style of writing seemed catered exactly to my needs as a reader.
Unlike other novels I've previously reviewed, The Elements of Sorcery is a compilation of short stories set in Christopher Kellen's Eisengoth world. An amalgamation of highlights from the reviews of each individual tale has been pasted below.
Sometimes you stumble across a book and think 'yeah, your influences are apparent and I appreciate them for being that way.' The author even states to the effect that he wears them on his sleeve prior to the tale's commencement.
The Elements of Sorcery is very honest from the outset about the authors that helped shape the tale. You have a snarky first person perspective of a wizard who gets in over his head. Only this wizard doesn't hail from Chicago.
No, instead we have our second influence: pulp fantasy. That golden Weird Tales period of history right before the second World War.
The unfolding introductory tale is what happens when a leading man that could have starred in any of those early Sword and Sorcery works runs into the humorous and calamity-prone protagonist that wouldn't be out of place in any of the modern Urban fantasies littering the bookshelves these days.
The clash of characters makes for an entertaining romp, and the tone is humorous throughout, though it certainly doesn't skimp on the action or suspense.
Kellen packs the action thick and fast into his short stories, blasting us through a series of encounters featuring our protagonist coming to terms with all the changes that beset him. The quality doesn't dip from tale to tale, and the players are introduced in a tasteful fashion that doesn't feel shoe-horned.
There's also a degree of emotional gravitas in the later tales that might surprise you given the previous tone. This only enhances the impact of the work and is both a laudable and appropriate shift given the subject matter.
I concluded in my initial summary that this was a fast and pulpy series of shorts that would please anyone with a remote interest in Sword and Sorcery.
Now I gave each of these tales a solid four stars on their own (go and look), but bundled together like this in a cohesive volume for such a generous price and with a sharp new cover? Well, that just takes it over the edge.
There are a great number of fantasy writers in this world, but there are exceedingly few that draw inspiration from pre-Tolkien pulp in the manner that Kellen does. The only authors I can think of that attempt to resurrect the genre in a faithful fashion would be the likes of Paul Kemp and Saladin Ahmed. Both of these writers are published, neither of them reach the heights that Kellen manages here.
Christopher Kellen is a special writer, and I hope that he returns to the Elements of Sorcery series for another set of tales, because they outstrip his own excellent Arbiter Codex and should be the focal point for Eisengoth moving forward.
In conclusion, he has a fan for life, and anyone with a remote interest in Howard, Lovecraft, Moorcock, Lieber or Wagner owe it to themselves to pick up every Eisengoth tale this man has written thus far.
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