Product Description
by Tyler Blake (Illustrator), C. R. Blake (Author)
So what is this about, you must be wondering? What kind of book have you stumbled across, and what genre should it be pigeonholed into? Fantasy is probably what most people would say. Fantasy that has been heavily influenced by Mythology. Of course, that is how fantasy started, before the fantasy genre was based on the fantasy genre.
So we have stories about a world called Kel, and an author is telling you it is a mythology infused fantasy world- where does that take us?
The long standing joke is that if The Princess Bride and Conan the Barbarian hooked up in Narnia and had a baby- that would be Kel.
Kel is a fiction series inspired by a variety of mythologies, literature, and to a lesser extent films and popular culture.
In this collection of short stories, readers will meet a handful of key characters that are featured in the first novel, 'A Prince of the North.' This collection also serves to give the reader an idea of the different tones they will find from one story to another. 'The First Prince' and 'Killing them Softly' are pretty much straight up adventure stories. If you crave some swashbuckling adventure mixed with some magic and some weirdness, those stories should satisfy.
'A Little Cash, A Pair of Dice, and a Bottle or Two of Ambrosia' introduces The Goblin Market, a strange place where characters from any number of worlds might cross over into Kel. In this case, a few characters meet for the first time and see what kind of deal they can strike.
'Assassin!' is intended as a 'creepy story for kids'. I want to describe it as a horror story, but I think that can give the wrong idea. It is a bit creepy, it is definitely dark. I would suggest reading it before you try reading it to a child, or letting a child read it themselves. If you have a child that is afraid of the dark, it is probably not the story for them. If you have a child who, like I was, wanted to know what was in the dark, they might enjoy it.
Finally, 'The Steward of House Alléchant' is a little more on the intrigue side, introducing a few characters that feature prominently in the first novel, and in some following stories.
