Review: An excellent sword and sorcery short story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 20, 2012
"The Corpse King" is a fantasy novelette written by author Christopher Kellen.  Taking place in the world of Eisengoth, the story revolves around D'Arden Tal who has been trained in the magical sword-wielding ways of the Arbiters, self-proclaimed guardians of law and order in the realm.  Along with his aged master Havox Khaine, they're dispatched on a mission to a troubled kingdom where it's rumoured the king has gone mad and keeps a court of the dead.  As master and apprentice near the court of the insane monarch they're overwhelmed with a foreboding sense of evil.  Smiting evil is exactly what Arbiter's are trained for and luckily Havox and D'Arden are some of the best.  Here are my thoughts on The Corpse King;Pros+ Extremely well edited and written.  I didn't find one spelling or grammar error.  This is extremely rare with most indie published works.+ Action scenes are well described and just the right amount.+ Intriguing storyline and characters.+ Great cover art and title.Cons <Contains SPOILERS>- Arbiters are just too much like Jedi Knights.  They sense corrupted manna (the dark side of the force), use crystal manna-blades (lightsabers), have a master/apprentice structure (Jedi Master/Padawan) and a council of Arbiter Masters.- The fight with the court of 100 undead was over much too quickly considering the amount of opponents.- The description of the Lurker was a bit too vague.  I never really got a sense of what exactly it was other than an evil presence with tendrils.- No map of Eisengoth.- Some of the naming bothered me.  For example, D'Arden (looked too much like Do'Urden), Havox (looked like Havok) and Eisengoth (reminded me of Legacy of Kain's Nosgoth combined with Tolkien's Isengard)"The Corpse King" was an enjoyable and fast paced dark fantasy read.  The story and its characters grabbed me quickly.  Even though I did find the overall idea of the Arbiters much too close to the Jedi Knights of Star Wars but in a fantasy setting (this caused me to subtract a star), the story itself was superb.  I was impressed with the author's writing style and pacing as well as the near perfect editing.  "The Corpse King" is a solid fantasy work all around.  Would I read more in the series from the author?  Absolutely.