Elegy: Book One of the Arbiter Codex (Volume 1) ebook

by Zoe Cannon,Kylen Wiggin,Christopher Kellen

Zoe Cannon Kylen Wiggin Christopher Kellen Fantasy English

Original Cover Art by. Zoe Cannon. The city was quiet in the dark hours of the morning, those few last moments before the first rays of light began to break the horizon.

Original Cover Art by. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Only a few torches burned outside buildings; most had been extinguished. The square inside the gate he had entered would have normally been crowded with traders and shoppers, he guessed, and it was almost strange and intimate to see the streets so devoid of life.

Elegy - Christopher Kellen. I got a copy of the book via member giveaway and honestly I have reservations about emerging authors because most of them are either diamonds on the rough or just plain tumble stones. So imagine my surprise when I picked up Elegy and found myself enjoying D'Arden and the rest of his 92-page (pdf) adventure in Calessa.

The atmosphere in Elegy reminded me strongly of the Solomon Kane stories from Robert E. Howard. The main character roams the world to destroy all sorts of evil manifestations in the name of good and purity.

Christopher Kellen, Rochester, New Hampshire. By Christopher Kellen Elegy: Book One of the Arbiter Codex (Volume 1). Christopher Kellen.

Book one of the arbiter codex. 2011-2012 Christopher Kellen. Cover Art Warmond Castle by Beerstraaten (public domain). And a special thank you to Zoe, without whom I would have never believed I could even write a novel, much less finish one and get to this stage. A truly fantastic read! I enjoyed every minute of it.

Автор: Kellen Christopher Название: Elegy: Book One of the Arbiter Codex Издательство: Eisengoth . Описание: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

Описание: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

The story hits the ground running and doesn't slow down to the final confrontation . If you like your fantasy grim and gritty, with the feel of dirt underneath the hero's fingernails, ELEGY is for you.

D'Arden Tal arrives at the city of Calessa to reclaim it from darkness. Even to enter, he must fight his way past the corruption gathering at its gates. Armed with only his mind, his crystalline sword and the sheer force of his will, D'Arden must shatter the chains of corruption which threaten to consume every soul within those stone walls

Sixty years before the events of ELEGY: Book One of the Arbiter Codex, a young Arbiter named D'Arden Tal and his mentor, Havox Khaine, venture into a strange kingdom on the edge of nowhere.

Sixty years before the events of ELEGY: Book One of the Arbiter Codex, a young Arbiter named D'Arden Tal and his mentor, Havox Khaine, venture into a strange kingdom on the edge of nowhere. For fans of Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner and Andrzej Sapkowski. After years of nothing but grueling training and the desperate dance of death that is the life of an acolyte Arbiter, D’Arden Tal has been named an apprentice.

D'Arden Tal is an Arbiter -- given up at birth to the secretive Council of Masters, to be raised and trained in the light of the manna. Only the Arbiters can withstand the toxic power of the world's lifeblood, and purify it when it has been corrupted. For more than eight decades, D'Arden has been a champion against the darkness. There are many shadows in the world, but the azure light from his crystalline sword burns them away.

Gaiauaco

Elegy is the first book in a new dark fantasy series and I already can't wait for the 2nd installment.

It's pulp/gothic fantasy of the classic variety. Heroes, evil villians doing dastardly deeds and filled with lurid and frankly downright creepy situations. One part in particular stands out but I won't give any spoilers.

D'Arden is a great character. He's grim and generally serious but he's not an "anti-hero", nor is he a brute. He genuinely wants to do good and help people and does so in a logical and level-headed manner. He shows concern for his companions and doesn't thrust them into danger unnecessarily. I'm eager to learn more about him and his history.

Along with the pulp, I got a very "computer game" vibe. The story feels like it could be a long lost quest in an Elder Scrolls or Witcher game and I mean that as a compliment. The book's universe has that "realistic" fantasy feeling. Well, if one discounts magic, demons and zombies first lol. It has a gritty, real feel to it.

The atmosphere is great, I felt like I was there when D'Arden descended into a graveyard crypt. One could almost smell the decay and age.The story flows well and is always interesting. There isn't much "down time" or any slow parts.

The editing on the book is fantastic, I didn't notice a single spelling error or formatting issue so thumbs up on that front.I've bought books from big name authors that didn't have half the effort put into it.

It's not a very long read, if it were print I'd probably put it at 150-180 pages, similar to the classic sword&sorcery paperbacks. It was long enough to tell the story it had to tell and thats fine with me.

The book also has a conclusion, it doesn't end on a cliffhanger. Its definitely open for a sequel but you won't feel let down when you read the end.

If I had one complaint it's that it contains the words "azure" and "manna" more times than I've ever seen in my life. It may be a necessary evil but it becomes noticeable after awhile. I'm not going to knock it too hard though, if thats the extent of my negativity then it was a damn good read.

Definitely give this a shot if you're a fan of Conan and other pulp fantasy adventurers or are looking for some fantasy that breaks away from the "farmboy grows up to be the savior of the world" novels. Fans of things like Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms would also find alot to love here.

The Arbiter Codex series has definitely catapulted to the top of my must read list whenever a new installment is released.

Alexandra

Glowing swords! Undead mutant wolves! Possessed corpses! Mushroom clouds!

OK, so ELEGY doesn't actually include any mushroom clouds. But it's got everything else gritty and post-apocalyptic that a dark fantasy reader's twisted little heart desires. Framed in a medieval-equivalent fantasy setting, this Robert E. Howard-esque adventure revolves around grim swordsman Tal D'Arden, who minces and dices the afore-mentioned monsters with the afore-mentioned glowing sword. D'Arden is an Arbiter. Sent to sort out the troubled city of Calessa, he must seek the evildoer who has latched onto the "manna" (life-force, kinda like Gaia energy) in the area and corrupted it, causing a plague of mutant wolves, demons, etc. The story hits the ground running and never stops for breath as D'Arden takes on one lot of nasties after another, trouncing the lot of them (of course) but suffering some genuinely heart-wrenching reversals on his way to the final showdown.

If you're looking for the next Robert Jordan or G.R.R.M., you will not enjoy this book. We spend the whole story in D'Arden's point of view, and Kellen's world-building is spare to the point of insufficiency. In fact, this was my only complaint as a reader: Kellen has created an intriguing world and I wanted to know more about it! The lack of big-picture details makes for some confusing moments, as, for instance, when D'Arden notes, "To pray was to die." Uh, what? I hope this and other niggles get cleared up in the sequel. But Kellen's lean, tight storytelling is perfectly keyed to deliver what ELEGY stands out from the pack for: non-stop action! Overall, I'm reminded of Richard K. Morgan's THE STEEL REMAINS, without the boring bits. Five big glittery stars, minus one for having female soldiers in a medieval setting (a personal peeve; economically, it just ain't gonna happen).

Arthunter

One of my biggest pet peeves with fantasy these days is that too many writers of fantastic fiction want to make their work much more that it actually is. They see the works of Robert Jordan, George RR Martin, and Steven Erikson, and want to emulate these icons of epic fantasy. The problem is, not all writers have that much to say.

ELEGY by Christopher Kellen is a refreshing change of pace. At it's heart, ELEGY is a gritty sword and sorcery adventure in the tradition of Robert Howard and Fritz Leiber. D'Arden is an Arbiter, a sort of sorcerer-warrior who can channel this world's magic in the form of manna. Grim and stoic, D'Arden travels from place to place in this magically charged world seeking out places where manna has corrupted animals, people, and even whole cities so that he can cleanse these corruptions. In the opening scene, we have a great fight scene as D'Arden approaches a city he's been sent to cleanse. The story hits the ground running and doesn't slow down to the final confrontation.

The best part about Kellen's writing is that he's created a great new world with sense of weight and depth and a wonderfully harsh magic, but he doesn't have the insecurity that other writers seem to suffer as they give the reader several hundred extra pages of wandering narrative to tell us how cool and clever his world is. The careful reader will pick up on the details Kellen seamlessly seeds into the story only as needed for the current scene, so that even as we get surprising details of the history and them magic toward the end of the book, we buy into them without question because of Kellen's masterful storytelling earlier in the book.

The story ends with all the ends tied up, no cliffhanger, but with definite room for growth in several different directions. I eagerly await the sequel, LEGACY.

Well done Mr Kellen. You may just have a new reader for life.