Tolken For Celandine : A Set Of Unoriginal And Mediocre Cliche’s Set In A Very Dark World

A Tolken For Celandine By Laurell K. Hamilton

Not much of a intro here, just another short story review found in Laurell K Hamitlon’s Strange Candy short story. This one is a dungeons and dragons style piece called “A Toklen For Celandine.”

So the story is not like Hamilton’s other books. It happens in a medieval setting, featuring the traditional classic fantasy elements such as trolls , elves, unicorns and what not. They story follows a female elf warrior named Bevhinn, who is a body guard for a member of the royal family named Celandine on a quest following a prophecy (that we don’t learn until much later on) to cleanse Celandines soul. They travel into the bad lands to save a white healer and run into trouble with the locals in the process.

So the good? It’s nice to see Laurell K Hamilton stab at a Tolkien like work and thankfully it’s not as light hearted as most stories of that genre. In fact it is a very dark a fantasy for grown ups.

The bad? Well this is set in the same world as Hamilton’s earliest book called Nightseer. Now I read that book long ago and only remember it being very boring. So since I didn’t remember, I really didn’t know anything about the world. I mean you would had to enjoyed and remember the novel to understand the world of this short story and sadly that is not me. Compared to her other works, it has a lack of detail. And lastly it’s unoriginal. Swords, demons, elves, and medieval worlds had been done a million times before. She did nothing to make the story her own in writing style or anything along those lines.

So overall this is okay, I guess. if you love this sort of fantasy, then by all means check it out. For the rest of us, it is just one cliché after another.

1 out of four smoothies

Overall rating, A Set Unoriginal and Mediocre Clichés Set In A Very Dark World

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